Priest Beheaded By Islamists In France

[Kragar]

19 hours ago, Mr.DirtyDangles said:

you have got to be effing joking ?

I didn't mean to belittle what those people suffered, but wasn't sure how else to describe it at the time.  My point was that Salmonberries claimed those cultures were deliberately destroyed in the Iraq War, which I don't think was accurate (discounting that at least some of those listed still exist today).  Those people were not organized military organizations, and were thus not the target of the war.  By "cross-fire", I meant more that they were innocent bystanders who suffered as a result of the war between Iraqi and Coalition forces.

[Salmonberries]

6,726 Syrian Refugees Admitted to U.S. So Far in FY16--But Only 23 Are Christians

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/administrations-syrian-refugee-target-passes-23-mark-03-percent

[taxi]

4 hours ago, Salmonberries said:

6,726 Syrian Refugees Admitted to U.S. So Far in FY16--But Only 23 Are Christians

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/administrations-syrian-refugee-target-passes-23-mark-03-percent

My thoughts on your argument:

 

These pre-existing Christian cultures have been under constant attack for centuries. The instability created by the Iraqi war merely  sped up a process that would have occurred regardless.

 

The Iraq and Syria war are not the same thing. What's going on in Syria is the natural outcome of the Saudi's plan to spread fundamentalist Islam and replace secular governments with fundamentalist ones, that would be loyal to the Saudis as caretakers of the Arabian peninsula. The Iraq war was the result of the Bush administration and their failed belief that the people of Iraq would embrace democratic principles. It's not all one large plan by the "West". The current situation is the result of many parties - all with separate and selfish interests - who all have their fingers in the pie. But that's how global politics works, everyone is attempting to gain influence over others.

[Salmonberries]

1 hour ago, taxi said:

My thoughts on your argument:

 

These pre-existing Christian cultures have been under constant attack for centuries. The instability created by the Iraqi war merely  sped up a process that would have occurred regardless.

 

The Iraq and Syria war are not the same thing. What's going on in Syria is the natural outcome of the Saudi's plan to spread fundamentalist Islam and replace secular governments with fundamentalist ones, that would be loyal to the Saudis as caretakers of the Arabian peninsula. The Iraq war was the result of the Bush administration and their failed belief that the people of Iraq would embrace democratic principles. It's not all one large plan by the "West". The current situation is the result of many parties - all with separate and selfish interests - who all have their fingers in the pie. But that's how global politics works, everyone is attempting to gain influence over others.

The cultures that I speak of have been under constant pressure since the entrance into their lands of Anglo Saxon missionaries, archaeologists and government agents, often the same men wearing two or three hats. This presence stirred suspicions and jealousies in the local Arab, Kurdish and Turkish populations resulting in a series of mostly Kurdish massacres that culminated with the 1914-1922 holocaust of the Christians of Anatolia, reducing the Assyrians to a rump in the Nineveh plain of northern Iraq near Mosul, and greatly reducing the numbers of Yezidis in the same area. Operation Iraqi Freedom was only the Final Solution for these people, not a planned demise but a part of their cynical calculation to turn Iraq and Syria into mutually hostile ethno-religious rump states; the Kurdish one sitting entirely on Christian land stolen by the Kurds in the last two centuries.

 

Northern Iraq and Syria can be thought of as a single culture zone, as Bilad al Sham, the same Aramaic influenced Arabic dialect is spoken by the Arab Muslims across the region. The Saudi and the American plans for the region are one and the same, and but for the grace of Vladimir Putin would be achieved, or nearly so, by now.

 

 

[Salmonberries]

That the Assyrian, Yezidi and Mandean cultures and peoples would perish with the toppling of Saddam there could be no doubt, I talked of little else personally in 2002-2003 upon getting wind of the shocking, hair brained neoconservative war scheme. Taxi, you and I have discussed this matter before, and at length. I am satisfied that you cannot be swayed on the matter. The gulf between us is wider than the Euphrates.

