[traditionalist]

Great article, with one exception: he does not give King Sobieski the credit he deserves in the relief of Vienna.

[gusopol3]

had you seen the front cover of U.S. News this past week (April 8 cover date)? I posted the article on the Religion forum earlier today. It only bears reading to chart the distortions and lies that form the basis of what is being put out for public consumption. Thanks for posting this.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Great article. Thanks for posting.

[Kay]

Good post. We ought to write this prof and thank him.

[marktwain]

Excellent article. Most people do not realize that the Muslims conquered a Christian middle east and north Africa.

[CatoRenasci]

Actually, he doesn't mention the 1683 siege of Vienna, which was the one the Poles raised.

[Mike Fieschko]

Great article, with one exception: he does not give King Sobieski the credit he deserves in the relief of Vienna.

Much as I enjoy pointing out the Polish deliverance of Europe from the Turk (and the Reds in 1920), the article doesn't go much beyond Lepanto in 1571.

Jan III Sobeiski broke the Siege of Vienna, on Sep 12, 1683.

[The Great Satan]

Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095.

Just as George "Dubya" Bush was to entreat Tony Blair at the Council of Crawford, TX, in 2002.

Cool article.

[Aggie Mama]

bttt for later

[Reagan Man]

Excellent article!

Thanks for posting it.

[WaterDragon]

In the West, while we fight the Islamists, the other war is against socialism which is determined to destroy the centuries of learning and lessons. Every country that has fallen to socialism, just like the countries that fell to Islam, are impoverished and repressed, or on their way to being so increasingly.

America is most successful inheritor of the classical Greeks and Romans, of all of Western civilizations history. This is also the war we must fight while we destroy the murdering Muslim terrorists.

[WFTR]

Another thanks!

[Sans-Culotte]

Thanks. Just saved it as a Word document.

[The_Expatriate]

As a medieval studies graduate myself, I am always pleased to see attention given to a much misunderstood age. Unfortunately, this article is clearly written with an agenda in mind and the author has done some very selective omitting here of any number of important background factors as well as painted an exaggerated view of the piety and religious motivations of the Crusaders.

The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery,

I suppose it's considered good form to end an article with a punchline, but he could at least had the sense to stick to facts...both the Bible and history prove this assertion false.

[Enlightiator]

Excellent historical lesson here, thanks for the post. Bookmarked and bumped!

[KC_Conspirator]

Excellent article. Muslims also conquered Spain, scaring the heck out of France as well.

[LostTribe]

>St. Bernard ... Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalm. "Not for their destruction do I pray," it says. The Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered....

An interesting article, but it's important to keep the definitions straight. Did St. Bernard not know that David, writer of the Psalms, was not a Jew? And that there were no Jews when the Psalms were written? Gotta know the players without a scorecard:

Partial list of Biblical CHARACTERS WHO WERE NOT JEWISH

  Genesis:  God, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, Lot, Abraham,
  Sara, Melchizedek, Eliezer, Hagar, Ishmael, Isaac, Abimelech, Rebekah, Laban, Keturah, Esau, Jacob/Israel, Leah,
  Rachel, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dinah,
  Potiphar, Tamar, Perez, Zerah, Manasseh, Ephraim.

  Exodus:  Moses, Zipporah, Gershom, Jethro, Aaron, Eleazar, Joshua, Hur, Nadab, Abihu, Ithamar, Bezalel, Uri,
  Nun, Oholiab, Ahisamach.

  Leviticus:  Mishael, Elzaphan, Uzziel, Molech, Shelomith, Dibri.

  Others:  David, Solomon and Sampson were not Jews, among many others...
 

[Mike Fieschko]

[piling on]

Thanks from me for the article. Though my interest is purely an amateur's, I, too, enjoy attention given to these events.

[Don Myers]

bttt

[FReethesheeples]

Mega-bump for Crisis magazine(!):

This article was published in SPECIFIC response to

Bill Clinton's outrageously arrogant Sept. 2001 speech at Georgetown Univ. in which Clinton put forth

the brazenly distored historical LIE (!!)

that the Sept. 11th WTC & Pentagon attacks were

(get this)

caused by the Crusades!!

[KellyAdmirer]

Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world.

Interesting article, if a bit thick on the "Crusaders were only good and Godly" angle. I can understand that theme, the Crusaders in general probably did have pure motives.

However, blaming the Fourth Crusader decision to attack and sack Constantinople - a pre-eminent Christian city and the recovery of whose captured lands had been the reason for the Crusades in the first place - on Greek betrayal is going completely overboard. The Venetians in control of the Crusade (by virtue of having the ships) used the Crusaders to reduce the Eastern Romans to ruins without any pure motives at all. They did it to build up their own trade in the region. That was the betrayal, not some dis-honored promises made - and no doubt know to be impossible to fulfill in advance by the shrewd Venetians - by the pretender to the Byzantine throne who was used to "justify" the raid.