The whole free world has a common enemy and that is Islam. The continuity has been somehow lost because of subsequent rise of ideological movements that threatened the free world, namely Communism and Nazism. However, the world did fight the Ottoman Turks during WWI who were a major Islamic force at that time. The Americans have experience fighting Musselmans in North Africa--the Barbary pirates. For some reason this fact seems not to play into the current war with Islam and the Mohammedans.

Posted by: savsiv at July 12, 2008 8:11 PM

"What if on their respective anniversary’s, Western news stations made it a point to remind viewers that, today in history—Arabia, or Syria, or Persia, or Egypt, or North Africa, or Spain, or Central Asia, or Anatolia, or the Balkans—fell to the sword of Islam."

Yes, I'm sure that every day in the year is the anniversary of some Moslem massacre of non-believers.

OT, but the picture looks more like a still from "Alexander Nevsky" than an illustration of the Third Crusade.

Posted by: ebonystone at July 12, 2008 8:18 PM

An Arabic proverb says "first comes Saturday, then Sunday."

It means that Arabs are going to exterminate Jews before they exterminate Christians.

Posted by: Ummah Gummah at July 12, 2008 8:21 PM

Raymond, hope you won't mind if I don't comment. Just got your book in the mail and will be busy this evening.

Posted by: USBeast at July 12, 2008 8:28 PM

The past is the permanent present for retrograde Islam, a "faith" which can never progress beyond the paralysis, both spiritual and intellectual, decreed by its warlord "prophet".

Mohammedans love picking at the bittersweet scabs of such old wounds (the outrages of the "Crusaders", et al) rather than working to end suffering, now, because this smug distraction allows them to avoid assessing their manifold failures, whether military, scientific, or psychological, which might hint at a deeper failure within their Koranic dogmas.

Posted by: profitsbeard at July 12, 2008 8:44 PM

Sir Richard de Foxley, my ancestor, was knighted by Richard the Lionhearted during the siege of Acre in 1191 and I am supremely proud of this fact!

Posted by: descendantofacrusader at July 12, 2008 8:45 PM

All us Kaffirs celebrate by visiting

http://salibiyyah.blogspot.com/

Jihad is their way, Crusade is ours!!!

Posted by: SoteriA at July 12, 2008 8:47 PM

How nice of them to remind everyone of an infidel victory! Very inspiring!

I thought this was an interesting news item:

France: "No Woman Enslavement Allowed"

Good news, hopefully, that will last!

Posted by: Suziq at July 12, 2008 8:51 PM

Of course Al-Jeezera fails to mention that the reason the Crusaders showed up was the direct result of centuries of Muslims onslaught and slave raiding reaching well into the scandinavian areas.

The Crusaders were not attacking, they were counter attracking..

Posted by: pulsar182 at July 12, 2008 8:57 PM

I agree…however..one small (very small) quibble..

The picture appears to be some Teutonic Knights about to attack some Lithuanians, or Russians, or Poles (or all of them at once!). It appears to be from the Northern Crusade…not one of the crusades better moments.

Battle of the Ice perhaps? Russians vs. Teutonic Knights…

Sorry to be a pain…

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at July 12, 2008 9:08 PM

Bit off topic, but interesting:
Some progress as a former member of Hizb-ul-tarir recants, but he still clings to "traditional" Islam, you know, the "true" Islam, the religion of peace. At least he's right about Islamic extremism being an ideology.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330944608&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Posted by: jewdog at July 12, 2008 9:35 PM

Typical, as this is the age they all want to revert to and take all of us 21st century people along with them. Too bad for them that we are people that choose to PROGRESS.

Posted by: gymgal at July 12, 2008 9:46 PM

Thanks for the insight from Arabic sources. As for the picture and all the comments, I find it rather inspiring (but then again, I am Christian).

Posted by: shechild at July 12, 2008 9:47 PM

Nobody wants to be a loser.

Its true: the West has lost its collective arse to islam and we still live in denial. The former center of the world, the lands around the Mediterranean sea, have all been lost to Islam and nobody makes a sound.

