Western Victories Over Islamic Hordes

I don't think so; they are not winning by any means. Mao most definitely had a huge and displined army...these lazy sheiks could also have one, since there are no jobs for their enormous litters of whelps.

"Warrior" is a soldier willing to fight, to face combat. Lenin managed to bring communism from within against a weakened monarchy, but it took the great army of Russia to overrun Hungary. It is telling that these petty murderers will strap a bomb to their teenage daughters to get money from Saddam...but they don't organize a real fighting force.

There's a real lack of energy to these Arab tyrants. They'll dip into their treasure to hire Filipinos and Palestinians, but it is not part of the Koranic ethos to work very hard.

the "West" vs. "Islam" conflict of today bears no relation to the conflicts of the past.

Not to us they don't, not so sure about them. Look how 2 men
in an old Chevy put the fear of God in so many people.

What would happen if there was 1000, or more just like them?

When Moors concurred Spain, they brought civilization with them --- from public schools to sanitation. During Renaissance, the West has learned anew the wisdom of the Greeks, and it the Muslims had preserved it for them. Long before, these works had been translated into Arabic and had become core of educational process. It was also their knowledge of astronomy and cartography that has enabled the voyages of Columbus: that knowledge was transmitted in al Andalus and even more extensively used in Portugal since mid-1400.

That sounds to me like a pro-Catholic PC BS.

And the famous "three cultures" (Christian, Jewish and Muslim) that people gush about was the city of Toledo, in Christian territory, ruled over by a Spanish Christian King (Alfonso X).

Most notably it was not Toledo but Seville, and the relationship were increadibly harmonious between for over 700 years.

Incidentally, that has not been the case at all ever since Isabella the Catholic who quickly made Spain sterile: she expelled not only Moors but her own non-Christian subjects subjects as well -- Jews and Roma. I find it interesting that, after the greatest of catastrophies, the Holocaust, there are bout 7,000 Jews in Munich 50 years later. In ontrast, there are no Jews in Spain, even 500 years after expulsion.

It was also very telling, when the official guide of Alhambra first of all pointed to the church on the hill. There you are, standing in the most magnificent creation of the Moors, suspended in time and space, but the lecture had to begin with the church that Isabella erected after tearing down the mosque.

The Sunday school history may not always be the authentic one. (FOr another good comparison consult Fiske on the Albigences affair, and then consult the official Catholic Encyclopaedia: what a difference).

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