Dragon Soup– Baghdad’s Christians: An island in the sea of Islam (Part 1 of 2)

Major Kirk here with another edition of Dragon Soup…

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Christmastime in the Granite State…I don’t know about you, but some of the happiest times of my life have been spent celebrating the holidays in New Hampshire. I can’t help but miss the snow-covered forests and mountains, ice skating and playing hockey on the frozen ponds, and of course, all of the sights, sounds and smells of the Holiday Season back home (mmm…egg nog!). Try as we might here at Forward Operating Base Falcon, no matter how many decorations we put up, or gift boxes we receive from family, friends and the so many great citizens who support the troops, it just isn’t quite right.

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Thinking about Christmas got me thinking about religion and the origin of this important holiday in our culture, and I figured that now was a great time to talk to you about those Iraqi people who share in the Christian faith, and what the past, present and a possible future holds for them as this nation tries to recover from a devastating war that approaches its fifth year in spring.

As you know, millions of Christians all over our great nation and in countries around the world are gathering together to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It would probably come as a surprise to many Americans that even in the Middle East and here in Baghdad that there are Christian families preparing to do the same, even though Iraq is still caught in the grip of war.

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I was pretty ignorant of the plight of Iraq’s Christians until my unit got to Baghdad earlier this year. My first experience of knowing about Christians living here came when one of our battalions, the 1-4 CAV, moved into an abandoned seminary in our area, where they set up a coalition outpost in late March.

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Respected milblogger Michael Yon was embedded with 4th Brigade and was a guest of the Raider Squadron and accompanied them when they first moved into the seminary. Yon’s presence proved to be a blessing, as he documented our Soldiers fortifying the deserted buildings that were devoid of human life, but still had intact office furniture, computer equipment, a library full of rare books in multiple languages and a pristine chapel, spared the ravages of war.

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You can check out Yon’s amazing photo essay entitled: Desires of the Human Heart Parts 1 and 2  and see it for yourself, but this was just the beginning of Mike’s firsthand look at the Christian faith and people living in the al-Rasheed security district of Southern Baghdad. There isn’t a reporter out there who has a better grasp on the current situation for Baghdad’s Iraqi Christian population than Yon, and he’s done yeoman’s work to accurately tell their story through images and words.

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After seeing Coalition Outpost Amanche (named for 1-4 CAV’s Apache and Comanche Troops, who initially occupied the facility) for myself and hearing the amazing story that none of the structures had been looted despite standing empty for at least several months before our arrival, I took an interest in Iraq’s Christians. (COP Amanche has since been re-named COP Blackfoot after the 1-4 CAV moved to a different area of operations and a new unit called “Blackfoot Company” moved into the seminary.)

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The abandoned Babel Pontifical College-turned patrol base, which was built and is owned by the Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church, reminded me of the opening scene of the 1977 Steven Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a movie I saw as a boy about UFOs, in which the missing Navy Avenger bombers of Flight 19, which disappeared in the famed “Bermuda Triangle” in late 1945, turned up in the Mexican desert sans the aviators who flew them.

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 “Where are the pilots?” exclaimed a man as he climbed on the pristine aircraft complete with photos of loved ones inside the empty cockpits. The deserted seminary, with the report from Yon that the staff had left in late 2006 for the Iraqi city of Irbil in the north resonated with me. Here I was, in a vast sea of Islam, yet less than a hundred meters away, I could see the spire and cross of the abandoned St. Peter Church across the street from the Babel College facility.

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So, I did a little research and discovered that Christians, many of whom were descended from the Assyrians and Babylonians of ancient times had been living in Iraq since before the seventh century invasion of the region by Arab Muslims. Although countries like Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and others gradually converted to Islam, a Christian minority remained, and numbered several million prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 according to reports.

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In 2004, just over a year after the U.S. military toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, there were multiple attacks on churches throughout Iraq, as priests and citizens alike were killed in a wave of violence that included car-bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. To say that Christians, who for centuries had lived in Iraq in relative peace despite being a significant minority, faced the darkest of days, would be an understatement.

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Yet, as bad as it has been for so many Christians here, I’ve seen firsthand that in some cases, the situation is not as dire or apocalyptic as the media would have you believe.

I came face-to-face with the plight of the Iraqi Christians in June, when I was contacted by the Los Angeles Times for a story they were doing and told that over 500 Christian families had fled the al-Dora neighborhood alone after a wave of violence and threats from terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq had forced them out. The Times reporter insinuated that the U.S. Army had failed to protect the Christian population and it was we who were responsible for preventing a mass exodus.

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I didn’t have all the facts at my disposal, but promised to look into the situation. After talking to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment commander, Lt. Col. Stephen Michael, it was clear that the infantrymen of the “Warrior” battalion had been working diligently to protect the Christian populace of East Rashid and one particular neighborhood that was said to have the highest concentration of Christians in Baghdad.

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The unit was aware of the threats posed to Christian families by AQI operatives, but hadn’t realized how widespread and organized a campaign of terror it was until after Easter. By then, the Soldiers of 2-12th Inf. were going door-to-door, house-to-house and carefully conducting a census of the population, documenting who lived in the houses and their religious denominations, so they could map out the areas that were predominantly Christian and spend more time on focused patrols, checking on the people living there and protecting them. Additionally, the unit put up temporary barriers not to segregate the populace, but to restrict the freedom of maneuver for the terrorists and criminals who were previously able to move in and out of the neighborhoods at will. Now, Iraqi Army checkpoints limited access and anyone not living in the neighborhood, but attempting to gain access could be more closely scrutinized.

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Furthermore, Lt. Col. Michael and his battalion operations officer, Maj. Jim Lock, felt that the number cited by the Times of 500 displaced families (which I was told came from the Assyrian Party of Iraq) from Dora was wildly inaccurate. “I’m not sure there were 500 families in our part of Dora to begin with,” Lock said. However, both officers conceded that they honestly didn’t have an exact number, as the census had been started in April, well after people had begun leaving the area (if you go back to the attacks in 2004). Michael and his top noncommissioned officer, Cmd. Sgt. Maj. Charles Sasser both felt that the best way to tackle the issue was to invite the Times to embed and visit Dora to see the situation firsthand.
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I got back to the Times, figuring that the news I brought would be well-received. “Don’t take my word for it,” I told one of the paper’s correspondents via cell phone. “Come to FOB Falcon as a guest of the Warrior Battalion- see the Christian neighborhoods for yourself.”

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After setting up the visit, I figured that the subsequent story would be balanced, and if nothing else, would accurately portray the situation for the remaining Christians in Dora.

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How wrong I was.

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It was here that I experienced my first dealings with a mainstream media that brings a set agenda with them when they report, and sometimes will only let you see what they want you to see.     &nbs
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