I consider myself fortunate that I went to a school were history, the crusades and the wars against the Mussulman was still taught. We learned about Lionheart and Barbarossa, and how Constantinople was sacked and finally conquered by the soldiers of Allah.

We learned about all these things and I pity the kids today who have no idea about history. And I curse these PC-wankers who teach our kids kumbayah instead of talking Turkey. (I mean literally)

No, we're on a slippery slide. The greatest civilization in human history will die from collective suicide.

Those who are supposed to lead us are being led by their collective noses, by greed, ignorance and stupidity. We really need to get our act back together.

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at July 12, 2008 9:50 PM

Good points Raymund.

Posted by: Kafir Nonbeliever at July 12, 2008 9:58 PM

Ramond,

I am glad you point this out and as others have posted this and other things have happened through history that were a result of Islamic aggression.

I have been reading several books covering the middle (dark) ages. These need to be recast in a better light to counter the enemies revisionist history. There are many dots that can be connected from 600AD on. Here are some, the Portuguese were sailing around Africa in the 1400's. Christopher Columbus was asking the King and Queen of Spain to sail west to Cathay (Chine). They were both after spices and wealth from the far east.

Now why do you think the Portuguese and Columbus and the rest of Europe were going to all this trouble? It is because the Muslims were blocking the most direct way by land. Here is another tidbit of information. Columbus's voyage was delayed for a year or so because Spain was finishing up kicking the Moors (Muslims) off the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) back to Norther Africa.

As far I can tell the Franks, Goths, Visigoths and others were all fighting with one another until the Muslims invaded. They then united to drive them out. There was a strong religious idea behind this as well. These savages had over run the Holy Lands. This was also thought to be important and is why they went to fight in what is now Israel today.

It is important to change the general publics perception of these events. Most have been feed that we were the bad guys. This is the lie that is being pushed today when just the opposite is the truth.

Posted by: Im.mad.as.HELL! at July 12, 2008 10:20 PM

Right, ebonystone and GreatComet, the scene reminds me of "Battle on the Ice" from the 1938 Soviet movie, "Alexander Nevsky."

Posted by: John C at July 12, 2008 10:40 PM

Perhaps the Portuguese can celebrate the day Of October 25, 1147 when King Alphonse I united with English, German and Flemish Crusaders culminated a 17 day siege of Lisbon and drove the Muslim occupiers out defeating five brigades. When the Muslims point out the synchronicity of their war with non-Muslims (like this article does) going back to Mohammad himself, we should also point out our history of defending our civilisation against them.

Posted by: Briars at July 12, 2008 10:45 PM

Acre is now an Israeli port and town of 40,000 people--Al-Jazeera is insinuating that the historic ancient town is part of the Muslim irredenta.

Posted by: John C at July 12, 2008 10:49 PM

What an anachronistic load of rubbish, this AJ retrospective!

Posted by: John C at July 12, 2008 10:50 PM

Face it, Mohammedan fantasists, you're NEVER going to get it back, get that into your thick Islamic skulls--never in all the accumulated temporal error reckoned as fictitious years of the Muslim Era ad infinitum!

Posted by: John C at July 12, 2008 11:00 PM

Deus vult!

Posted by: John C at July 12, 2008 11:03 PM

Is it any wonder why the majority of muslims still live back in the Middle Ages?

They're still fighting the Crusades when the rest of the (civilized) world has entered the 21st Century.

Posted by: PorkFatRules at July 12, 2008 11:05 PM

Thus says Y H W H Shabaoth.

Posted by: John C at July 12, 2008 11:11 PM

hum...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HiMgW9yd7w

Posted by: interestinconundrum at July 12, 2008 11:18 PM

One of the books which I happened upon in my browsing the stacks was regarding Muslim "historians" view of the crusades.

I put the word historian in quotation marks because there is no general historical method of relying on prime sources, or even the slightest attempt at even handedness in relating events.

