WHAT HAPPENED IN IRAQ

Did you know that DUE TO THE US TROOPS in Iraq:

47 countries have now reestablished their embassies in Iraq?

Did you know that the Iraqi government currently employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?

Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 new schools are now under construction, and 38 new schools have been completed in Iraq?

Did you know that Iraq's higher education structure now consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or Colleges, and 4 research centers, all currently operating?

Did you know that Iraqi women are now allowed to attend schools?

Did you know that 25 Iraqi students departed for the United States in January 2005, for the re-established Fulbright program?

Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is now operational? That they have five (5) - 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels, and a naval infantry regiment.

Did you know that Iraq's Air Force now consists of three operational squadrons, which includes 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft (under Iraqi operational control) which operate day and night, and they'll soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 Bell Jet Rangers?

Did you know that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?

Did you know that the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers?

Did you know that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq, that produce over 3500 new officers each 8 weeks?

Did you know there are now more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq? They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities and 69 electrical facilities.

Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the series of polio vaccinations?

Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid-October?

Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone ubscribers in Iraq, and phone use has gone up 158%?

Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consists of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?

Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?

Did you know that 2 candidates in the Iraqi residential election had a televised debate recently?

OF COURSE WE DIDN'T KNOW! WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW? YOUR NEWS MEDIA REFUSES TO TELL US THE TRUE STORY!

All the above facts about Iraq are verifiable on the Department of Defensewebsite...

EXTERMINATION OF IRAQI ARTISTS

Mohammed Jafaar, Demonstration, acrylic on canvas, 30" X 24", 2006

One wonders if the website I found this morning in a search for Iraqi work has incriminated these artists who have posted there. The colorful work of these painters is certainly exquisite, if mildly derivative of past Western art movements, but then, the same can be said for most of the contemporary painting populating Western galleries. We however, must not neglect to record our disgust with these code-bound jihadists of every stripe who have crawled out of the rubble of American intervention to murder and oppress their own people, but this is what we are fighting, people, if not over there, then soon in a neighborhood near you. The only strategy left to even the most rigid of peacemakers is the strategy of total victory.

Because this is the jihadist strategy also.

IRAQI SINGERS, ACTORS, AND ARTISTS are fleeing the country after dozens have been killed by Islamic radicals determined to eradicate all culture associated with the West. Cinemas, art galleries, theatres, and concert halls are being destroyed in grenade and mortar attacks in Basra and Baghdad.

According to the Iraqi Artists' Association, at least 115 singers and 65 actors have been killed since the US-led invasion, as well as 60 painters. But the terror campaign has escalated in recent months as both Shia and Sunni extremists grow ever bolder in enforcing religious restrictions on the citizens of Iraq....

In November Seif Yehia, 23, was beheaded for singing western songs at weddings, and painter Ibraheem Sadoon was shot dead as he drove through Baghdad. In February Sunni fighters killed Waleed Dahi, 27, a young actor, while he rehearsed for a play due to open at the Jordanian National Theatre this month.

Those remaining are in hiding as they make preparations to get themselves and their families to safety.

Haydar Labbeb, 35, a painter in Baghdad, said he had received five death threats and an attempt was made on his life as he drove his family home from a wedding. He is now trying to get to Amman in Jordan, where he hopes to continue painting.

'My art is seen by extremists as too modern and offensive to Islamic beliefs,' he said. 'For them, every painting has to be based on Islamic culture. But I am a modern artist.

Culture was encouraged during Saddam Hussein's regime, but no longer. Abu Nur, an Islamic Army spokesman, said: 'Acting, theatre and television encourage bad behaviour and irreligious attitudes. They promote customs that affect the morality of our traditional society.'

Read it all.

BEHEADINGS IN BAGHDAD

BAGHDAD - Three suspected al Qaeda militants, including two sisters, beheaded their uncle and his wife, forcing the couple's children to watch, Iraqi police said on Friday. The militants considered that school guard Youssef al-Hayali was an infidel because he did not pray and wore western-style trousers, they told police interrogators after being arrested in Diyala province northwest of Baghdad.

The three cousins executed Hayali and his wife Zeinab Kamel at the all-boys school in Jalawlah in Diyala province, village police chief Captain Ahmed Khalifa said. No further details were available. Sunni Arab communities across Iraq have been turning against al Qaeda because of its indiscriminate killings and strict interpretation of Islam, which includes a ban on smoking in public and forcing schoolgirls to wear veils.

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BLACKWATER YOU SAY?

