As I mentioned yesterday, it was recently discovered that the Religion-of-14th-Century-Throwbacks, which simply refuses to coexist with the rest of the world, demolished another historic structure in Iraq that apparently offended them ~

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State group’s relentless destruction of ancient cultural sites.
 
For 1,400 years the compound survived assaults by nature and man, standing as a place of worship recently for U.S. troops. In earlier centuries, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches and prayed in the cool chapel.

“I can’t describe my sadness,” (Rev. Paul Thabit Habib) said in Arabic. “Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically leveled. We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land.”
 
The Islamic State group, which broke from al-Qaida and now controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, has killed thousands of civilians and forced out hundreds of thousands of Christians, threatening a religion that has endured in the region for 2,000 years. Along the way, its fighters have destroyed buildings and ruined historical and culturally significant structures they consider contrary to their interpretation of Islam.

The individual who bears most of the responsibility for this cultural annihilation – and in some cases, genocide – doesn’t live in the Middle East, fly the ISIS flag or run around yelling “Allahu Akbar.” He resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. That’s right. If our feckless commander-in-chief hadn’t abruptly withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, the cancer we call ISIS (and Obama defiantly calls ISIL) would never have metastasized and spread in such a dramatic fashion!
 
As I blogged about 5 years ago (almost to the day), violence immediately surged the minute we pulled out: Iraq – the Aftermath. This is what the Washington Post was saying in January 2012 ~

Before their departure, U.S. troops had ceded control of the country’s security to Iraqi forces. But the Americans’ presence remained critical, analysts said, because they shared intelligence capabilities with their Iraqi counterparts and their visibility signaled that the Americans had influence over Iraq’s leaders.
 
After the U.S. exit, “what changed is a mind-set,” said Michael Knights, an Iraq expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has been a consultant to the Defense Department.“The U.S. was now definitely gone. Therefore, all bets are off.”

For every death, every homeless Iraqi and Syrian, every destroyed town, and every historical landmark obliterated – President Barack Hussein Obama bears some degree of responsibility. ObamaCare is bad, but this unchecked death and destruction in the Middle East is his true legacy.
 
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Related:
Barack Obama = the greatest threat to U.S. Security
More POTUS Prevarication – “Stable” Iraq?
Obama’s Selective Foreign Intervention
IS Destroys Religious Sites

ISIS destroys Iraq’s oldest Christian monastery, satellite photos confirm ~

St. Elijah’s joins a growing list of more than 100 religious and historic sites looted and destroyed, including mosques, tombs, shrines and churches. Ancient monuments in the cities of Nineveh, Palmyra and Hatra are in ruins. Museums and libraries have been pillaged, books burned, artwork crushed — or trafficked.