Violence continues in Iraq.
Suleiman al-Qabisi (ANADOLU AGENCY) reports, "Five security forces were killed in a car-bomb explosion in the western Anbar province on Sunday, according to a local official. A
booby-trapped car exploded as a joint force from the Iraqi army and
tribal fighters were carrying out a search operation in al-Madham, 80 km
west of Haditha town, mayor Mabrouk Hameed told Anadolu Agency."
As the violence continues, Pope Francis prepares to make his trip to Iraq, scheduled for March 3rd through 5th. The visit comes, as
Ines San Martin (CRUZ) points out, while one person is dropping out of the trip, "Slovenian Archbishop Mitja Leskovar, the
papal ambassador in Iraq, who was supposed to accompany Pope Francis
during his March 5-8 visit to the land of the two rivers, tested
positive for COVID-19 on Saturday and is now in isolation." The worldwide pandemic also continues to see an increase in Iraq.
XINHUA observes, "The Iraqi Ministry of Health reported 3,248 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, bringing the total nationwide number to 695,489. The new cases included 940 in the capital Baghdad, 662 in Basra, 393
in Najaf, 179 in Wasit, and 175 in Qadisiyah, the ministry said in a
statement."
Infectious disease
experts are expressing concern about Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to
Iraq, given a sharp rise in coronavirus infections there, a fragile
health care system and the unavoidable likelihood that Iraqis will crowd
to see him.
No
one wants to tell Francis to call it off, and the Iraqi government has
every interest in showing off its relative stability by welcoming the
first pope to the birthplace of Abraham. The March 5-8 trip is expected
to provide a sorely-needed spiritual boost to Iraq’s beleaguered Christians while furthering the Vatican’s bridge-building efforts with the Muslim world.
But from a purely epidemiological standpoint, as well as the public
health message it sends, a papal trip to Iraq amid a global pandemic is
not advisable, health experts say.
The visit has other reasons and meanings that go beyond epidemiological concerns. AP seems unable to find that point.
Maya Gebeily (AFP) reports:
Persecution has already slashed the country's Christian community --
one of the world's oldest -- from 1.5 million in 2003 to just 400,000
today.
The
84-year-old pontiff plans to voice solidarity with them and the rest of
Iraq's 40 million people during an intense week of visits nationwide.
From
central Baghdad to the Shiite shrine city of Najaf, welcome banners
featuring his image and Arabic title "Baba al-Vatican" already dot the
streets.
From Ur, the birthplace of the Prophet Abraham in the
southern desert, to ravaged Christian towns in the north, roads are
being paved and churches rehabilitated in remote areas that have never
seen such a high-profile visitor.
The pope’s upcoming visit to Iraq is a “precious gift” not only for
the Christians who live there, but for all those who after years of war
want a return to peace and coexistence between religions, a priest who
worked for eight years in the diocese of Mosul told Arab News.
“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Pope Francis is coming …
to invite us to all be instruments of peace,” said Fr. Jalal Jako.
“Like a dove, he’ll bring a twig of peace to all the people living in this land who’ve suffered for too long.”
Jako, currently in Italy, will return to Iraq for the pope’s visit, which will begin on March 5.
But I don’t understand what gives Biden — like his predecessors Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush — either the legal or moral authority
to unilaterally launch a military attack in Syria, when there’s been no
declaration of war and the only authorization of military force is
nearly 20 years old in response to the 9/11 attacks. (Neither, by the
way, do some Democratic Biden allies in Congress.) More importantly, I don’t understand why Biden doesn’t seem to have a plan to end that “forever war”
that dates to 2001, or the never-ending presence of U.S. troops in
places like Iraq since 2003, when they toppled Saddam Hussein but never
left, for ever-changing and increasingly muddled reasons.
The national conversation shouldn’t be about what Biden needs to do to
protect our troops in Iraq but — in a world that increasingly looks
nothing like 2003 — why in God’s name are they still over there?
The following sites updated:
