Redstate

Those people . . . look back into the distant past at wars between the Caliphate and Christendom, and see not just lessons to be applied against the Islamofascists, but rather old scores to settle.

Being a Conservative, I look back "into the distant past" in order to better understand who we are, because who we are is to a significant degree a question of from whence we've come. After September 11, it became abundantly clear that a whole huge aspect of this question had been forgotten: namely, that distant war between "the Caliphate and Christendom," which is raging still today, but is older than virtually anything else in the world.

It is great human story, with sympathetic figures and terrible villians on both sides. Any man, I think, who has the least taste for tales of military valor, who loves to read of when, where and why men, not so unlike himself really, took arms in hand and shed their blood against other men -- any man such as that will neglect this story only at the cost of abiding ignorance. To know the legends of battle, to feel the pressure of martial drama, has almost always been an indispensible constituent of any true patriotism.

With that little lecture in mind I hope, Neil, that you will me forgive my irritation with what appears to me a dismissive and even resentful attitude toward those who do indeed look to distant battles for more than mere "lessons to be applied."

When I read of the shattering of Turkish fleet at Lepanto by the Christians of the Holy League, or the discipline of Charles Martel's heavy infantry at Tours, or the deliverance of Vienna by the Polish King (on, as it happens, another September 11), or any of another thousand such stories, it is not with a clinical detachment; it is not in order to mine it for a lesson to apply today. It is to know who I am, what I owe to my ancestors; to feel in my bones the inheritance that has been won for me, at terrible cost. And I don't mind rootin'. Thank God for Charles Martel. Thank God for Don John of Austria. Thank God for King John Sobieski.

It is a curious patriotism that refuses to make use of its legends, its grand tales of heroism and valor; and which holds out a fastidious sense of impartially between the men who gave us by their blood our liberty, and the men who wouuld take it from us.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

There are good guys and bad guys in history, no doubt about that. But your posts on this site make it clear that you aren't trying to assign blame collectively to all Muslims for the actions of the corrupt and evil men who have taken control of most majority-Muslim countries.

Nor have you shown any interest in doing what the old warriors who fought back the armies of the Caliphate, would have been perfectly happy to do: eradicate Islam in all areas claimed by Christendom.

I, too, take sides when I read history. West against East, Scotland against England (don't ask me why), Peace against Conquest.

But I'm not about to try to do what the people I'm rooting for would try today, nor do you I suspect. Some would, though.

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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.

Nor have you shown any interest in doing what the old warriors who fought back the armies of the Caliphate, would have been perfectly happy to do: eradicate Islam in all areas claimed by Christendom.

I mean, this is quite a claim. After Lepanto, for example, it is true that Don John argued that the League's fleet ought to sail on to Constantinople and retake it -- I repeat: retake it, as in liberate the great city from her conqueror. It is true, also, that the Crusaders aimed to drive Islam from the ancients Christian Holy land -- but again: this was very sincerely conceived as a liberation, and by golly it's hard to gainsay that conception. If the Allied invasion of France (which was, beyond all doubt, an invasion) was just because it aimed to deliver a captive nation, then on what grounds can we deny that judgment of the Crusade? One of the great victories of the First Crusade was at Antioch -- a city which has once been one of the vibrant centers of primitive Christianity. It wasn't until the 20th century that Christian (or at any rate European) armies invested the primitive lands of Islam. The great bulk of the wars under consideration here were fought on lands originally Christian (and made that way, with few exceptions, by peaceful conversion) and only later Islamic.

Now, most of my comments on foreign policy amount to a counsel of far greater moderation than our current policy -- you are right in that respect. I have not called for Crusades, and will not do so. I am content to leave the Muslim nations alone, with the stipulation that if they give aid and comfort to our enemies, we will react with firmness.

I suppose there are indeed some pining for a renewed Crusade, but these are exceedingly rare. In my experience there is much more belligerency from those possessed by a notion of a Crusade for Democracy, than from those possessed by a healthy suspicion of Islam.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

I mean, this is quite a claim. After Lepanto, for example, it is true that Don John argued that the League's fleet ought to sail on to Constantinople and retake it -- I repeat: retake it, as in liberate the great city from her conqueror. It is true, also, that the Crusaders aimed to drive Islam from the ancients Christian Holy land -- but again: this was very sincerely conceived as a liberation, and by golly it's hard to gainsay that conception. If the Allied invasion of France (which was, beyond all doubt, an invasion) was just because it aimed to deliver a captive nation, then on what grounds can we deny that judgment of the Crusade? One of the great victories of the First Crusade was at Antioch -- a city which has once been one of the vibrant centers of primitive Christianity. It wasn't until the 20th century that Christian (or at any rate European) armies invested the primitive lands of Islam. The great bulk of the wars under consideration here were fought on lands originally Christian (and made that way, with few exceptions, by peaceful conversion) and only later Islamic.

