Conversion or exile

With brothers in Christ like G.W. Bush, Iraqi Christians don't need enemies. And with religions of peace like Iraqi Islam, Iraqi Christians don't need religions of war:

The novelist Zora Neale Hurston described one of her characters as a rut in the road, with “plenty of life below the surface but it was beaten down by the wheels.” Since the fall of Saddam, the Christians of Iraq have been beaten down by every wheel in motion: violence, extortion, and murder. In desperation, Christian religious leaders are now openly criticizing the Iraqi government for failing to protect their flocks. Chaldean archbishop Louis Sako recently lamented in the AsiaNews, “In Iraq Christians are dying, the Church is disappearing under continued persecution, threats and violence [are] carried out by extremists who are leaving us no choice: conversion or exile.”
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Bombs and blood are not enough for the Islamists. Al Qaeda has begun to demand the jizya (protection money demanded of non-Muslims) from Christian families. Those who refuse to pay must leave or be killed. Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army issued a letter to Christians in Baghdad ordering Christian women to veil themselves. The letter warns that those who do not face grave consequences. In an ominous closing note the letter promises enforcement through special committees. Iraqi Christians face terror from both Sunni and Shiite groups.

The story of one such family provides insight on the dramatic effect that the campaign of violence is having on Christians in Iraq. On September 24t, 2006, terrorists detonated a small explosive outside the Church of St. Mary in Baghdad. The explosion drew out parishioners from the church when an even larger bomb detonated, causing massive casualties. Sargon Hanna was one of five persons who directed parishioners back into the Church, knowing the first explosion to be a trap, saving lives. When the second, more deadly bomb exploded, it cost Sargon his leg. A month later, his son Ashur, a security guard for the church, was kidnapped. The kidnappers informed Sargon that he had three options: convert to Islam and report on other Christians, pay a ransom of $200,000, or drive a car-bomb for them, acting as a suicide bomber.

Over a period of ten days his son was tortured with electric shocks and boiling water. When their demands were not met, the terrorists decided to execute Ashur. He was shot in the spine, the bullet exiting through his stomach. Believing him to be dead, his executors threw his body into the street. He survived, just barely. He was taken to a hospital in Baghdad where his condition deteriorated. After thwarting an attempt by a man in a police uniform to shoot Ashur as he lay, paralyzed, in his hospital bed, the Hanna family was convinced they had to flee. Like so many, they now are refugees in Damascus, Syria.