[Salmonberries]

One of the most prominent Anglo Saxons to enter into Mesopotamia at the time was the British archaeologists Austen Henry Layard, the early Assyriologist who, with the use of Tyari Assyrian tribesmen dug up and transported much of Nineveh to London.

 

Discoveries At Nineveh
by
Austen Henry Layard, Esq., D.C.L.

A Popular Account of Discoveries at Nineveh. Austen Henry Layard. J. C. Derby. New York. 1854.

 

http://www.aina.org/books/dan.htm

 

 

Another key Anglo Saxon player was the Archbishop of Canterbury's emissary Rev W.A. Wigram who tireless work among the free tribes of Hakkari and propagandistic writings at home did much to cement the suicidal Assyrian nationalist identity and movement among the Nestorian Syriani and the Syriac Orthodox and Nestorian intellectual elites.

 

THE CRADLE OF MANKIND

LIFE IN EASTERN KURDISTAN

 

BY

 

THE REV. W. A. WIGRAM, D.D.

 

 

http://www.aina.org/books/com/com.htm

[etsen3]

On 26/07/2016 at 2:06 PM, Raymond Luxury Yacht said:

I couldn't agree less.  Greed and power are the most common cause.  Religion can be a reason, but is often a convenient excuse.

 

I think the danger with religion comes mostly from how it's used to brainwash youth at a young age.  I think there are a lot of religious people who would be hateful even if they weren't religious, but I also think that many hateful religiois people would be more loving and tolerant if religion hasn't been used to teach them hateful things.  Parents can still teach hate without religion, but it becomes a lot less effective when you take away the fear and the authority that can come with religion.

 

This is not to single out Muslims, I have huge problems with the hypocritical attitudes towards Muslims held by many.  This is only to provide a counterpoint to the notion that religion has nothing to do with hate (which I know is not what you're saying).  I don't think it's a coincidence that the most bigoted areas of our world and of our country and often the ones with high levels of religious fundamentalism. People with good intentions can be easily misled and there are many people who have left fundamentalist religions who were previously bigoted and could only become more tolerant once they realised what was happening and attempted to undo the thought patterns ingrained in them by fear.

[Mr.DirtyDangles]

On 2016-08-01 at 11:43 AM, Kragar said:

I didn't mean to belittle what those people suffered, but wasn't sure how else to describe it at the time.  My point was that Salmonberries claimed those cultures were deliberately destroyed in the Iraq War, which I don't think was accurate (discounting that at least some of those listed still exist today).  Those people were not organized military organizations, and were thus not the target of the war.  By "cross-fire", I meant more that they were innocent bystanders who suffered as a result of the war between Iraqi and Coalition forces.

Ah I completely misread the context there. Apologies.  

 

I think Salmonberries is correct in his statement though.....  the systematic and deliberate destruction of cultures and their regions has continued to this very moment.   The controlled destabilization of the middles east is pretty much complete. Religion was the most obvious tool to widen the already millennia old gap between the Christians and Muslims.

 

Regardless of who did what to whom first, the fact remains each side uses religion as their justification for actions they deem necessary solutions.

 

 

[Kragar]

8 hours ago, Mr.DirtyDangles said:

Ah I completely misread the context there. Apologies.  

 

I think Salmonberries is correct in his statement though.....  the systematic and deliberate destruction of cultures and their regions has continued to this very moment.   The controlled destabilization of the middles east is pretty much complete. Religion was the most obvious tool to widen the already millennia old gap between the Christians and Muslims.

 

Regardless of who did what to whom first, the fact remains each side uses religion as their justification for actions they deem necessary solutions.

 

 

No worries, it happens , it's good to have the air cleared.

 

Things are surely a mess.  It was bad enough over there without Western influence, but it's obvious that there have been plenty of poor policy decisions made by numerous Western countries in the last 100 or so years to make it all that much worse.