bush destroyed freedom of religion in Iraq

[welshTerrier2]

I wonder whether the religious right in the U.S. would approve of Iraq's mixing of church and state ... Christians in Iraq enjoyed relative freedom and safety in Saddam's Iraq ... now that bush "liberated" Iraq, that's no longer the case ...

source: http://www.counterpunch.org/


The Attraction of the Ba'athist State
Why Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria
By GARY LEUPP

The recent spate of attacks on Christian churches in Iraq is symptomatic of the general insecurity that Christians (about three percent of the population, around 800,000 people) face in the occupied country. The interim constitution states that "Islam is the official religion of the State and is to be considered a source of legislation" and while recognizing religious freedom "respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people." For some, Islamic identity means the imposition of Muslim morality. In Sadr City, the Mahdi militia is shutting down Christian-owned liquor shops. Some shop owners have been killed, some Christian women attacked for appearing in public inappropriately attired. Others have been attacked because of a widespread belief that Christians are abetting the occupation.

The irony here, of course, is that Saddam's Iraq was a secular state, ruled by the Baath Party. The Iraqi regime, although suspicious of and sometimes brutal towards the Shiite majority, supported Shiite and Sunni mosques, Assyrian and Chaldean Christian churches, and even the sparsely attended Baghdad synagogue, while forbidding proselytization in general. Saddam appointed Tariq Aziz, a Christian, to top posts; in response, enraged Islamists tried to assassinate Aziz in 1980. Osama bin Laden hated Saddam's Iraq for its specifically non-Islamic character. Now with the fall of the Baath regime, Islamic fundamentalists (of various types) have been unleashed to redefine the role of religion in the country. The U.S. occupation officially dissolved the huge Baath Party, purged Baathists from their posts (including those in medicine and education) and officially approved the wording of the constitution, while creating the power vacuum in which numerous Islamic militias now thrive.

[welshTerrier2]

1. bush loves to cater to the christian right

but look what's happening to christians in Iraq when the lines between church and state are blurred ...

[lagniappe]

2. At last we've found something Bush does well.

He's done an excellent job of destroying freedom here as well.