BAGHDAD, Sept 28—The bodies of a murdered Sunni Iraqi police lieutenant and his wife were recovered in Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighborhood three days ago, a US army statement said on Friday. The couple had been abducted several days before by Sunni insurgents, the statement quoting a relative as saying, adding that the bodies were discovered dumped in a pile of trash beneath a pedestrian overpass in the Sunni-dominated neighborhood of Adhamiyah in Baghdad. Both victims appeared to have been killed by gunshot wounds to the head.

The police lieutenant also had drill holes in his face that indicated he was tortured before being executed, said 1st Lieutenant Daniel Lake with the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment of the US unit responsible for security in the Adhamiyah area. Lake said the lieutenant and his wife; both Sunnis, were most likely targeted by Sunni terrorists associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq or Islamic Government of Iraq because of their involvement with security efforts.

CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED IN IRAQ

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to The Religion Report. The plight of Christian minorities in the Islamic Middle East is one of the 20th century tragedies to which we pay least attention. From the Copts in Egypt, to the Maronites, the Melkites in Lebanon, Orthodox and Chaldeans, the Christian population of the Middle East is a fraction of what it was, and more vulnerable than ever. Nowhere is the situation worse at the moment than in Iraq. And few groups are more vulnerable than the ancient Assyrian Christian community. In fact, this week the Italian journalist Sandro Magister, has warned of the end of Christianity in Iraq.

In early May in a heavily Christian suburb of Baghdad, a Sunni extremist group began broadcasting a fatwah over the loudspeakers of the neighbourhood mosque: the Assyrian Christian community had to convert to Islam or leave, or die. Their Muslim neighbours were to seize their property. The men were told they had to pay the gizya—the protection money Jews and Christians traditionally had to pay to their Muslim overlords—and families were told they could only stay if they married one of their daughters to a Muslim.

More than 300 Assyrian families have fled, mostly to the north into the Kurdish region of Iraq where they are not welcome either They are sleeping in cemeteries, they have no food, more than 30 of their churches have been bombed, their children are being kidnapped and murdered.

Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian-American. She is a successful film and television actor who has appeared in many popular shows including Dynasty, Seinfeld, E.R. and Chicago Hope. Her novel, The Crimson Field, is a fictionalised account of the little-known Assyrian genocide that took place at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War One at the same time that the better-known Armenian genocide was taking place. She recently directed a documentary film on the same subject. And last year she was invited to give testimony before the US Congress about the plight of Assyrian Christians in Iraq. Rosie Malek-Yonan spoke to me from her home in California.

Rosie Malek-Yonan: The Assyrian people are the indigenous people actually of Mesopotamia, before it even was Iraq. All of that area was Mesopotamia and is the original homeland of the Assyrians. They date back to over 6,000 years and were always concentrated in that region.

Stephen Crittenden: And Christianity was accepted by Assyrians, well virtually in apostolic times, right at the very, very beginning?

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Right. Assyrians were actually the first nation to accept Christianity as an entire nation, not just individuals, but the entire nation, and we built the first church of the east.

Stephen Crittenden: And what about language? Aramaic for church, but what language does a typical Assyrian family in Baghdad speak at home?

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Well the language that we typically speak is the modern Assyrian, which comes from the ancient Aramaic, which is the language of Christ. The church liturgy still uses the ancient language, and we grew up learning it, and understanding it and knowing it, but it's not typically used at home. At home we generally will speak the more modern Assyrian dialect.

Stephen Crittenden: Now in early May, a fatwah was issued by a militant Sunni group in Baghdad, calling on the Christians in a particular suburb of Baghdad called Dora, to convert to Islam or die.

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Yes. Actually as we are speaking, I'm getting bombarded with emails, and one of them is a plea to help the Assyrians of Iraq. The women in particular—I'll just read you a little bit of this email—says the Virgin Mary put on a hijab (hijab is the covering) so why not all Christian women dress the same? They are asking all women to dress in that fashion.

Stephen Crittenden: I understand there's a lot of kidnapping and murdering of particularly of young kids?

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Absolutely. Our children are being murdered, they're being kidnapped for ransom, even when the ransom is paid they're still killed. Priests are being beheaded, nuns are being killed, and not just a beheading, they behead them, they cut also arms and legs, they hack them off and they return them in that manner. Little children, their heads are bashed with concrete blocks. This has been going on since the beginning of the Iraq War. This is isn't just an isolated incident here or there, this is an ongoing genocide.