You're right. They were liberations, they were fighting back. That's why I said "all lands claimed by Christendom," rather than "all lands."

But war then wasn't the same as war now. Back then there was no Geneva convention, no Red Cross monitored system of prisoners of war, no Rules of Engagement for urban street fighting. And I think there are some people who have a nostalgia for that.

Because it's equally hard to argue that America's enemies outside of the West have shown any inclination to follow the "Rules of War" that we so doggedly work to maintain. And it's hard to argue that following these rules hasn't given an immediately military advantage to our enemies who don't follow those rules.

I suppose there are indeed some pining for a renewed Crusade, but these are exceedingly rare. In my experience there is much more belligerency from those possessed by a notion of a Crusade for Democracy, than from those possessed by a healthy suspicion of Islam.

You're absolutely right that the Crusaders are rare. If they were common, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

But in this Internet Age, fringe groups can have influence beyond their size. So it's worthwhile to write against them, I think, the same way it's worthwhile to write against any group that gives bad advice.

But I wouldn't criticize you for being unhappy with the Post, though. That was raw hurtful emotion expressed there in that column, not reason.

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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.

For this week, though, I am rooting for the Knights of Malta to go down HARD.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.

Actually the Knights won their great victory against the Turks on September 11, 1565.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

the radical terrorists, the silence of the moderates is deafening. Instead of cowering in fear, moderate Muslim's need to speak up, and more importantly take actions against the facist wing that has twisted their religion. If not, many of the moderates will be swept up along with the fascists as civilized society sternly deals with the terrorists.

Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum

Well if he didn't sit on it, why didn't his editor, is what I want to know.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

Oh take it easy, man.

There has been nothing even approaching this level sustained, premeditated vituperation here at RS. Perhaps you refer to a certain recent comment thread where both participants got a little bent out of shape. Well calm down. That's over, and it ain't gonna happen again.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

No specific event could be said to be the subject of my comment. Like you, I'm concerned by this tactic, most often used by the left, of branding people as hate-criminals guilty of thought crimes. As is evidenced at my blog, it has been a frequent topic of mine since my first day online, with regard to more than just religion and more than just liberals.

This is simply one more example, albeit by a member of a different group than normally would use such tactics.

absentee

Paul just said that: the Democracy spreaders are as aggressive as the Crusaders.

I'm really going to have to think about that a bit. The view I've held is that the Neocons, while wrong in their philosophy and how they reason things out, do by definition agree with us on the policies that matter.

But maybe that only applies to domestic policy. I'll have to think.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.

I don't believe I said anything was surprising. But in any case, while I do certainly think there has been some very unfortunate penetration of the American right by the sort of inclination to purge once so prominent among Trotskyists and the like, it is hardly isolated to the neocon side. The bitterness and ease-of-abuse is plenty evident among the paleos too, rendering some of them quite unreadable. Praise Abraham Lincoln in front a crowd of paleoconservatives and see what sort of reaction you receive, if you want to test this.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Re: Abraham Lincoln

It isn't so much the inclination toward ideological purges that concerns me. That is a normal feature of political movements. What troubles me instead is that the ideology for the sake of which those purges have been and would be conducted is so similar - unsuprisingly so, given the common origins - to that of self-identified leftists. The earthly paradise has the new name of liberal democracy, and the new man is defined by consumption, but the armed faith in "The Future" and the list of enemies (clergy, aristocracy, tradition, family, nationality) are the same, and there is nothing conservative about them. An intelligent Trot like Christopher Hitchens understands this, but my party, the Stupid Party, that is, is too busy congratulating itself for converting a leftist to realize that he hasn't changed at all, but rather that it has. Meanwhile, there are paeans at NRO's the Corner to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and praise for the Spanish Communists in The Weekly Standard. It's a world gone mad.
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...conservatism, in the philosophic sense, does not define the conservative movement; rather, the conservative movement now defines conservatism...

So that's why the marinara sauce is always oddly... metallic... when I make it. I'll have to warn my wife.

Joking aside, we do have neocons who read this site. There's even at least one who has front-page privileges.

Moe

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.