I’m not an historian by profession, nor do my hobby interests in world history run very deep. However, the current US-Iraqi war has inspired me with an historical question: what are the parallels, if any, with the Crusades<\/b> of the Middle Ages? Is there any common ground between George W. Bush in 2003 and Pope Urban II in 1050-whatever?<\/p>\n
I myself think there are some broad parallels, even some relevant ones<\/b>. In both instances, the most powerful men of the Western world seek to impose a change in government in some highly strategic territory east of the Mediterranean. In the eleventh century, the Turks were threatening western access to the spiritual resources of the Holy Land. One millennium later, a blood-thirsty Mesopotamian despot threatens American access to the economic resources of the oil fields. In both instances, there were deep underlying differences in religious and philosophical outlooks, focusing around the ways of Islam (admittedly, Saddam Hussein is not recognized as a devout Muslim, but you can’t deny that Islam has something to do with the current situation). In both instances, the western leader decided to fight force with force, not for national survival but in the name of a belief.<\/p>\n
Hmm. Unless you are a true pacifist (which I admire, even if I don’t have the guts to be one), you must admit that force sometimes has to be answered with force. But the most robust and legitimate cause for the use of responsive force is self-preservation<\/b>. Unless you’re a pacifist, it’s hard to argue with that. But when higher level ideologies become involved, or when the issue focuses upon economic benefit, the waters become murkier. Was Urban the Second justified in using force projection in order to re-establish Christianity within the Middle East? And is President Bush today justified in using American military might without world support in order to encourage representative government and free-market capitalism in that region?<\/p>\n
Admittedly, it will be a better world without Saddam Hussein in power. But the medicine that Mr. Bush has administered seems almost as bad as the disease<\/b>, given its rending of multilateral security relationships and institutions built up over the past 50 years. And perhaps the ideals of democracy, human liberty and economic freedom become tarnished when enforced too vigorously at the point of a gun. Let me ask this, quite rhetorically: just how successful in the end were the Crusades in promoting within the Levant a system of spiritual thought that had originated there? And can our current military ventures be any more successful in transplanting a system of philosophical and economic thought that is more remote in origin?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m not an historian by profession, nor do my hobby interests in world history run very deep. However, the current US-Iraqi war has inspired me with an historical question: what are the parallels, if any, with the Crusades of the Middle Ages? Is there any common ground between George W. Bush in 2003 and Pope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}