One detail that I find very telling is that the arab historians of the day refer to the crusaders as franks, frankish, wether they were of norway, or france. Nowhere in the arab historians writings are the reasons for the invasion mentioned.Nowhere are the invaders termed crusaders.

Thus it seems to me that when we hear todays Mahometans talking of crusaders, they are using a western term, since the original sources term the invaders frankish.

Posted by: stickman at July 12, 2008 11:34 PM

"They [Arabs and Muslims] zealously cling to their past."
-- from the article above

Yes, they cling to "their" past, as long as that past is the past that came after the pre-Islamic past that went before, which is merely one long Jahaliyya, or Time of Ignorance. There is no real interest in that past, though one will find the Iraqi peacock-proud that "civilization started here" -- but he won't know about that "civilization," won't have been part of the discovery and recovery and study of that "civilization" -- Ur and Babylon and Assyria, for that was a Western thing, a thing that Western Infidels, from Henry Austen Layard to Leonard Woolley, undertook. And while some Muslim Egyptians[Copts are a very different matter, because they know, even if they do not always say aloud, that they are the true inheritors of Egypt's civilization, they are the ones linked continuously back to Egypt's pre-Islamic civilization, including the language that existed before the Arabs arrived and came, in fits and starts, to reduce the Coptic percentage of the population (massed forcible conversions were not unknown, especially in certain centuries when a ruler would be particularly aggressive in "spreading" the "truth" of Islam).

Islam is, as has been written here before, "history-haunted." It has to be. It has to be because in order to make up for the obviously miserable actual state of Muslims, their civilizational disarray, their primitiveness in everything that should matter and by which civilizations are judged -- and that excludes the trillions of dollars in unmnerited oil revenues, and will continue to exclude them, no matter how many Western skyscrapers and companies and luxury goods and palaces at home those trillions buy.

Instead, they look back to a mythical past, of highly-exaggerated glories: the wonders of Old Fustat (Cairo), the splendors of Baghdad. In this narrative, the non-Muslims who contributed so much, to what there was, are not recognized. It's an "Islamic science" and "Islamic civilization" when, in fact, if you take away many who were Christians or Jews or Zoroastrians, or if not that, if converted to Islam, then only one or two generations removed from being Christians or Jews or Zoroastrians, and in any case, the numbers of non-Muslims was still sufficient, in the first few hundred years after the initial Islamic conquests, to ensure that the milieu would not be bleakly Islamic.

But now, because of the behavior of the Muslims themselves, they have been emptying out their lands of non-Muslims. The Jews -- who, for example, constituted a third, an important enlivening third, of the popoulation of Baghdad in the 1920s -- are all gone, driven out, or killed. The Chrisetians hang on, here and there, but they were killed en masse in Iraq -- 100,000 Assyrians massacred -- after the British left in 1932, and the exodus of the past few years, in response to the Islamic terror, has led to a dimidiation of Christian numbers, with more decreases to come. In Egypt, the Copts hang on, and even exhibit, at times, the usual depressing phenomenon of islamochristian attitudes when, with Muslims in power and of course vigilantly observing, they cannot complain as they would like about their status, and they often must parrot the party-line about Israel -- while they are held captive to Muslim masters in Egypt. When they attain freedom in the West, they can and are more candid, less frightened, less wary.

And of course all those Levantines -- those Greeks and Italians, as well as those Armenians and Jews and other nationalities, who once made Cairo and Alexandria more interesting places, where in high-ceilinged coffee rooms, with newspapers including locally-produced French and English language newspapers, one could sit, and read, and talk to one's friends, and play cards or possibly tric-trac, and now I find myself practically writing some Farouk-era scene -- or back, back further, to the last days of Lord Cromer -- for the script of some movie, to be filmed by some Egyptian director, full of nostalgia (see "The Yacoubian Building") for those Italians, and Greeks, and Jews and Armenians,and all the others, including British subjects, who were booted out by Nasser, and all of their property seized (that had been slowly amassed over many generations).

