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  • OK, I specifically excluded the Peronistas, who were always quasi-socialists.
    "I say shoot'em all and let God sort it out in the end!

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    • Peron was populist, not socialist. In any case, he was only labour minister under the '43 coup, he then won the presidency legitimally. In fact, the '55 coup was made against him, and the '76 coup was against his vice president and widow. Those two coups were markedly anti-peronist.
      Indifference is Bliss

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      • A reflection by the Archbishop of Erbil on the situation regarding ISIS:


        For Christians all over the world, Easter is a season of hope; Christ triumphant on Easter morning banishes the darkness of sin and death.


        Here in Iraq, we have particular reason to rejoice in Christ’s victory over the powers of evil. It is a victory we so sorely need in a land where we are currently walking the Way of the Cross, desperately searching for signs of the Resurrection


        As Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil, in the Kurdish north of the country, I am shepherding my flock through one of the darkest eras in our long history. Last August, 125,000 Christians on Iraq’s Nineveh Plains fled the forces of Da’esh – so-called Islamic State. In a single night, 13 Christian towns and villages there were seized by Islamic State and the terrorists wiped out a community whose unbroken Christian presence stretches back to the first century AD. Their sacred liturgy, with its Aramaic texts, uses the very language that Jesus spoke.


        125,000 people escaped from this new tyranny, many with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. Out into the night they went, leaving behind their beloved homes and ancestral lands, and sought sanctuary in Kurdistan. An exodus of Biblical proportions unfolded. Well might they say, as Jesus on the Cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’


        What Da’esh did on the Nineveh Plains replicates what they have been doing elsewhere. In Syria, in and around towns and cities such as Homs, Aleppo, Damascus and Hassake, ancient Christian communities have been targeted and banished from their homelands.


        The Nineveh Plains are near to Mosul. When the Islamists seized that ancient city, they daubed the doorposts of Christians with the letter ‘N’ for ‘Nazarene’, the Arabic for ‘Christian’. It was a symbol chillingly reminiscent of Nazi hostility towards the Jews.




        A member of Islamic state desecrates a Christian church in Iraq


        Many who escaped from Mosul described being forced to choose between abandoning their faith and converting to Islam or leaving. Islamic State had told them that if they failed to comply, “there is nothing for you but the sword".


        I talk to many displaced people in Kurdistan. Gazella and Victoria are two elderly women of 80 or more. When Da’esh seized their town of Karemlesh, on the Nineveh Plains, they were too frail to leave. The terrorists found them, frogmarched them to a hilltop outside the town, and on pain of death told them to convert, promising them paradise if they did so.


        Gazella told me her response. She bravely told those who threatened to murder her: “My vision of paradise is not yours. It is about love, forgiveness, peace and mercy. But if you want to kill me for what I believe, I am willing to die."


        Somehow, these two women were set free and eventually reached Kurdistan. Their story sums up the hopelessness of the situation, but it also contains a glimmer of hope. They did not die, and they did not give up their faith. At Easter, as I search for hope, I find it in them.


        As our fellow Christians reached Kurdistan hungry, frightened and with nothing, the Church welcomed them, giving over every available square foot of our land to the new arrivals. 14,000 Christian families have arrived in Erbil, far more than the number of Christians who live here. Outside my cathedral of St Joseph in Ankawa, a largely Christian suburb of Erbil, we have erected row upon row of tents. Those unable to find a place sheltered under bridges, on building sites, anywhere that would give them some form of protection from the elements.


        Christian organisations around the world have been quick to respond to this crisis. Food supplies were sent through a programme co-ordinated by a group of young volunteers. The old and infirm were moved out of the tents into rented accommodation. The Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need (acnuk.org), has provided PVC caravans and equipment for eight schools for the children, five in Erbil and three in Dohuk, to the north. It is a stopgap, but not a solution, especially if, after 2000 years, there is going to be a continuing Christian presence in Iraq and Syria. At least 25,000 of the 125,000 people who came to Kurdistan last summer have already gone on to neighbouring countries. Iraq’s Christian presence has been reduced from one million to less than 300,000 in 15 years. Our future as a community is precarious. For many, if not most of my fellow Christians, a new life abroad is what they now want.


        We want to offer an alternative to emigration, but time is running out. In an ideal world, those like Gazella and Victoria would be able to return home to their homes and lands. The recapture of Tikrit this week has given some hope, but more needs to be done. Da’esh are not worthy of the title they give themselves or the territory they have seized. They are terrorists and must be treated as such.


        In February, I travelled to London and spoke at the Church of England Synod, in Westminster Cathedral and at the Houses of Parliament. I appealed for support to win back our ancient Christian homelands and 2000-year-old way of life. We need the UK’s help – technical aid, financial assistance, intelligence, and indeed military support – to oust these fanatics from our lands. It is possible, but only if we act together.




        Iraqi Christians hold olive branches as they gather at the Saint-Joseph church in Arbil, Iraq (Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images)


        In the scripture readings for Easter, which tell of Jesus’ passion and death, we see how most of his closest companions abandoned him. Their loss of faith at the moment of his betrayal seemed to be vindicated once and for all by his death. But a new day brings a new dawn, an Easter morning.


