I think it is safe to say we are on a collision course with submission to the will of Islam. It is, as they say, but a matter of time. I am captivated by this latest round of buzz in the open media and across the internet regarding Islam's shock and outrage over being offended, this time by the number one man of the Christian God; the Pope himself. Why, to read the New York Times [subscription required] one would think a tremendous crime has been committed against the whole of the Islamic world, and only a " deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal" will save the world from a war between Islam and the West. Excuse me? Is that NOT where we already find ourselves today, but for those fearful of having to actually admit to the now thirty year long modern-day crusade we have been fighting? Let us do a little fact-finding on the matter, shall we? There were, by Wikipedia accounts, 13 crusades of major import. They are reported to have lasted, perhaps, about 250 years. A read through THIS will give you as much first-hand knowledge of this as I happen to possess, but you will surely see rather quickly that Christendom pretty much had their butts handed to them throughout nearly ALL of the crusades in which they fought. It seems, in the minds of historians, that the general idea of these wars was to either preclude or counter the expansion of Islam into the territories and homelands of those that Christianity had worked centuries to convert. The crusaders of the day were all manner of men, and not very many of them were free from horrible crimes of torture, murder, and mayhem. They seemed to believe their fight was just and true to their God, and that the manner in which they conducted themselves was consistent with the types of actions necessary in warfare to achieve ultimate victory. The first crusade, in fact, was initiated by the Pope of the day-Urban II.
The immediate cause of the First Crusade was Alexius I's appeal to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to help him resist Muslim advances into territory of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071, at the Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine Empire had been defeated, and this defeat led to the loss of all but the coastlands of Asia Minor (modern Turkey). Although the East-West Schism was brewing between the Catholic Western church and the Greek Orthodox Eastern church, Alexius I expected some help from a fellow Christian. However, the response was much larger, and less helpful, than Alexius I desired, as the Pope called for a large invasion force to not merely defend the Byzantine Empire but also retake Jerusalem.
Most of us get the idea that Christians can no more stand above on some higher platitude of morality than our Islam enemies of old; we fought just as dirty (many times more so) as they did. We get it. This was, as I calculate things, a stout 750 to 1,000 years ago or so. A continued search thru Wikipedia will ultimately imply (if not almost directly state) that Christendom, for the most part, gave up on its crusading ways sometime around the beginning of the Renaissance of the 12th century. I will take all corrections and criticisms that follow this claim, but in historical context it makes perfect sense to my feeble mind. Having essentially lost the fight to prevent the spread of Islam, the so-called "West" took to a newfound inner focus, leaving those who had defeated them to fend, literally, for themselves. And why not? Life was starting to get a far sight better than it had been in the middle, medieval ages. There were new discoveries, expansions into strange, exotic new lands. Technology (by their definitions) was taking off and there was money to be made, lives to enrich, and social orders to climb. To leave behind butchery and mayhem for a new "enlightenment" would have been perfect for our ancestors of that time. In the interest of preventing this from fast becoming a 100,000 word history lesson (a subject on which I am FAR from skilled) I fast forward to modern-era Islam and the West. We have before us a belief by many in what we call "radical Islam" that our presence in Israel and the greater middle east is an incursion; a crusade to rout them out of that which they have fought and died to keep and defend for lo, these thousand or so years hence the middle ages. In fact, while apparently refuted by some, Osama bin Laden may actually be a creature of our own making. It is alleged that he was recruited by our own CIA under the Carter watch, more specifically by Zbignew himself, to help us help the Afghans resist and ultimately defeat the Russians. Now, since I have no proof, I'll leave it this way; it is ALLEGED that bin Laden may have been recruited or at the very least rooted for by the US because we saw through him an opportunity to see the Russians defeated in Afghanistan. Regardless of its truth, it begs the question: why do we help people win wars against others, then cry foul when it is done to us in places like Iraq, or Lebanon, or Palestine? But I digress. We face today, wherever we have been killed or blown up, an enemy behaving now not unlike we behaved ourselves 1,000 years ago. Our enemy conducts themselves consistent with the types of actions they believe necessary in warfare to achieve ultimate victory, and they do so in the name of "their" God. Our problem in this modern-era crusade is twofold. On the one hand, we recoil in civilized, refined, and smug horror at the behavior of these "barbarians". Our shock and disbelief at their blowing up of buildings and children and their hiding among and behind the skirts of their women to avoid capture and death has our sensibilities reeling. We are, in many ways, just as self-absorbed in our advancements and accomplishments and the civilized nature we choose to define ourselves by now as we were in the 12th century. We seem more concerned about how we are perceived in the eyes of our neighbors and friends than perhaps even how we perceive ourselves when we look in that euphemistic mirror. Our obsession with image and position and rank and possession continues to blind us to the truths of human behavior; that in life we are only as good or evil as the circumstances find us to be confronted with. And, in death, we are likewise defined by the circumstances that surround us at our "crossing over" to the other side - whatever and wherever that may be. Our enemies are much more astute about us than we seem to be about ourselves. They understand that our sense and sensibilities prevent us from