No, Ungaretti and Cavafy were both born in Alexandria. But there won't be any more ungarettis or cavafys coming out of Egypt. There won't, similarly, be much coming out of Baghdad, no latter-day mutannabis from a Muslim-only land, out of a culture that thinks of poetry now as merely an extension of propaganda -- see Adonis on the state of "Arabic literature" (he says angrily that "there is no Arabic literature" but only propagandistic trash), nor out of the Maghreb, now that the French (and others -- Spanish, Italians, Jews) left Algeria, and Morocco, and Tunisia. The wasteland that Islam creates -- and that is obvious to all, which is why Muslims themselves keep harking back to some earlier time, some time when, their books exaggeratedly tell them (the Self-Esteem problems of an entire civilization is a difficult task to deal with), and things were so different, and they were sitting on top of the world.

But one wants to say, as one looks over the past thousand years or so of Muslim history, and failure to produce -- see the West, see the East (the real East) -- to the Islamic world, something like:

What Have You Done For Us Lately?

And then one would like to go further, and see how many of the most advanced people who were born into Islam, and live in that world, can begin to catch a hint of a glimmer of why it is that Islam itself, its view of the individual as unimportant and merely part of a collective, the Umma, or Community of Believers, a mentally submissive Believer who must be a "slave of Allah" and never dare to question the rules set down by Allah (and derived by Islamic scholars from the Qur'an, as glossed by the contents of the Sunnah), must indeed be punished for any display of free and skeptical inquiry, which prevents the enterprise of science (though not of technology, not for example of computer engineering or certain kinds of medical practice -- but not scientific research, unless undertaken in the West, by someone who though nominally a Muslim, has become only a "cultural Muslim"). And art, the varieties of artistic expression that are simply haram in Islam -- all sculpture, and depictions in paint, or drawings, of living creatures, and most music, so that one is left with calligraphy and architecture.

All of this, at some point, intelligent Muslims and Arabs are going to have to recognize, little by little, and some are even going to have to discuss it openly. And that will be made easier for them, if we Infidels show that we are perfectly at ease in recognizing that the political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual failures of Muslim states and societies, polities and peoples, are connected to the texts, and tenets, and attitudes naturally arising from those tenets, of Islam itself.

If we show that we not only can laughingly reject the nonsense about how the "root causes" of Islamic disarray, and violence, and aggression, and failures, have nothing to do with us, and everything to do with them, and what's more, we can articulate it -- though never as well as the defectors from Islam are able to do, for they know where every little secret lies, and we don't -- that is the only way to bring about the kind of "change" that makes sense in the Arab and Muslim world. That, and not the messianic sentimentalism of the Administration's squanderings in Iraq.

Posted by: Hugh at July 12, 2008 11:49 PM

Al-Jazeera's a collective ass but these Muslim turkeys unwittingly help prove that the Islamic approach to real estate is that what's theirs is theirs but what's the kuffaar's is up for grabs.

Posted by: Wellington at July 13, 2008 12:22 AM

Briars -

I like your story about Portugal. We *need* to remember these stories of co-operation and victory, just as much as we need to name, remember and mourn the suffering of the victims of jihad - the sacked cities, the desecrated places of worship, the people murdered or enslaved.

Every child in the western world should be learning by heart G K Chesterton's poem, "The Battle of Lepanto".

Does anyone else know any other poems and songs that might profitably be made better known?

We should be making films about Charles Martel and his men, who saved Western Europe in 732; about the Knights of St John of Malta in 1565; the siege of Vienna in 1529 and the victory at Vienna in 1683. I understand some Poles were working on a film about the last-mentioned - entitled simply 'Viktoria', with the tag-line, 'we came, we saw, but God gave the victory'. I hope they hurry up and finish it - it sounded shamelessly un-PC and celebratory.

We can recover our cultural memory - and unlike Muslims, we will do so with ruthless accuracy, thankful for our ancestors' heroic achievements, but not glossing over follies and failures (it was proper for the King of Spain to offer an apology to the Jews; it is proper for western Christians to repent and mourn the folly of the attack upon Constantinople by Latin Christians, which fatally weakened the city's ability to resist Islam).

