The Latin-rite archbishop of Baghdad is worried that an Islamic fundamentalist government would be worse than Saddam. Worse? Only in the sense that Christians would be openly persecuted, but I’m not sure that using WMD on his people and killing hundreds of thousands in arbitrary massacres can be topped.
An Islamic republic—that is, a theocratic regime—will be more repressive and more alienating than every other tyrannical regime. It will take away freedom of conscience, basic human rights and the freedom of culture.”
And they had all these things under Saddam?
What has essentially happened is that while Christians are no longer ordered to practice their faith behind closed doors in an essentially atheistic regime, they have more freedom, but are afraid of reprisals from Muslim radicals, who are also less restrained. He also says that persecution of Christians by Muslims is being underreported. That’s not surprising, since the only news that US media seems to report in Iraq are the daily tolls of terrorist activity. Probably because any other kind of reporting would require them to leave the safety of their enclaves and military patrols.
Reporting religious persecution would also contradict the joint Bush—liberal media declaration that this is not a “Clash of Civilizations”.
The Latin-rite Christians are “crusaders”. The Eastern & Oriental Christians are infidels and dhimmi. That’s not how we define ourselves, it’s how the enemy defines us.