The indispensable Ken Timmerman reports in the Washington Times today:
Assyrian Christians are fleeing Iraq in record numbers, following a spate of recent bombing attacks and targeted killings of Christian families in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
Over the last month, 13 Assyrian Christians have been murdered in targeted killings in Mosul. A week ago, three Assyrian homes were fire-bombed. Al Jazeera reported last Monday that 15,000 Assyrian Christians have been driven out of Mosul in the last two weeks, some 2,500 families in all.
Failure to prevent the mass exodus of Christians from Iraq will lead to an Islamicized Iraq, a tragic legacy for the presidency of George W. Bush. This can only be averted by taking urgent steps aimed at “anchoring” the Assyrian Christian population in their historic homeland.
We reported on the murder of Father Rahho, Archbishop of Mosul, a Chaldean Christian, in March. There has been no good news for Iraqi Christians since then — and there wasn’t really any before then either, but things have gotten worse since then. Here are our posts on Iraqi Christians. Many of the Christians fled to the Kurdish area when things got bad for them in other parts of the country, thinking they would be safer there. They were for a while, but they do not appear to be now.
On Oct. 17, Iraqi security forces arrested six men in connection with the most recent targeted killings of Christians, and found four of them had ties back to the KRG [Kurdish Regional Government] militia, not al Qaeda.
Prime Minister Maliki has promised to do something for the Christians. He even discussed their plight with Pope Benedict XVI and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in July. But I haven’t seen anything about measures taken to help them or to protect them. Timmerman’s recommends these steps to help the Christians:
1) Pressure the Iraqi government, and especially the KRG, to uphold their commitment to allow the recruitment and training of 770 Christians into the national police force. For nearly two years, the Kurdish deputy general of the Mosul governerate has blocked this program. Without immediate security, the Assyrian population in northern Iraq will simply flee.
2) Support efforts by Assyrian lay leaders, the Chaldean Patriarch and others to convene a meeting in Washington, D.C., of Iraqi minorities, to forge a consensus on how best to anchor and protect Iraq’s Christian population, whether through an autonomous region in the Nineveh Plain, firm guarantees of minority rights under the federal constitution or some combination of the two.
3) Fulfill the pledge made in July by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to Mr. al-Maliki to transfer $100 million in development aid to the Nineveh Plain. Until now, the United States has delayed the transfer over concerns that the KRG will pocket the money, as in the past. Instead of transferring fresh funds to Erbil, the United States should make the money available directly to local town councils through US AID, without Kurdish control.
4) Pressure the Iraqi national government to guarantee representation of minorities in the upcoming parliamentary and regional elections, under Article 50 of the constitution, which was recently suspended.
But instead of these useful steps, look at what is happening:
Christian leaders learned recently that the State Department has been secretly planning to hold a “summit” meeting on Nov. 19 at George Washington University to decide their fate, in tandem with Muslim groups whose motives remain suspect.
WHAT???? I’m so speechless at this I can only quote Ken Timmerman’s reaction:
Have we become so politically correct that we will protect Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq but allow one of the world’s first Christian populations to be snuffed out because we are afraid to come to their aid?
I’m afraid the answer to that question is yes. And I don’t think this attitude will change very much no matter who is elected president.