Currently, I am listening to a course-on-CD on my way to and from work called "World of Byzantium" which is a history of the Eastern Roman Empire from the time of Constantine. The last part of the course is a section on the Crusades, which were essentially (at least from the perspective of Constantinople) an attempt to secure the Middle Eastern territories of the Roman Empire by borrowing from the "barbarian" Western Kingdoms of the Middle Ages. The East had run out of strength to defy the Turkish Muslim armies, and knew that there was plenty of strength and ferocity left in the West (from Proto-France, Proto-England, Proto-Germany, etc.) The Emperor of Constantinople appealed to the Pope to send Christian warriors to the aid of the "New Rome," and instead of the few thousand trained soldiers that were expected, there was a flood of young men seeking adventure, fortune, and salvation on the way to Jerusalem. They ravaged pretty much everything along the way to Jerusalem,!
including eventually Constantinople itself, and wound up leaving on the Islamic World an image of the West as ravening hordes of amoral killers.
Today, OBL attempts to rally his troops by referring to American forces as Crusaders, because it brings back these historical memories. But nothing could be much further from the truth in Iraq. The soldiers there are professionals, controlled by a strong central authority, supplied by American monies, and with the intention of leaving once a stable government of Iraqis is firmly in place.
Instead, I am stricken by how similar the Crusades of the Middle Ages are to the current Islamic Jihad of today. Both are created and fueled by simple domestic concerns of local rulers. In the case of Byzantium, it was the Byzantine Emperor's need for troops to prop up his weak kingdom. In the case of the Middle East, it was the Saudi king's need to placate radical Mullahs and redirect calls for reform away from their power base. Both are fueled by ambitious young men with dreams of glory and salvation. The Crusaders set out based on promises from the Pope that death on Crusade would mean remission of sin. The Islamic Terrorists set out based on promises that martyrdom means immediate entrance into heaven. Both saw a response far in excess of that expected by the leaders. The Emperor of Constantinople hoped for a few thousand to reinforce his position, and received on the order of 30,000 men bound for Jerusalem. The Saudi kings hoped to simply consolidate and diver!
t dissent of a few troublemakers, and instead allowed the founding of major movements in Al-Qaeda and others. Both are distinguished by a marked lack of understanding of the warrior for those he fights against. The Crusaders marched to Jerusalem and established a series of kingdoms along the way, thinking they could found new empires on the backs of the Islamic locals. Instead, they found that Islam brought together the conquered peoples into a united army that after only a few decades wiped out the Crusader states. The Terrorists attacked the WTC, the Spanish subways, and other symbols of a mechanized and secularized West, thinking this would break the spirit of our people and send us into retreat out of the Middle East. Instead, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and now have no interest in tolerating the more extreme impulses of Syria and Iran.
Many people have been talking about the current conflict being World War III. And to an extent, I tend to agree with them. But I think, after hearing this course, that they are off. This is not World War III, but instead the Islamic Crusade. This has two lessons for us, assuming the present Crusade is like the last one:
(1) We can not expect the current rulers of the Islamic World to help us in this war, because the conflict's very existence shows how little they understood the forces moving their own people, and
(2) The key to victory is patience, because ultimately the battle plan of the terrorists is based on a misunderstanding of Western Culture and this will cause them to make moves which will open them up to final defeat.
I know there are a number of more historically educated people among our posters and readers. What do you think of my analysis?
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