Are they trying to make Iraq look like a Crusade? Christmas in Iraq.
 

Wow, if this picture of Jesus hanging off the palm trees and santa doesn't enrage the muslim world I'm not sure what will.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/...mas/index.html

an image of Mohammed standing beneath it??;) .

More seriously though, aren't a large number of Iraqis christians anyway? Not in terms of population, I know they're a minority, but in numerical terms I thought there were several million, all of whom were permitted to celebrate xmas before?

Also, does Xmas appear on the islamic calendar as a holiday? I know they revere jesus as a prophet, but do they celebrate his 'birth' as they do for many other prophets? Or, for that matter, easter, to they pause to remember their prophet's death?

wjhat was it about multi-culturalism, tolerance and equal rights for memebers of other cultures? Always demanded from the West, always ruled out in Islamic countries?

Christians had been forced out of the country by the many tens of thousands, and even more have become victim to massive violance and supression in the past years. Germany planned to accept several thousand Christian refugees to save them from Muslim prosecution and serious violant threats to life. The political left and the "humanists" and well-meaning politically over-correct preachers of one-sided multi-culturalism immediately protested and said that were a discrimination of Muhammedanism (that is commiting these crimes). The last thing I heared was that Germany would accept a counter-balanced share of non-Christian Iraqi Muslims for each Iraqi Christian it takes. :nope:

Christianity is under constant supression and constant reduction (of community sizes) in almost all Muslims countries, since always. That the discrimination of Jews and Christians by Quranic rule is mandatory maybe has something to do with it!?

American troops for the most are christians, formally or real, and they are there in nthat place, like it or not. As long as they do not impose their cultural standards onto the locals, I honestly give sh!t for whether or not Iraqis like them to have a christmas mass or display a santa claus in their camp. If they find it offending then take it as a simple lesson about what Islam thinks about that multiculturalism that is so precious to us and that is always constantly demanded from us, one-sided, without a reciprocal response from Islamic nations.

Good post Skybird. I agree 100%.

Yes must be careful not to share a meal a toy, or fellowship. Otherwise they might take people out back to the old stadium and put a bullet through their skull for doing such evil things. Oh wait thats for reserved for women who want an education. All others loose your head by the sword. Yes we mustn't ENRAGE them now.

Why don't you read the article that is attached to the photo..... I'm shocked CNN found a Muslim who was not offended by the display, that's amazing.

Priceless.:rotfl:

I was not so much answering to the article itself but subchaser's comment regarding it all looking like a crusade.

I know Iraq isn't a crusade, but pieces like this just do the terrorist recruiters job for them. :cry:

So we're all supposed to just bury our heads in the sand and not do what we feel is right because it might piss of some Muslim extremists?

Giving terrorists what they want won't stop terrorism. It only proves that it works.

...and the fact that Christianity offends them so much is the freakin' REASON there is so much hate in the Muslim world. Maybe if they would learn a little tolerence, we wouldn't have young people blowing themselves up.

It's this line of arrogant and uninformed thinking that has led to the Iraq disaster. Because of this childish view of the middle east, Iraq and the surrounding area will stay plunged in chaos many generations from now. We are months away from the 6 year aniversary of the start of the Vietraq war and it's still as if no one in the west has so much has read the first pamphlet on the middle east. Someone needs to write "The middle east for dummies".

Tolerance? What are the muslim kids supposed to do? Go to the mall? Get a job at wal-mart? Go to the movies? None of those things exist over there. We continue to fund countries like Saudia Arabia that spend 99.99% of their wealth on their own luxury while the population lives in squalor their whole lives. The poor people get violent, not unlike blacks in America back in the 1960's. Then someone spoiled like you from America arrogantly and ignorantly proclaims "hey can't you all just get along?"

Actually, I believe that the Purple Unicorn is going to swoop in and save us all. It will happen slowly. First, dogs, cats, and mice will unite to create a new United Nations. Then, a descendant of Lassie will take over as President of the World and institute a new order of peace and love and Big Band music. Finally, the Internet will be expanded to include websites from alien civilizations and we will all finally see how those little grey fellars built the pyramids.

I guess that has about as much basis in reality is one of your typical arguments, subchaser12. :rotfl: You always have these big, bold claims but never really show how they are true... probably because the only person who thinks you know what you're talking about is yourself.

How, again, is wanting tolerance to go both ways arrogant?

Aramike ever been in the military? I don't want to accuse you of being a chickenhawk before I ask you that.

19 years in, buddy. Worked in Intelligence for a good portion of my career, too. Specialized in Intentions towards the end of my career although worked on threat assessments and such earlier on.

Why am I not surprised. Is it any wonder our military a bunch of screwups. You were one of the smart ones. haha.

I remember 15 years ago like it was yesterday. This kid with missing teeth and long hair at the airport. I asked "so what MOS you get?" He said intelligence. I got the sick sinking feeling in my stomach and I knew before the plance even took off the military was going to be a ****storm.

Our military is a bunch of screwups?

Wow, you really are an idiot.

See, in intel, you have to back up your suppositions with facts. You're probably glad the same doesn't apply to you on a message board.

Thanks for showing what you really think about your country and its fighting men and women. Personally, part of me hopes that one day you'll need help from one of those screwups who finished their service and reentered civilian life. And, I hope they know what you think of them, and leave you hanging high and dry.

People like you don't deserve the freedoms our brave men and women fight for.

Dude, I was in the army. I know first hand what a bunch of dumbasses they are. Brave fighting men and women? How many commies did you shoot for me there Chairborne?

I said nothing bad about the country. Stop putting words in my mouth. The country is great, the military is just the countries refuse. Get over yourself man, the country is a lot more than just it's military. The military is just one over rated segment.

19 years? Wow, you wasted the best years of your life! Well you probably didn't, I doubt you left a truckload of broken hearted honeys back on the farm. Right wing males don't get much bedroom action. haha

I was going to be mad at this, then I remembered the source.

Frankly, you don't deserve to be an American.

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You do know that Islam acknowledges Jesus, right? Not as the son of god, but still as a powerful and wise man.

Keep nation, people, politicians and military separate.

Iraq was screwed up by political ideologists, not by the military - the Pentagon was very hesitent to go there, and did not like the initial idea. Of course, it obeyed to the orders to go there, and how.

A nation's and people's value is not represented by its military only. Soldiers are not the better citizens, nor are they the elite of a people. They are one part of it - and not even a representative part of it, seen from a sociological point of view. The rich and educated elites, and those rejecting military service, are underrepresented in it, so are various ethnic and/or religious groups and eventually females. That a nation's military is a mirror of it's social community, is a popular myth.

Politicians are a kind of their own, they only partially represent nation's values, or their people, and they tend to abuse the military. The people certainly often is stupid enough to vote for this or that given idiot, that is part of their share of responsibility for the state of their society. But certainly it is better that stupid politicians tell the military what to do, than the military telling the politicians.

The industrial-military complex, as Eisenhower put it, now is an abstract entity of it'S own, and is more defined by a network of mutual relations and allying of interests from various sides, than by solid existence.

It all ain't no perfect. Maybe one could imagine better ways of doing - but whether mankind is capable and willing to implement these better visions, must be put in doubt. And whether the current ways of doing are sufficient, must be put in doubt as well, if considering the fact that we are destroying our own basis of suvival for short-termed lobby interests, and doing so with remarkable enthusiasm and self-deception.