Mosul feels jihadist justice

In the Stars & Stripes, the Associated Press reports that the soldiers of the Islamic State have begun destroying everything in Mosul, Iraq that the radicals consider apostasy to their particular sect.

Over the past two weeks, the extremists ruling Iraq’s second largest city have shrugged off previous restraint and embarked on a brutal campaign to purge Mosul of anything that challenges their radical interpretation of Islam. The militants — though Sunnis — target shrines revered by other Sunni Muslims because the sites are dedicated to popular religious figures. In the radicals’ eyes, that commits one of the worst violations of Islam: encouraging worship of others besides God.

I seem to remember in 2003 when the US took Baghdad from the Hussein regime, the news sources were chocked full of criticism of the Bush Administration when the Iraqi population looted their own museums. Historians and archeologists publicly wrung their hands about the objects of antiquity were lost and it was all the fault of the US military because they hadn’t moved quickly enough to secure the treasures. Well, entire antique mosques and cultural icons are being lost in the ancient city and it generates barely a shrug from the academic community.

Lets not forget that Christians in Mosul have been run out of town by the Islamic State, according to NBC News;

“[A] fighter said, ‘I have orders to kill you now’,” Yacub [a 70-year-old Christian from Mosul] said just hours after the Sunni extremists tried to force their way into his home at 11 a.m. on Monday. “All of the people in my neighborhood were Muslim. They came to help me —about 20 people — at the door in front of my house. They tried to convince ISIS not to kill me.”

The rebels spared Yacub but threw him out of the city where he had spent his entire life. They also took his Iraqi ID card before informing him that elderly women would be given his house.

[…]

Yacub, who struggles to walk, explained that he stayed in Mosul not because he wanted to, but due to his severe health problems. He eventually made his way to Qaraqosh, about 20 miles southeast of Mosul, finding refuge in the Christian city that is under the protection of Kurdish peshmerga troops.

From Voice of America;

[U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Jacqueline] Badcock confirms that few Christians remain in Mosul. Most have fled the city following an edict by the militant group they either convert to Islam or pay a fine under pain of death.

She says only about 20 Christian families remain in Mosul, either because they are elderly or too ill to move. She says a few have converted to Islam. Others are paying a fine of about $400, which, she says is a significant sum of money in the area.

This can all be laid at the feet of the American Left all the way back to the three Democrat Congressmen who stood on the roof of Hussein’s palace and declared that Saddam Hussein was more trustworthy than our on President. It can go all the way back to the “human shields” who went to Iraq and were placed to protect Hussein’s military assets. It all gave confidence to the al Qaeda jihadists that they would only have to wait us out in order to win. The same Leftists gave Congress to the Democrats in 2007, the same Congress that wished for more the deaths of more American troops. The same Congress that called the “surge” a failure before it began, and spent two years trying to defund the Iraq War. The same Democrats who had supported “their guy” when he called for a regime change in Iraq a few years prior, but couldn’t stand behind a president who didn’t belong to their little club long enough to win a war.

Category: Terror War