LETTER TO THE EDITOR: No U.S. support for Christian peril

OPINION:

Here in the United States, the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center tried banning Bible reading in its service hospital, Obama appointees have made it a crime for chaplains and troops to share their faith in the Department of Defense, U. S. military commanders are prohibited from publishing religious programs and services, and a defense directive put Christians in the same category as the Islamic terrorist group that attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001.

Overseas, Christians are being attacked by Islamists — while here at home liberal Christian secularists, content in their modern prosperity, often prefer to turn a blind eye or blame Christianity as equally intolerant. Christians are being purged from Mosul, Iraq, by ISIS, and all things Christian are being destroyed and driven from the ancient city. Christians have lived in Mosul for nearly 2,000 years, but now they are subjected to the horrors of the Muslim religious wars of the Middle Ages. Christians in Mosul have been given a choice: Either convert to Islam or death by decapitation if they do not flee. They were harassed before the purge started, told that if they did not leave their homes and property they would be killed. Thousands of Christians and their families have had to leave with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Islamist militants robbed and stole money, jewelry and documents as they ransacked and pillaged Christian homes and properties. Churches, graves and crosses have been desecrated and destroyed. Calls for help to President Obama and other governments and world Christian leaders have not produced action to save the Christians of Mosul.

In fact, there has been little or no help from the United States for Christians in peril. Upon taking office, American leadership in the Middle East has been destroyed by Mr. Obama’s support for radical Islamists and Iran. While ISIS’ purge may be the most brutal, Islamists in Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood have driven thousands of Coptic Christians from the homes in which they had lived for centuries. The same is true for Syria and Muslim parts of North Africa. All Muslims have an obligation to denounce and resist the extremists who kill and subjugate in the name of Allah. Yet too few living in the tolerant West will speak up against it.

LT. COL. DOMINIK GEORGE NARGELE

U.S. Marines (retired)

Arlington