Posted on 11/26/2001 9:07:31 PM PST by ouroboros
Five days after declaring war on terrorism, the president urged Americans to be patient: "This crusade ... is going to take awhile." Immediately, the cry arose, "How could he be so cruelly insensitive!"
Bush was scourged and admonished that he had insulted the Islamic world. Did he not know the Crusades were wars of criminal Christian aggression marked by pillage and massacre? The president apologized, and no one has since embraced the dreaded term.
At Georgetown, Bill Clinton suggested Sept. 11 may even be payback. "Those of us who come from various European lineages are not blameless," said the paragon of the Woodstock generation. "In the First Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the temple mount. The contemporaneous descriptions of the event describe soldiers walking on the temple mount, a holy place to Christians, with blood running up to their knees. I can tell you that story is still being told today in the Middle East, and we are still paying for it."
But why Americans, whose first president was a Mason who did not take office until 1789, should be slaughtered in 2001 because of a crusade preached by a pope in 1095, Clinton left unexplained.
A little history. In 600 A.D., the Mediterranean basin was largely Christian. But within a century of the death of Mohammed in 632, armies of Islam had conquered Syria and Palestine, swept over North Africa, and overrun Spain, only to be defeated at Poitiers by Charles Martel. Had they triumphed, Christianity might have died in Europe, as it would in the cities of Augustine and Athanasius.
"The common assumption that the Crusades were an act of unprovoked Christian aggression" is false, writes Warren Carroll, the historian of Christendom. Before 1095, "all the aggression had been Muslim. The Muslims were the original and continuing attackers and conquerors of Christian territory." Only after centuries living in fear of the hosts of Islam did Urban II preach the First Crusade.
The goal that animated the Crusaders was Jerusalem. "Those who deride this as a Christian objective have lived too long in books and under lamps," writes Carroll. "Real men and women, as distinct from scholarly abstractions, have homes which they love. Jesus Christ was a real man. He had a home. He loved it. His followers [and] worshipers who came after Him loved the land and places He had loved and trod, simply because He had loved and trodden them. Utterly convinced that He is God, they could not believe it right that any people not recognizing Him as God should rule His homeland."
A majority in Palestine was probably still Christian in 1095, writes Carroll, "They had ... as much right to their land as the Muslim conquerors." If Mecca were overrun by heathen armies, would not Muslim peoples be justified in launching a "jihad" to liberate their holy city? Would they apologize or be ashamed of having done so?
The Crusader armies, led by Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse, captured Jerusalem in 1099, where a massacre did occur. But that same evil befell the knights, and their wives and children, when the last Crusader castle, Acre, fell to the Mameluks in 1291. Have we heard any apologies for the slaughter at Acre?
Offered the title King of Jerusalem, Raymond and Godfrey both refused to wear a crown of gold in the city where Christ had worn a crown of thorns. It was an age of faith. The First Crusade, writes Carroll, was "a just war conducted for a deeply spiritual purpose, though often seriously flawed in its execution." As was World War II.
After that Good War in which British Air Marshal "Bomber" Harris incinerated thousands of refugee women and children in Dresden, Dwight Eisenhower titled his memoir "Crusade in Europe." If he was not ashamed of the term, why are we?
Because this generation has been indoctrinated in a pack of lies by the moral sappers of the 1960s nesting in our schools. To them, Western Civilization is an abomination. The greatest explorers, like Columbus, are genocidal racists. Our founding fathers were slave-owning hypocrites. The soldier-statesmen of Western empires were brutal imperialists. Now, we must also be ashamed of crusades launched to recapture, in the name of our Lord, the Holy Land seized from Christendom by the armies of Islam.
The great enemies of the West today are its over-privileged children who are undermining this greatest civilization the world has ever seen. If we should be ashamed of anything, it is for having twice elected one of them as president. Bill Clinton could not carry the sandals, let alone the sword, of Godfrey of Bouillon.
