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| Syrian Victims of Islamic State Slaughter |
There were genocides in the last and this century. The killing of Kurds by Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator who used poison gas—a weapon of mass destruction—against them is largely forgotten by everyone but the Kurds.
In the 1990s there was a genocide in Rwanda by the Tutsi tribe against the Hutu people. Hundreds of thousands were killed, most by machete. Reportedly rape, mutilation, and the deliberate spread of disease were also used against them. The final body count was estimated by some at well over a million.
In the Middle East, the Islamic Ottoman Empire whose final years were directed from what is now modern-day Turkey was responsible for the Armenian Genocide that began in 1915. The Armenians were a Christian minority and what is occurring in the land claimed by the new Islamic State (IS) reflects the same barbarity that afflicted and killed between 600,000 and 1.8 million Armenians.
In Europe following the fall of the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia, thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Serbs were “ethnically cleansed” between 1990 and 1995. Some twenty thousand were killed.
And now the fanatical Islamic State that stretches from areas of northern Syria through much of northern Iraq, just outside of Baghdad, is waging a systematic and utterly barbaric genocide of the area’s Christians. They are killing Muslims too.
And what is the world doing? Virtually nothing.
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| Nigerian Christians Killed by Boko Haram |
In Nigeria, Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group, is slaughtering thousands.
The Islamic State is now the most militarily powerful force in the Middle East and one of the most wealthy. It threatens the Kurds who have finally begun to receive weapons from the U.S.
What President Obama should be doing is orchestrating a military coalition just as George H.W. Bush did to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, but the fact is that Europe is fearful of participating because it is now home to a large population of Muslims. And it has economic problems comparable to our own.
In the Middle East, Iraq has just managed to force the former Prime Minister out of office and must now try to get all the threatened Sunnis and Shiites together to fight for its own existence. Much of the U.S. weaponry given two divisions of Iraqi military was abandoned to the IS when they fled from battle.
Meanwhile, one never hears a word about the Saudis getting involved militarily as it has been their preference to let us fight their enemies such as the former Saddam Hussein. The border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia is a long one. They have a real interest is helping destroy the Islamic State and so far its threat has managed to bring together the Saudis, the Egyptians, and the Israelis, as unusual a threesome has one might ever imagine.
One might hardly expect the Iranians to get involved though they have been helping Syria’s Bashar Assad with the provision of weapons. So have the Russians. The fate of the region’s Christians is not likely a priority or concern of the fanatical Shiite Iranians.
There is, in fact, only one nation in the Middle East where Christians and Muslims are safe to practice their religions. It is called Israel.
I can’t help thinking this would be a good time for the Pope to call for a new crusade.
The Christian genocide is continuing and will continue unless some action can be put together to destroy the Islamic State, Boko Haram, and similar groups. It is an Islamic crime against Christians and to some extent against Muslims whom they deem insufficiently devout.
Ultimately, however, it is a crime against humanity. And humanity is doing as little in response to it than occurred prior to the Holocaust and other genocides.