We in the west need to find out more about the Russian resistance to Islam.

We need to examine, and learn about, and rejoice over, not only the reclamation of Portugal and Spain from Muslim invaders and occupiers, but the deliverance of Malta, Sicily, southern Italy; the sufferings, resistance and liberation from Turkish Muslim rule, of Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Southern Romania; the long resistance of the Maronites.

The return of the Jews and the restoration of Israel need to be seen and *celebrated!!* in their proper light - as the resurrection of a land and a people out of the black abyss of the Empire of Islam. Who will make a film about Orde Wingate - who helped teach the Zionists the art of war? He was a much more interesting person than 'Lawrence of Arabia', even if 'Orde of Judea' doesn't have quite the same ring.

The Jewish wars of liberation and self-defence in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 could be told with accuracy - and with unashamed joy that the Jews prevailed and the murderous Arab Muslim imperialists and supremacists were cheated of the genocide and pillage that they desired.

We can also find out, examine and celebrate the heroism of other peoples and civilisations who resisted Islam - the Sikhs and Rajputs in India, for example. We can mourn their defeats and celebrate their victories.

We need to think very carefully about what made for victory and liberation in all these cases, and what made for defeat and failure.

It's all there, buried in a mountain of old books. It just needs to be brought back into the light.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 13, 2008 1:00 AM

the hated Crusaders were back again, doing what they’ve been doing ever since the Crusades
good maybe this time we will do better than last time
given how the mud-lisms are still living in 700 ad mentally

Posted by: ISLAMSNOTFORME at July 13, 2008 1:01 AM

"Whatever one can say about this phenomenon, about how Islamic history seems to permeate everything in the Arab world, one thing is clear: it is effective and an advantage that the Western world lacks—a sense of collective history and continuity, which, if the West publicly held to it, would trace back to the first century AD; a number of grievances and unsettled accounts against “traditional” enemies, such as the Muslims, would not only be acknowledged but quickly redressed. As in the Muslim world, context and continuity would be created."

Posted by Raymond

The world may have been burned years ago, if we as a nation held the view that a enemy is always one, never to be forgiven.

Hugh has stated many times how it is to our advantage to use, that lack of the followers of islam to forgive, (even events that are colored in fog and time). For they do remember, and hold to everything, and never forget, never forgive.

It is a great weakness, not a strength, one that has cost islam much, and will continue to do so.

Posted by: Islofob IS-1 at July 13, 2008 1:19 AM

Pulsar182 wrote:

Of course Al-Jeezera fails to mention that the reason the Crusaders showed up was the direct result of centuries of Muslims onslaught and slave raiding reaching well into the scandinavian areas.

The Crusaders were not attacking, they were counter attracking..
.............................

Sheik Yer'Mami wrote:

I consider myself fortunate that I went to a school were history, the crusades and the wars against the Mussulman was still taught. We learned about Lionheart and Barbarossa, and how Constantinople was sacked and finally conquered by the soldiers of Allah.
............................

I agree with you both. The state of history education in the West is really pathetic--and there is no need. Ironically, there is some excellent historical scholarship these days in the West, and yet the average kid with a high-school education is almost completely in the dark--much worse than the situation even a few decades ago.

What history he is taught is apt to be entirely bowlderdized, with a focus on trivialities, and, especially, a negative view of European and American heritage.

So why the Al-Jazeera referrence to Acre? Probably mostly because of the corollary to the capture of Acre by the crusaders in 1191, which was the bloody reconquest exactly 100 years later, when Acre fell to the Mameluks in 1291.

Why is this so significant? Well, Acre was the final stronghold of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. Oh, the crusaders hung on here and there, but it really marked the end of an idea of a Christian levant.

Here's an interesting footnote: The crusaders had signed a ten-year truce in 1289 with the Mameluk sultan. Hmm--a ten year truce--a hudna--made by Muslims with non-Muslims. This was just two years before the Muslim attack on Acre. Do we see a historical pattern here?

