"They're Killing Us!"

"They're killing us. We need the international community to stand with us. We need help to provide for our people."
"ISIS is driven by that passion that Iraq has gone very, very wrong. Among terrorists, often they have lost something big. And the Sunnis have lost ultimately their power, their responsibility and their significance. Under the Saddam Hussein regime they had essence; now they have nothing."
"We can kill a few ISIS people from the clouds; we can kill some of our innocent civilians; but we can't really bring about change [without ground troops]. American ground troops."
"ISIS are going around causing their chaos with American weapons, in American tanks, in
American armoured vehicles and their Humvees because that man Obama left us. And we are seeing our people killed because of that mistake."
"Radical Islamist extremists will increase in authority and power. They're already ruling much of the country. What they will not be able to rule is areas in the south because the Shiites will not allow them to because that is where their holy shrines are. Religion means they will not let their most holy places be destroyed."
Canon Andrew White, vicar, Baghdad St.Georges Anglican Church

The good vicar was speaking from a place of haven where, in the Middle East, the sole country that gives equal rights and respect to all religions and all ethnic and tribal groups is the very country that all the Muslim countries who distrust one another and violently compete for recognition as superior to the other, can agree on one thing between them. The one matter of mutual concern that unites them is the wish to destroy Israel.

And in Israel, where the most holy site of Judaic heritage exists in east Jerusalem, the Muslim Arabs known as Palestinians are in complete accord with their fellow Muslims across the Middle East, that Israel has no right to Jerusalem, much less their historical Judaic site of sacred veneration. Simply put, Islamic sites have precedence, even though Israel's presence and that of its Temple of Solomon in both incarnations, long preceded the existence of Islam and its conventions and covenants.

Canon White is adamant that it is the fault of and the responsibility of the United States to counter the uncivilized barbarity of the Middle East. Having removed a bloody dictator whose grip on Iraq kept the sects from butchering one another, leaving that privilege solely to his own pleasure, his removal has left Shiites and Sunnis free to hate, mutilate and slaughter one another. The entrance of ISIS is merely the latest incarnation of Islamofascistic butchery.

But there is Canon White, doing what he can for peace in a land that wouldn't recognize it if it bloomed in living colour with angels clanging cymbals and shouting Hosanna! He is known to have mediated in all manner of dangerous adversarial conflicts, kidnappings, serving as a special envoy for the archbishop of Canterbury, helping to negotiate release of kidnapped church members.


The Reverend Canon Dr Andrew White is the Chaplain of St George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad, Iraq. He has led St George’s Church, in the heart of Baghdad, since 1998 and divides his time between Iraq and the UK.

There is no reasoning, he knows, with the supremely fanatical Islamists. Reason doesn't propel them, after all, only their hubristic belief in the powers of fear-mongering and violence sufficient to predict that the fears are never unfounded. He hopes, he also said, to return to Iraq. And if and when he does, it will no doubt be the end of him.