[RebelDawg]

Some real history for my left leaning liberal "friends"

--Dawg

[PeterPrinciple]

Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands

Not the history of the popular press.

[Icthus]

Great Post....thanks.

[tet68]

Zoroastrianism is extinct? Man how the time flies!

I was just watching him on the Disney channel.

[nunya bidness]

Can you read this and tell me what to think?

[remaininlight]

BUMP

[JulieRNR21]

BRAVO BUMP

[redhawk]

Good find Dawg, Thanks!

[crazykatz]

What the Orthodox Christians suffered at the hands of the turks/muslims in the Balkans and points East was just awful.

[Honorary Serb]

The original rationale for the Crusades was more than justified--a defensive war against the international muslim jihad, with its goal of world conquest. But when the Crusaders attacked the Jews and the Orthodox Christians--especially the horrible sack of Constantinople and the establishment of the phony "Latin Empire"--that was something else, which defeated the whole purpose (as the above article indeed says).

All of this history still affects us today. The "Western" attack on the Serbs (which still goes on today), and the bigoted Serbophobia and even Pravoslavophobia (hatred of Orthodox Christians) spouted by so many of the "Western" pundit class is the biggest example in the world today. (The Nazi holocaust, primarily directed against the Jews, but also against Serbs and Russians, was another example.)

All of this is not only criminally unjust, but detracts from our need to fight the international muslim jihad, which is again resurgent.

[robbinsj]

The good professor is somewhat revisionist in his thinking. Funny how he left out the fact that the Mongols were kicking everybody's butt, Christian and Muslim alike, GENGHIS KHAN, THE MONGOLS AND ASIA, TO 1300. A careful reading will illustrate the role of the Mongols in the Professor's two dimensional view of the 12th Century.

The one exception to Mongol victories was their defeat by Egyptian forces, but heck, the Crusaders also took a licking along the Nile!

[Bonaparte]

More on the Crusades...

[My Identity]

Some FR Threads on the Crusades:

The Real History of the Crusades
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/661560/posts
What really happened

The Battle over the Crusades
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/517546/posts
Myths, legends and anti-Catholic "histories"

The Crusades in the Checkout Aisle
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/665181/posts
More Nonsense from U.S. News & World Report

War has its Roots in the Crusades
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/549342/posts
U.S. drawn into conflict that began 1,000 years ago

Crusades: A defensive operation
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37b3506b6e8a.htm
Historical and theological problems for apologists

[Tokhtamish]

The reconquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act of restoration and an open declaration of one’s love of God.

The reconquest of Jerusalem was a massacre/sack of the Muslim and Jewish population that was recognized as savage even by medieval standards. Contrast it to Saladin's chivalrous, humane respect for Christians in Jerusalem when the city changed hands.

It did not take long for the crusading impulse to swing from a front where the demographic situation was hopeless (Palestine) to one where Western power could simply muscle over weak, fractured local powers (the Baltic, the Balkans, Spain). The only lingering legacy of the capital C Crusades is the occasional blonde Palestinian (Suha Arafat).

[stuartcr]

"While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way."
What other kind of behavior would you expect from a people whose environment is a desert? Would you expect them to have the same religious beliefs as say, a Germanic tribe living in a forest at a higher latitude? Would you expect them to be like a a steppe nomad? Islam was born into a region with very little resources. You fight for water, you fight for food, you fight for a mate. Everything a desert nomad had, except maybe for some dates, he had to fight for and take. Winner lives, loser dies.

[Utah Girl]

Ping for history.

[weikel]

Good post I think bot religions had a lot of intolerant fanatics at that time but intolerant fanaticism is more intrinsic to Islam so the Crusaders should be viewed as heroes even if there conduct was not always noble( the 4th crusade was a particular example the Crusaders sacked Constantinople).

[MarMema]

Good one thanks, Rebel.

[livius]

Good post. I'm going to buy his book.

[IrishCatholic]

Great read. Bookmark for later reading and printing out.

[JoeSixPack1]

BTTT for a lot of reasons!