Jonah Goldberg reacts to Lord Obama's moral equivalence.

[BaalChatzaf]

In a recent prayer breakfast speech Lord Obama reminded us here in the west not go get on our high horse in criticizing the brutalities of Islam. He brought up the matter of the Crusades and in effect he said we are just as bad as they are.

Here is Jonah Goldberg's response to that horse pucky.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398030/horse-pucky-obama-jonah-goldberg

Jonah Goldberg is the author of "Liberal Fascism"

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Francisco Ferrer]

I'm glad Jonah Goldberg has taught us that the Crusades were "a defensive war" to recover Holy Lands conquered by Muslims.

That means that the thousands of fellow Christians killed by Crusader soldiers on their way to the Middle East must have been Muslims in disguise. That means that the siege and sacking of Constantinople, the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the largest city in Christendom; the vandalism of the Imperial Library of Constantinople, the last of the great libraries of the ancient world; and the desecration the Eastern Orthodox Hagia Sophia cathedral--must all have been to "protect" Christian life and property.

No wonder Goldberg was such a big fan of that other sham of "defensive" aggression, the Iraq War.

"Defensive" Crusaders sacking the Christian city of Constantinople.

[anthony]

FF, Savage times, all round. Quoting this writer whose source for a defensive war is B. Lewis:

""The Crusades could more accurately be described as a limited, belated, and, in the last

analysis, ineffectual response to the jihad--a failed attempt to recover by a Christian holy

war what had been lost to a Musim holy war", writes Bernard Lewis, the greatest living

English-language historian of Islam".

I've seen three articles on the President's speech, all invoking "moral equivalence". Yes, but not far enough.

Objectively, this comparison is a "moral sanction", I believe.

[Francisco Ferrer]

They vital point is that for for thousands of Christians who had nothing to do with the fall of the Holy Land, the Crusades were a vicious and unprovoked offensive war. One would not guess that from reading Mr. Goldberg, whose agenda has no room to admit that Jews also became targets of armies on their way to Jerusalem and inside the hallowed city.

[Brant Gaede]

I'm glad Jonah Goldberg has taught us that the Crusades were "a defensive war" to recover Holy Lands conquered by Muslims.

That means that the thousands of fellow Christians killed by Crusader soldiers on their way to the Middle East must have been Muslims in disguise. That means that the siege and sacking of Constantinople, the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the largest city in Christendom; the vandalism of the Imperial Library of Constantinople, the last of the great libraries of the ancient world; and the desecration the Eastern Orthodox Hagia Sophia cathedral--must all have been to "protect" Christian life and property.

No wonder Goldberg was such a big fan of that other sham of "defensive" aggression, the Iraq War.

"Defensive" Crusaders sacking the Christian city of Constantinople.

Love that horse. He's appalled, his rider is not.

--Brant

the sack of Constantinople ironically weakened it to Muslim conquest and the near fall of Vienna hundreds of years later

[anthony]

...has no room to admit that Jews also became targets of armies on their way to Jerusalem and inside the hallowed city.

Illuminating detail, thanks, if not quite unknown to me. No wonder that the Jews then sought the lesser of two evils away from Christendom, under the protection of Arab lands - albeit as second-class citizens (dhimmis). The wheel has turned since: a major portion of Judaephobes are now Muslims and the secular Left, while (non-Catholic) Christians are their main support. For Jews, nothing much new under the sun.

[Brant Gaede]

"The Real Crusaders"

http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/1419/2/

[Francisco Ferrer]

From the linked article:

We, the Christians, the Crusaders, the West, we had nothing to do with the destruction of Arab civilization. All this Al Qaeda fulminating about “the Crusaders” is just a phony rationale for their pathological hatreds.

Where is the evidence that Al Qaeda's attacks were provoked by the Crusades of the Middle Ages? The actual motives appear to be quite different.

Hopefully, this history will enable those liberals not inextricably buried in self-mortification to resist their perennial call for America and the West and the Vatican, et el, to “apologize” for the Crusades. Apologize... to whom? Certainly not the Arabs. Certainly not the Turks.

Who specifically has been issuing a perennial call for an apology? But if there is to be an apology, how about one to include Crusader murders of Jews and fellow Christians?

[BaalChatzaf]

From the linked article:

We, the Christians, the Crusaders, the West, we had nothing to do with the destruction of Arab civilization. All this Al Qaeda fulminating about “the Crusaders” is just a phony rationale for their pathological hatreds.

Where is the evidence that Al Qaeda's attacks were provoked by the Crusades of the Middle Ages? The actual motives appear to be quite different.

Hopefully, this history will enable those liberals not inextricably buried in self-mortification to resist their perennial call for America and the West and the Vatican, et el, to “apologize” for the Crusades. Apologize... to whom? Certainly not the Arabs. Certainly not the Turks.

Who specifically has been issuing a perennial call for an apology? But if there is to be an apology, how about one to include Crusader murders of Jews and fellow Christians?

The loud mouth Muslim crazies often rail about the Crusaders.

[Brant Gaede]

Loot, slaughter, papal dispensation.

--Brant

them were the days

then--the black plague

[Francisco Ferrer]

From the linked article:

We, the Christians, the Crusaders, the West, we had nothing to do with the destruction of Arab civilization. All this Al Qaeda fulminating about “the Crusaders” is just a phony rationale for their pathological hatreds.

Where is the evidence that Al Qaeda's attacks were provoked by the Crusades of the Middle Ages? The actual motives appear to be quite different.

Hopefully, this history will enable those liberals not inextricably buried in self-mortification to resist their perennial call for America and the West and the Vatican, et el, to “apologize” for the Crusades. Apologize... to whom? Certainly not the Arabs. Certainly not the Turks.

Who specifically has been issuing a perennial call for an apology? But if there is to be an apology, how about one to include Crusader murders of Jews and fellow Christians?

The loud mouth Muslim crazies often rail about the Crusaders.

Does not address the author's unsupported contention that Al Qaeda is a response to the Crusades of the Middle Ages or the claim that some (unnamed) liberals have been calling for an apology for those Crusades.