Crocodile Tears for Iraqi Christians

Why should anyone bother reading The Australian? After all its editorialist doesn't. Here's what he had to say on 27 December:

"The flight of despairing Christians is being seen no less starkly elsewhere. 900,000 of Iraq's 1.4 million Christians have fled since 2003. In that time 54 churches have been blown up and 1000 Christians killed." (Religious violence deplorable: Christians increasingly attacked by Islamic extremists)

And who's responsible for this sorry state of affairs? Islamic extremists, of course. But who let them loose? Peter Wilson's report in The Australian of 24 December spells it out:

"'After Saddam fell, Christians were targeted and attacked because everyone thought we were somehow attached to the Americans but the truth is that the US did not do anything for the Christians', Mr [Ra'ad] Emmanuel said. 'A lot of Christians worked for the Americans as translators or in other rules but the Americans have actually left us in a much worse state than we were under Saddam. Saddam did not persecute Christians as much as he did the Shia (Muslims) and Kurds...'" (Terror kills Christmas in Baghdad)

For the Australian's editorialist, neo-conservative ideology dictates that the spotlight must always be fixed on the anti-Christian sectarian genie, never on those responsible for unbottling him - even if that means ignoring the evidence painstakingly gathered by one of its own correspondents.

And why is that? Because, when it came to corporate media barracking for regime change in Iraq, the Murdoch press cheered loudest of all.