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Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq -- Extremists Need to Be Confronted
Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq -- Extremists Need to Be Confronted
By Geoffrey Johnston, AINA, 11 Mar 2015
History teaches us that when the world waits too long to confront extremist movements, innocent people will be slaughtered and ancient artifacts destroyed by religious fanatics who seek to recreate some idealized notion of the past.
When the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, the violent Islamist movement was determined to force Afghans to live under strict Islamic law, eschewing any and all influences that were deemed to be un-Islamic.
For example, the world was shocked when the Taliban forced women to don burkas and forbade girls to attend school. The brutal Islamist regime upped the ante in 2001, ordering the destruction of ancient artifacts, including the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Yet the world remained passive in the face of evil.
All the while, the Taliban were hosting Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network. Al-Qaida used Afghanistan as a training ground and base of operations, setting the stage for the worst terrorist attack in world history.
After the devastating jihadist strikes on the United States of Sept. 11, 2001, the world could no longer ignore the Taliban. The U.S. and its NATO allies responded with massive force, sweeping the Islamists from power.
However, the world seems to have forgotten the lesson of Afghanistan and the imperative of confronting powerful extremist movements before they commit mass murder.
Since June 2014, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has taken over large parts of Iraq and displaced millions of civilians. Although Islamic State forces have killed Sunni and Shia Muslims, they are clearly engaged in a systematic campaign to rid Iraq of non-Muslims and ethnic minority communities, including Assyrian Christians.
A recent report issued by a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) confirmed that "ethnic and religious minorities have been particularly targeted, including Christians, Kaka'i, Shabak, Turkmen and Yezidis, with thousands killed and many more injured or abducted."
"Summary executions, forced conversion, rape, sexual enslavement, the destruction of places of worship, the abduction of children, the looting of property and other severe human rights abuses have been committed repeatedly by ISIS," alleged the report, entitled Between the Millstones: The State of Iraq's Minorities Since the Fall of Mosul.
The report was a collaboration between four NGOs -- the Institute for International Law and Human Rights; No Peace Without Justice; the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization; Minority Rights Group International. The report was underwritten by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada and the European Union.