How to Think About the Crusades

Commentary ^ | July 2005 | Daniel Johnson

[Slump Tester]

OK - I was wrong to call it tripe. I quit reading when I got to the part about owing muslims an apology.

[Slump Tester]

Who said anything about converting them?

It's pretty simple really. They start it, we finish it. (post 35 is the easiest solution)

Then we have their undivided attention.

[quidnunc]

Windsong wrote: Pure trash.

In what respect(s) is the article trash?

[T.L.Sink]

DAM is spelled DAMN. Perhaps just a foolish typo.

[quidnunc]

T.L.Sink wrote:

DAM is spelled DAMN. Perhaps just a foolish typo.

Nope, it's the way Paul Greenberg writes it in is columns and if it's good enough for Paul Greenberg then it's good enough for Free Republic.

[T.L.Sink]

Paul Greenberg may write it "in IS columns" but incorrect spelling is not good enough. If an expert like Wm. Safire told me it was correct I'd believe it -- but who the hell is Greenberg? P.S. Does Greenberg also say it's correct to spell "his" as "is" ? Perhaps not another foolish typo but a proper spelling of which I'm not aware.

[quidnunc]

A little full of yourself tonight, aren't you Bubba?

Here's the chorus of a little song that comes to mind.

Get over it
Get over it
All this whinin' and cryin' and pitchin' a fit
Get over it, get over it

PS: Paul Greenberg is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

[Stopislamnow]

The only thing I need to know about the crusades...is they failed and were not visionary enough to annhilate islam totally.

Eliminating islam then would have saved thier progeny much pain and suffering.

I just hope we don't keep making the same mistake by ignoring the plain and blatant fact that terror is synonymous with islam.

[The_Crunch]

To those of you who believe that this piece is anti-crusade, go back and read the parts you didn't bother to. The second half talks about how the crusades were a justified response to Muslim conquest.

[T.L.Sink]

I was over it before you launched you overly-defensive comments. William Duranty won the Pulitzer prize too, but at least he could spell " Stalin". By the way, you demonstrate your insecurity by making an issue out of nothing but didn't respond to my serious comments on your post. But perhaps I'm foolish to expect anything of substance from somone who'd prefer to defend an incorrect spelling and make that the issue. I think I know what you're full of, Bubba.

[The_Media_never_lie]

If there is one thing that everybody knows about the Crusades, it is that they were a Bad Thing. In the eyes even of most Christians, let alone others, the Crusades were a crime against humanity, one for which apologies are due, especially to Muslims. When the Muslims appologize for the crimes they are commiting against humanity today then maybe we should consider appoligizing for the wrongs Christians comitted yesterday. The Jihads brought the Crusades in the past, similar to today.

[GSlob]

"And this is a Good Thing, right..."
It is as good a thing as the survival in civilizational war. And such survival is a good thing.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

BFL

[lainde]

bttt

[muir_redwoods]

My comment was meant to be funny or at least ironic.

[grey_whiskers]

Forgot about the other part of that stanza...Picking up where I left off:

May the Hero born of Woman crush the Serpent with his heel

While God is marching on!

Chorus

I always liked the part about

As He died to make men holy

Let us die to make them Free!

etc.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

The Ottoman Turks beseiged Vienna twice, in the early 1500's and latter 1600's.

This is hardly "medieval" as most people think of it: overlapping (say) both Shakespeare and Plymouth Rock.

What if Muslims had captured the heart of Europe in the 1500's or so?

[IonInsights]

Crusades: Stopping the Xenomorph invaders at the gates of Venice many hundreds of years ago.

[bert]

What is most important now, in the new age, is the contemplation of the Last Crusade. It is now possible to in one day eradicate from the earth the pillars of Islam.

If push comes to shove, the Holy sites can be literally eliminated, obliterated from the earth. Islam without Mecca or Medina or the Dome of the Rock or the shrines in Karbela is no more. With no Mecca to face in Prayer or to visit in Haj, the reason for living as a Moslem is gone.

[bert]

In my experience in dealing with Arabs, the hate comes from sin, the sin of the leftist hollywood types and of the Jewish controlled Media ala NY Times and ABC.

It can be argued that Arabs invented capitalist business.