The Ottawa Citizen, a major Canadian daily had the courage to print the following article. While it speaks well for itself, I think its time western peoples had a proper look at what the crusades really where and why they happened and frankly, why it may be time to clone Richard the 1st and get him back to work.
The lost history of the Crusades
Western guilt over, and apologies for, the Crusades ignores one crucial fact: The West actually lost
Robert Sibley, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, April 05, 2008
Thousand-year-old events don’t usually make headlines. But when U.S. President George W. Bush used the word “crusade” to describe the campaign against Islamist terrorism, suddenly an ancient conflict became a hot-button topic.
The president was accused of being insensitive to Muslim sensibilities, even though the Islamists readily denounce western “crusaders” and their Zionist puppets. Indeed, long before the terrorist strikes on 9/11, al-Qaeda leaders issued a declaration of war against “the Jews and Crusaders.” More recently, Pope Benedict XVI was accused of trying to “revive the mentality of the Crusades” after he gave a speech questioning Islam’s propensity for violence. Last month, in another live-from-his-hole-in-the-ground video, Osama bin Laden said the republication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad “came in the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role.”
This is standard fare in the Muslim world. What is perhaps surprising is how many westerners buy into this historical myth.
Like many postmodern westerners, the politician suffers from a peculiar psychic disturbance — western-guilt syndrome — that regards the history of the West as an unmitigated horror show of slaughter, conquest and imperialistic domination. The Crusades are cast as among the darkest of dark episodes in the history of European civilization.
Too bad it’s wrong…..