being willing to face evil and fight back the hate and resentment that accompanies it in kind. We are much too self-absorbed in political correctness, and the need to be liked and the foolish attempts at trying to make people that want our deaths over any form of coexistence, actually LIKE us. Death for death's sake has become a higher standard than accomplishments in life for our enemies, and we seem unable to fathom this or behave accordingly. This truth is getting us killed in ever-increasing numbers, and our own ignorance drives our pursuits of comprehension and remedy inwards, toward our political leaders, rather than outwards where it belongs; at the hands of, and in the faces of, our enemies. Our second problem is our inability or unwillingness to call this what it really is; a war between religions. To suggest as much immediately brings shrieks of resistance and opposition. Those who would see themselves as the cause of the fight, or find in themselves the resolution to it, continue to take the field in the battle of ideas on how to cope and deal with the acts of violence we live through first hand here in the US, or watch unfold abroad in places like Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Darfur, Somalia, or so many others. It is not polite in our enlightenment to suggest that opposing views of Gods and Saviors are the fodder for violence; rather a lack of understanding and insufficient negotiations and agreements and capitulations are all that lie between the situation today and the "world peace" that is just a compromise or treaty away. Like in the 12th century, we find in war and bloodshed a great disdain that is better replaced with "stuff"; technology and art and music and social status. Like in the 12th century, we face a defeat at the swords of our enemy, hastened by our continued denial of that which feeds it. Like in the 12th century, we choose to ignore, to divert, to "change the subject" to more agreeable matters than to dig deep within ourselves and find the survival instinct, lost a long long time ago, that will be necessary to see future non-Muslim generations survive and thrive. The life our ancestors of Christian belief found themselves confronted with after the cessation of Crusader hostilities came to be known as Dhimmitude. Wikipedia tells us this about Dhimmitude:
Throughout Islamic history the native non-Muslim populations living in dar al-Islam, the lands occupied by Islam, were subjected to special provisions that only permitted them to privately practice their faith under restricted conditions, requiring them to pay a poll tax and often requiring them to wear distinctive clothing and to subscribe to a protocol of conduct that gave deference to the Muslim population. According to historians such as Bat Ye'or, dhimmitude is a status nefariously designed to bring about a profound psychological and social degradation of the non-muslim populations, in some ways similar to slavery. Persons and entire cultures undergo an identity transformation whose most profound characteristic is the loss of self-respect and cultural cohesion and a kind of cultural amnesia. Much of what is attributed to Islamic civilization was, in fact, the product of the dhimmis — mostly Jews and Christians, whose ownership or authorship of these artifacts was expropriated by the Muslim masters. Moreover, and perhaps worst of all, dhimmitude often led to the destruction of families and even whole ethnic groups. Today the term dhimmitude is often used to allude to the conduct of non-muslims who submit to the terms of the dhimmi by ceding their own or their subject's individual rights such as free speech to placate Islamic pressure groups.
Between the Muslim reaction to the Danish cartoons, their reaction to the words of the Pope, and the continued demands of our friends and neighbors like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Nasrallah to remove Israel from the face of the map, it is fundamentally clear that Islam sees this as a crusade and are fighting accordingly. While Iran believes the Pope's words were conspired by Israel and the US "to undermine the glorious triumph of Islam's children of Lebanese Hezbollah, which annulled the undefeatable legend of the Israeli army and foiled the Satanic and colonialist American plot", and as Iran's President suggests that Iran can better lead the world , we in America and elsewhere around the Christian and Jewish world continue to be ambivalent. We fight, then we withdraw. We kill, then rebuild. We remove some from power, then allow replacements of similar nature. We defeat, then regret. We win, then we defer. We can't seem to remember what ultimate defeat of the enemy looks like, or how total victory feels to the victor. The old saying "to the victor go the spoils" has become some obscure one-liner that seems lost on those who would lead the prosecutions of wars from the West. We absolutely don't recall what expected appropriate conduct of the defeated is supposed to look like. Any remedial review of headlines over the last 48 hours will show a clear and distinct battle plan from the "infidels" about how to deal with Islam. We must apologize , we must be tolerant and understanding, and we must recognize that our own actions and behavior are at the root of the problems between the opposing cultures and ideologies. We must stop calling it what it is, and we must label and package it in such a way that Islam is placated and our sensibilities can be restored. We must "dhimmify". People of the Book , listen up. As Jews or Christians, or anything of an infidel flavor, you will be ALLOWED to live and continue in your quiet religious pursuits. You WILL, however, be expected to do so quietly and without pretense, and you will publicly declare your acceptance of, tolerance with, and deference to the principles, practices, and positions of Islam. You will recognize the Quran as the holy word that it is, and you will disavow any words or deeds that would undermine or subvert the teachings and practices of the Islamic faithful. Wait. We already do this. I guess we HAVE become Dhimmis, and as People of the Book are allowed by Sharia law, as long as you pay your taxes to the Ummah, allow for Islam to be considered the superior religion, and Mohammed the one true prophet (even if, quietly in your own home you don't REALLY think this), your life will be spared and your children's children will wear burquas. As of this writing, the modern-era crusades are being waged with much the same outcome as they did so many years gone past.