        My prayer this Easter is that you in the West keep faith with us, the Christians of the Middle East. The sufferings we have experienced these past months are in so many ways unsurpassed and unbearable, but bear them we do thanks to the compassion, the support and the engagement of our friends in other parts of the world. It has far exceeded all our hopes and expectations. It has lightened our darkness and points towards the resurrection.


        The Most Reverend Bashar M Warda CSsR is Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil, northern Iraq
        The worldwide support given to Christians fleeing the onslaught of Isil has given spiritual and physical comfort to his flock, says Archbishop Bashar Warda
        Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.-Isaiah 41:10
        I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made - Psalms 139.14a
        Also active on WePlayCiv.

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        • And just think, if the US hadn't invaded Iraq in 2003, none of this would have happened, and ISIS wouldn't exist...
          "Aha, you must have supported the Iraq war and wear underpants made out of firearms, just like every other American!" Loinburger

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          • Yes, if things were different they wouldn't be the same.
            I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
            For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator Rubio

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            • That's what he said

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              • Originally posted by I AM MOBIUS View Post
                And just think, if the US hadn't invaded Iraq in 2003, none of this would have happened, and ISIS wouldn't exist...
                9-11 changed everything.
                I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
                - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

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                • That is the problem, it shouldn't have.

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                  • I think that any whinging over the invasion of Iraq is rather moot to the people who are being evicted from their homes by these monsters.
                    If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
                    ){ :|:& };:

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                    • Originally posted by Kidicious View Post
                      9-11 changed everything.
                      Yes. After my parents married on September 11, they started a family, including me.
                      There's nothing wrong with the dream, my friend, the problem lies with the dreamer.

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                      • Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View Post
                        I think that any whinging over the invasion of Iraq is rather moot to the people who are being evicted from their homes by these monsters.
                        Well sure. You think that because you are an idiot.

                        The invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the reason ISIS exists.

                        Just like Reagan spawned OBL and al qaeda, Bush/Cheney gave us ISIS.

                        At least Reagan's support for Islamic terrorists didn't cost as much.

                        n ex-intelligence officer under the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was “the strategic head” behind the Islamic State group and drew up the blueprints for the jihadists’ capture of northern Syria, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday.

                        Former colonel Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, who was better known as Haji Bakr and was killed by Syrian rebels in January 2014, “had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years”, according to the magazine.

                        The weekly said it had been given exclusive access to 31 documents by Bakr, including handwritten lists and charts, after lengthy negotiations with a rebel group in Aleppo, northern Syria, which came in possession of the pages after IS fled the area.

                        The trove “was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover”, according to Spiegel, detailing the creation of a caliphate in northern Syria, complete with meticulous instructions for espionage activities, murder and kidnapping.

                        The magazine said Bakr was “bitter and unemployed” after the American decision to dissolve the Iraqi army in 2003. Between 2006 and 2008 he was held in the US military’s Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib prison.

                        In the years that followed his influence grew in jihadist circles, Spiegel reported, and in 2010 Bakr and a group of other former Iraqi intelligence officers placed cleric Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at the head of the Islamic State group.

                        The move was reportedly designed to give the group a religious dimension.

                        The weekly quotes an Iraqi journalist as saying career officer Bakr was himself “a nationalist, not an Islamist”.

                        The IS group, notorious for horrific acts of violence including rape, torture and beheadings, declared a caliphate in June 2014 that straddles large parts of Iraq and Syria under its control.
                        An ex-intelligence officer under the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was "the strategic head" behind the Islamic State group and drew up the blueprints for the jihadists' capture of northern Syria, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday.Former colonel Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, who was be...


                        Adding to the incompetence... the Bush administration released that guy. He could still be in a cell somewhere. But noooooo....

                        fucking republicans

                        meanwhile, you got Cheney now out on talk radio talking about Obama and Iran... the same Dick Cheney who directly supported the regime while he ran Halliburton... only avoiding violating sanctions by setting up foreign subsidiaries

                        I remember Reagan's remarks about the potential dangers of Islamic fundamentalism. He wasn't worried because they were a "God fearing people".

                        Whenever a Republican complains about people supporting terror. We might be wise to listen to them. After all, they are experts at it.
                        To us, it is the BEAST.

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                        • IN related news:

                          ISIS claims responsibility for terror attack on Free Speech meeting in Texas, USA. Geert Wilders present.

                          Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.-Isaiah 41:10
                          I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made - Psalms 139.14a
                          Also active on WePlayCiv.

                          Comment


                          • it's not surprising they've claimed responsibility. however, from what i read the attackers were americans who had been known to the authorities for a long time.
                            "The Christian way has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found to be hard and left untried" - GK Chesterton.

                            "The most obvious predicition about the future is that it will be mostly like the past" - Alain de Botton

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                            • BUT BUT.... ISLAM
                              To us, it is the BEAST.

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                              • lol butt LOL
                                Indifference is Bliss

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