Ethnic cleansing of Christians

In Iraq, that is, where there has been a flourishing Christian community for as long as there have been Christians. Perhaps no longer. From the Catholic News Service, via Chris Floyd:

Half of all Iraqi Christians have fled their country since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, said the auxiliary bishop of Baghdad.

Chaldean Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Andreos Abouna of Baghdad said that before the invasion there were about 1.2 million Christians in the predominantly Shiite Muslim state. Since then the overall number has dropped to about 600,000, he said.

"What we are hearing now is the alarm bell for Christianity in Iraq," the bishop said. "When so many are leaving from a small community like ours, you know that it is dangerous -- dangerous for the future of the church in Iraq."

The bishop said 75 percent of Christians from Baghdad had fled the capital to escape the almost daily outbreaks of sectarian violence.

They survived through some twelve centuries of Muslim rule, Mongol invasion, British colonization, 25 years of Saddam Hussein, the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War, and brutal sanctions. Only George W. Bush's "liberation" of Iraq will apparently succeed in completely de-Christianizing the country. Do his supporters know about this?