My friend Sinan wrote this letter to the New York Times:
Dear Sir,
A few misconceptions and factual errors mar your piece on the deplorable bombings in Iraq (Leading Muslim Clerics in Iraq Condemn Bombing of Churches, August 3 2004). You write that Christians in Iraq have been "subject to persecution throughout their history." This is a gross misrepresentation. While not a uotopia, Christians have fared relatively well under Arabo-Islamic rule (compared to how Europe dealt with its "others,") especially in Iraq (the terrible massacre of the Assyrians early last century was carried out by the nascent state for ultranationalist and not religious motives). I write as someone who happened to be born to a Chaldean Christian family and lived in Iraq until 1991. You correctly mention that almost 200,000 Christians have left Iraqi since 1991, but fail to mention that almost two million Iraqi Muslims had to leave Iraq since then as well to escape the harshest sanctions in history imposed by the US/UN. The terrible effects of these sanctions on the social fabric of Iraqi society is almost absent in your reporting on Iraq and could shed much light on the disintegration of Iraq on all levels. Finally, al-Sistani is not" the leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq." That would be Abd al-Azizi al-Hakim. Mosul never was, nor is currently "Kurdish-controlled," but under U.S occupation.
Sincerely,
Sinan Antoon
Dartmouth College