So the Muslims must have rejoiced over regaining this great city, that was so historically and strategically important--right? Well, not so much. The city was conquered again in 1517 by the Ottomans, after which it fell into almost total decay.

Henry Maundrell, an English traveler in the levant in 1697 found it a complete ruin, save for a caravanserai occupied by some French merchants, a mosque and a few poor cottages.

Well, it perked up a bit under the British Mandate after WWI. It was originally slated to be part of the Arab partition state, but after Israel was attacked in 1948, it wound up in Israeli territory.

John C wrote:

Acre is now an Israeli port and town of 40,000 people--Al-Jazeera is insinuating that the historic ancient town is part of the Muslim irredenta.
...........................

Absolutely--I think you are correct. Now that Acre is a thriving city, it is attractive to Muslims again. Israel is doing wonderful archeological work there, which would be severely threatened under any possible future Muslim rule. Acre is also home to a large population of Bahá'í, and of places holy to that sect. Considering the shameful persecution of this group in Iran, I doubt that they would much look forward to another round of Muslim rule, either.

Of course, I doubt it would take Muslims very long to turn Acre from a vibrant city to another economically-moribund, violence torn hell-hole. Let's hope they aren't given the chance.

Posted by: gravenimage at July 13, 2008 1:44 AM

Dark Ages Pwnage! W00t!

God's lil' Acre!

Posted by: 29Victor at July 13, 2008 2:13 AM

I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it is meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
- Pope Urban II

Posted by: feralcat9 at July 13, 2008 4:31 AM

Mosques are plenty, graveyards are plenty, but
morals and whiskey are scarce. The Koran does not permit Mohammedans to
drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral.
- Mark Twain

When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane, not in all things, but in religious matters. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic — for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it.
- Mark Twain

Posted by: feralcat9 at July 13, 2008 4:33 AM

Imagine there's no Islam
It's hard but you can try
No suicide hijackers coming down at us
Above us only sky
Imagine all those people
Still alive today...

Imagine there's no Islamic countries
It's hard but you can try
No Mohammad for them to kill or die for
And no Imams too
Imagine all the Christians, Jews and Infidels
Living life without them...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday all dhimmis will join us
And the non-Islamic world will be as one

Imagine no Burkhas
I wonder if you can
No need for Medina or Meca
A brotherhood of non-Islamic woman and man
Imagine all the people
Living without Sharia...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday all dhimmis will join us
And the non-Islamic world will be as one

Posted by: feralcat9 at July 13, 2008 4:36 AM

I agree dumbledoresarmy. Why aren't we making films depicting battles like Covadonga and Adrianople both in 718, Tours in 732, the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Janos Hunyadi and the battle of Nandofehervar (Belgrade) in 1456, Lepanto in 1571, Vienna in 1529 and 1683 etc, and commemorate these battles, and get through to us what would be happening to us today had the Islamists won all of them. It seems they've got round to making a film about Jean Parisol de la Valette (I wonder if we'll have film rage), or does this film make the Knights of St John look like the bad guys). Back in 1938, the film The Four Feathers was released depicting the cruelty of the Dervishes and the Mahdi, and the epic scenes of Omdurman. How politically incorrect.

Posted by: Spirit Of 1683 at July 13, 2008 6:17 AM

And if they make a film about the fall of Constantinople in 1453, political correctness will ensure that we will not see scenes of worshippers being butchered inside the Hagia Sophia, and the three days of raping, looting and murder that followed the fall of that city out of respect for muslim sensibilities. It will only show scenes of handshakes, high-fives and back-slapping all around.

Posted by: Spirit Of 1683 at July 13, 2008 6:26 AM

Raymond,
"palestine" is an anachronistic name for the Land of Israel at the time of the Crusades. To my knowledge, under the pre-Crusades administrative division of the Levant, there was a military district named Filastin which --I believe-- excluded `Akko, including only the southern part of the country, excluding northern Samaria, Galilee, Golan, etc.

the name of the city in Hebrew is `Akko [Acre in English and French].

