Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
The Shadow War Against Syria’s Christians By Nina Shea
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
On
June 23, Catholic Syrian priest Fr. François Murad was murdered in
Idlib by rebel militias. How he was killed is not yet known and his
superiors “vigorously deny”
that he was a victim of beheading, as some news sources are claiming.
It is apparent, however, that he was a victim of the shadow war against
Christians that is being fought by jihadists alongside the larger
Syrian conflict. This is a religious cleansing that has been all but
ignored by our policymakers, as they strengthen support for the
rebellion.
Affiliated
with the Franciscan order that was given custody of the Holy Land sites
by Pope Clement VI in 1342, the 49-year-old priest was killed in
Gassanieh, in northern Syria, in the convent of the Rosary where he had
taken refuge after his monastery was bombed at the outset of the
conflict, and where he had been giving support to the few remaining
nuns, according to Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Custos of the Holy Land.
The Vatican news agency Fidesreports
that “The circumstances of the death are not fully understood,” but,
according to local sources, Fr. Murad’s building was attacked by the
jihadi group Jabhat al-Nusra.
Fr. Pizzaballa denies that any Franciscans were beheaded last week, as was claimed by several sources. He was quoted
in the Italian press, commenting about the video, “it seems like
various old news stories have been mixed up.” The video was “uploaded
by al-Qaeda to terrorise Christians,” according to Andrea Avveduto, a
writer who works with the Custody of the Holy Land. “The corpse of Murad
was intact. The friars in the region exclude [sic] that the priest was one of the people beheaded in the footage.” Avveduto also writes that
“The friars are apparently alive and are currently in the Franciscan
monastery of Latakia, where they arrived a few days ago, to bury the
body of their brother, Fr. Murad.”
As I testified
to Congress last week at a hearing on Syria’s minorities chaired by
Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.): “Though no religious community has been
spared egregious suffering, Syria’s ancient Christian minority has cause
to believe that it confronts an ‘existential threat.’”
In
fact, this was a finding last December of the U.N. Human Right
Council’s Commission of Inquiry on Syria. As in Iraq, Syria’s
two-million-strong Christian community, the largest next to Egypt’s
Copts in the entire region, is being devastated. Targeted by jihadist
militias, they are steadily fleeing Syria, and whether they will be able
to return to their ancient homeland is doubtful. Archbishop Jeanbart of Aleppo’s Melkite Greek Catholic Church explained:
Christians
are terrified by the Islamist militias and fear that in the event of
their victory they would no longer be able to practice their religion
and that they would be forced to leave the country. As soon as they
reached the city [of Aleppo], Islamist guerrillas, almost all of them
from abroad, took over the mosques. Every Friday, an imam launches their
messages of hate, calling on the population to kill anyone who does not
practice the religion of the Prophet Muhammad. They use the courts to
level charges of blasphemy. Who is contrary to their way of thinking
pays with his life.
Fr.
Murad was only the most recent cleric to be targeted by these militias.
The highest profile attack was the kidnapping by gunmen in April of
Greek Orthodox Archbishop Paul Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Archbishop
Yohanna Ibrahim. This sent an unmistakable signal to all Christians:
none is protected. Some
other examples of Syrian Christians, from various faith traditions, who
have been kidnapped and killed or never seen again include:
27-year-old
Father Michael Kayal of the Armenian Catholic Church in Aleppo was
abducted in February while riding a bus after Islamists spotted his
clerical garb. He has not been seen since. Greek Orthodox priest Maher Mahfouz was kidnapped around the same time and has not reappeared. Syrian
Orthodox parish priest Father Fadi Haddad was kidnapped last December
after he left his church in the town of Qatana to negotiate the release
of one of his kidnapped parishioners. A week later, Fr. Haddad’s
mutilated corpse was found by the roadside, with his eyes gouged out. Yohannes
A. (whose last name has been redacted by Fides protect his family) was
summarily executed. An Islamist gunman stopped the bus to Aleppo and
checked the background of each passenger. When the gunman noticed
Yohannes’ last name was Armenian, they singled him out for a search.
