Deadlocked Dog Days of The Crusades

Everything I know I learned from the Crips and the Bloods

Published on May 27, 2004 By blogic In Philosophy

I've been listening to Ice-T's "Colors" the last day or two, on endless repeat. Predictably, that's led to lots of thinking about stalemated wars.

By the way, I don't remember how good the movie is (although I do remember that it has a long love scene in the middle, that seems to go on for over 20 minutes, yawwwwn...), but an early scene has the camera viewpoint pulling back a riotous scene of young men in an LA jail, grabbing at each other between bars, seemingly trying to tear each other apart. Neither side has any chance of winning, and other than for the participants, no one gives a damn.

So, that led me to the wikipedia, and reading about the Crusades, which is just fucking embarrassing. I mean, in the Second Crusade, most of the Christian army gets off at Moorish Portugal, and the remnant that continues is defeated in a four day battle. In the Fourth Crusade, the army *never* makes it to the Holy Lands. Instead, they sack Constantinople, accelerating the process that will end in the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire two centuries later.

For hundreds of years, Christendom and Islam fought each other, and didn't really accomplish anything, other than indirectly giving Europeans the Advance of Technology and Weapons (play the game of "Civilization"), which led to them figuring out that not only was gunpowder pretty (for fireworks) but it was also useful for killing lots of people.

But basically, the Crusades were just pathetic, and didn't accomplish anything other than killing lots of people on both sides.

Adam

Comments

Anthony R

on May 27, 2004

The thing is, Spain is considered to be Islamic territory by Al Qaida militants who go back to the 8th century Moor to make that claim, Al Qaida cells will keep attacking Spain from Morocco whether they withdraw from the war on terror or not.

blogic

on May 27, 2004

Interesting. I didn't know that. I do think that since Europe needs Middle Eastern oil just like the U.S., Europe is as much a long term target of Al Queda as the U.S. is. As I understand it, Al Queda wants the Western presence to be gone from the Middle East, and as long as the First World needs oil, that's not going to happen.

kingbee

on May 27, 2004

moorish occupation of spain was all that saved much of the roots of western culture from being destroyed during the middle ages. the islamic libraries in spain (the most famous of which was in cordoba, a city that unlike any in christian europe had paved streets and streetlamps) contained over 600,000 manuscripts, many of which were the sole remaining sources since there were no libraries elsewhere in europe.

that doesnt justify anything al-quaida does or claims. europe enforced equally specious claims to 'their' territories in aftrcia through the better part of the 20th century

MasonM

on May 27, 2004

Guess I missed the point. Don't ALL wars kill lots of people?

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