Patrick J. Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the Reform Party’s candidate in 2000. Now a commentator and columnist, he served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist of three national televison shows, and is the author of six books. His current position is chairman of The American Cause. His newest book, "Death of the West," will be published in January.
All points aside, the quality of the writing amazes.
Gone forever.
Your man is no conservative.
An example would be this article from the American Muslim Council convention:
Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan addressed the luncheon which followed. Drawing parallels between himself and the American Muslim community, Buchanan told the audience they have shared family values and a belief that abortion is wrong. Islam’s influence, he said, is “on the rise, and I believe the influence of your community in this country is positive, it is beneficial and it is desperately needed in an age when I see our country going in the wrong direction.
Buchanan was not the only politician there. However, the way he presents himself as a spokesman for America First and a defender of Christian culture seems a bit hypocritical. Buchanan panders for hyphenated-American and "multicultural" votes just the same as any other pol.
Except now we have one more vote in the Senate to take away guns, promote abortion, raise taxes, approve liberal judges, increase the size of government and expand the power of unions.
But since when did any of these things really matter to people like you?
If anything, Buchanan was far TOO MILD in indicating the circumstances of the FIRST CRUSADE. Indeed, after over 400 years of ISLAMIC oppression the Seljuk Turkish Muslims were threatening Constantinople and the Eastern Empire. That's what finally precipitated the FIRST CRUSADE.
Hence, BUMP for mild truth.
Don't you just sleep better knowing that he's in the Cabinet, doing to another branch of government what he did for immigration reform while in the Senate?
I would like to see all the cabinet officials be pro-life. I would like to see all prolife generals running the war in Afganistan. I would like to see all prolife police and firefighters helping the WTC victims in NYC.
But getting all prolifers can be a little difficult. Just ask Pat Buchanan about why he asked a proabortion communist to be his campaign chair or why he asked a proabortion Teamster president to be his vice-presidential candidate.
If Buchanan was not even willing to commit to a prolife running mate or campaign chair, what do you think his cabinet would look like?
JimRob said you are allowed only on the "Freeper" thread, not others.
That means a lot coming from a guy who disagrees with my statement claiming that Buchanan has a public image problem.
You are the one being intellectually dishonest. And you are the one who cut and ran.
Generally ... those with the reading and comprehension deficits are exactly the first to yell "BUSH HATER" if someone criticizes the so-called "Bush" decision to legitimize and perpetuate with federal funds embryonic stem cell research.
We've got folks who think he's calling GW a marxist (not the Mason he was) and who miss entirely his use of "scourge" to describe the treatment of Bush. C'mon, a comparison of Bush to Christ, er, Bush's favorite philosopher? Pat's coming around, baby! =)
Of course, I have no problem with the crusades and pray every day that the Holy Father will call another one to liberate the Holy Land from the Mohammedans and Zionists. If he does, I'll sign up the same day. I know it probably won't happen in my lifetime, but who knows?
Of course Buchanan has an image problem. Who wouldn't with guys like you going around throwing out hundreds of accusations hoping at least a few will stick. There isn't a guy around who would bring up the issues Buchanan has that wouldn't receive the same treatment from you. Your comments that he has part of the right message, only he's the wrong messenger, is a self-serving lie in itself. Number one, you don't give him credit for his message, because you ALWAYS folow up even the slightest hint of agreement with more slanderous charges. Beyond that, there could NEVER be a right person to deliver his message, and you know it. You and your buds would trash them in the same manner as you have Buchanan. And then after about seven years of it, you'd be saying, well some of their message is right, but they're the wrong messenger. Your a dufus. You think nobody is on to you. Think again.
As for me cutting and running, I simply let you out yourself. Then I left you in a heap of ashes. You've been scorched partner. If you're too subliminal to know it, why should I waste my time restating the obvious.
As for intellectual dishonesty, I don't really mind you screwing with everyone else's minds. I expect it. But you can't even be honest with yourself. Now that's pathetic.
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