After finding a cross around his neck, one of the terrorists shot point
blank at the cross, tearing open the man’s chest. A
woman from Hassake recounted in December to Swedish journalist Nuri
Kino how her husband and son were shot in the head by Islamists. “Our
only crime is being Christians,” she answers, when asked if there had
been a dispute. 18-year-old
Gabriel fled with his family from Hassake after his father was shot for
having a crucifix hanging from his car’s rear-view mirror. The son told
Kino: “After the funeral, the threats against our family and other
Christians increased. The terrorists called us and said that it was time
to disappear; we had that choice, or we would be killed.”
Christians
and others also have been targeted by the courts of the “Caliphate of
Iraq and the Levant,” the name the al-Nusra Brigade and other Islamist
rebels use in reference to the Syrian territory under their control. Muslims are subject to kidnapping too, but the Wall Street Journal reported
on June 11, 2013 that often “their outcome is different” because they
have armed defenders, whereas the Christians do not. The Journal
told the story of a 25-year-old cabdriver, Hafez al-Mohammed, who said
he was kidnapped and tortured for seven hours by Sunni rebels in al-Waer
in late May. He was released after Alawites threatened to retaliate by
kidnapping Sunni women.
According
to the U.S. State Department, Syria now has scores of rebel militias
with new ones popping up all the time. Many are extremist. Sources told
AsiaNews, “[T]he purpose of these groups is not only the liberation of
Syria from Assad, but also the spread by force of radical Islam
throughout the Middle East and the conquest of Jerusalem.” According to
interviews with local church leaders, many fighters do not speak Arabic
and do not come from Syria, and are recruited by being told that they
are going to “liberate Jerusalem.”
These extremists have
wasted no time in establishing sharia courts. In the towns of al-Bab and
Idlib and other villages under the control of Islamist groups, sharia
has been enforced for the past year. These courts, according to a Washington Post report,
pass sentences “daily and indiscriminately” against Christians and
anyone else who fails to conform to Wahhabi Islam. All women are
required to cover up with the abaya, a black, full-length gown. It was
in Aleppo that al-Nusra executed a 14-year-old Muslim boy last month for
insulting the prophet; they shot him in the mouth and the neck. Syrian Christian refugees toldDutch
blogger Martin Janssen that their village of 30 Christian families had a
firsthand taste of the rebels’ new sharia courts. One of Janssen’s
accounts was translated by renowned Australian linguist, writer, and
Anglican priest, the Rev. Mark Durie:
Jamil
[an elderly man] lived in a village near Idlib where 30 Christian
families had always lived peacefully alongside some 200 Sunni families.
That changed dramatically in the summer of 2012. One Friday trucks
appeared in the village with heavily armed and bearded strangers who did
not know anyone in the village. They began to drive through the village
with a loud speaker broadcasting the message that their village was now
part of an Islamic emirate and Muslim women were henceforth to dress in
accordance with the provisions of the Islamic Shariah. Christians were
given four choices. They could convert to Islam and renounce their
‘idolatry.’ If they refused they were allowed to remain on condition
that they pay the jizya. This is a special tax that non-Muslims under
Islamic law must pay for ‘protection.’ For Christians who refused there
remained two choices: they could leave behind all their property or they
would be slain. The word that was used for the latter in Arabic
(dhabaha) refers to the ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals.
As
for the larger conflict, the Christians are caught in the middle. The
churches have not allied with the Assad regime. They have no armed
protector, inside or outside the country, and they have no militias of
their own. But they are not simply suffering collateral damage. They
are being deliberately targeted in a religious purification campaign –
one that the United States government finds convenient to overlook as it
supports Syria’s rebels and praises Saudi Arabia as one of our “closest partners.” National Review – Nina Shea is director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.
27-year-old
Father Michael Kayal of the Armenian Catholic Church in Aleppo was
abducted in February while riding a bus after Islamists spotted his
clerical garb. He has not been seen since.
