There were high fives all around at the White House at the news that Moammar Qaddafi had been finally caught and killed, so Libya followed Egypt in toppling a long-standing dictatorship (Mubarak was technically President), which itself followed Iraq and the deposition of Saddam Hussein through more direct American intervention.
President Barak Obama, who is a “Christian( ! )”, has celebrated the “Arab Spring”, the apparently spontaneous uprising of people in several countries of the Middle East as a new birth of democratic freedom. However the facts are much different.
In Iraq, the Assyrian Christian minority (about 3% of the population) traced its roots back to Apostolic times, possibly after Thomas’ missionary journeys, and had enjoyed relative protection and freedom for centuries, even under Saddam Hussein. Since Saddam’s ouster however, as many as half a million have left the country because of radical Islamic persecution, including orchestrated car bomb attacks on multiple churches and slayings by radical Islamists. Those who haven’t left the country are displaced refugees near the remote old city of Nineveh.
Meanwhile, a similar persecution has begun in Egypt, since the removal of Mubarak. The Coptic Christians of Egypt, which also trace their history back to the first century, had also been protected under Mubarak. While they couldn’t proselytize, they at least were able to coexist with Muslims as about 10% of the population.
Now however, with the relatively pro-US, relatively pro-Israel Mubarak gone, the anti-Christian violence has begun, with a series of church burnings and then killings of Christians who protested. It can only be a matter of time before the historic Coptic church is exiled if not wiped out.
Meanwhile the White House and the “Lame Stream Media” celebrates the “Arab Spring” while ignoring the plight of these historic Christian communions. “Arab Spring” is apparently Winter for Christians.
John Adams said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In the “Arab Spring” we are seeing what happens when what we are told is democracy is implemented without a moral commitment to freedom of religion.