Posted by: Eliyahu at July 13, 2008 6:38 AM

What if on their respective anniversaries, Western news stations made it a point to remind viewers that, today in history—Arabia, or Syria, or Persia, or Egypt, or North Africa, or Spain, or Central Asia, or Anatolia, or the Balkans—fell to the sword of Islam, with all the gory details? Surely Western viewers, in general, would certainly find such “reminders” offensive and better left unsaid.

Posted by: Spirit Of 1683 at July 13, 2008 6:44 AM

Raymond,

You're probably aware that at the Al-Jazeera website they provide a full transcription of all their interviews. It's a tremendous resource.

At staringattheview.blogspot.com "The Tale of Two Women" I wrote about the dishonesty they used in their recent interview with Dalal Mughrabi.

Posted by: ed at July 13, 2008 7:13 AM

From posting above: When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane, not in all things, but in religious matters. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic — for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it.
- Mark Twain

Mark and I are complete agreement...I read what he read (probably a lot more), and I come to the same conclusion.
You can't reason with a drunk. The best thing to do is kick him out of the bar.

Stop and reverse Islamic immigration...

Posted by: duh_swami at July 13, 2008 9:32 AM

Given the Muslim propensity for living in the past and reliving past glories, it's too bad we don't have a time portal to send them all back to Islam's "golden age" - one way.

Posted by: PMK at July 13, 2008 10:05 AM

l was in high school in the 70's, and our history teacher taught us that islam was spread by "The Sword"! Now the education systyem is run for the most part by liberal unionized teachers who are dumming down the children and so they would never teach the truth about our history. They are into victims. This same teacher, wish there were more like him, taught us that most of the early black people who were sold into slavery were sold by the muslim arabs.We never really got into the koran as this was a history class, but you got the gist of how depraved muslim society was compared to the West. l once told this to an American friend of mine about how most of the Black African slaves were sold by Arabs and of course other Black African slaves, and she was simply agast at how l knew this. She is older than l and her teachers were problably too pc even then to teach the truth. And then l read that there were more Eurpeans sold into slavery by Arabs than black African sold to the US! Sadly to say we do not teach enough real history to our children and they have to depend getting out of the trap of PC and do their own research or from their family and friends.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at July 13, 2008 10:11 AM

Al- Jazeera is using their five-minute segment played about the fall of the Muslim city of Acre to the Crusaders to help unify Muslims, protect their religious identity as victims, and develop a collective sense of "us versus them" mentality- which still afflicts much of the Muslim world regarding Christian and Jewish peoples.

Unfortunately, most television historical segments in the west are filled with historical biases which are heavily slanted against a Christian interpretation of events.

Christians throughout the world need to know much more about their history during the crusading eras. Christians need to understand that many of their ancestors went to great lengths to defend their Christian faith from advancing Muslims.

The Crusades: A Brief History (1095-1291)
Written by Robert Jones

http://www.sundayschoolcourses.com/crusades/index.htm

Many Richard and Philip took Acre in 1191 after a long siege, which made use of huge, stone-throwing catapults. As part of the negotiated settlement, the Moslems were suppose to return the relic of the True Cross, seized by Saladin’s troops in 1187, as well as some Christian prisoners. When progress was too slow for Richard’s liking, he had 2,700 Moslems massacred in site of Saladin’s army.

Richard quickly went on to capture Arsuf (September 7, 1191) where he gained the sobriquet “Lion-Heart”, and Jaffa (September 19, 1191). When he was within site of Jerusalem, he received news that his brother John was plotting with King Philip of France against him (the source of the Robin Hood legends). Richard signed a three-year truce with Saladin (September 2, 1192), and started back for England. En route, he was captured by Leopold, Duke of Austria, who turned him over to the Holy Roman Emperor. Richard was kept in captivity until 1194, when he was released for ransom, and returned to England. He died in a battle in France at the age of 41.

Posted by: Johnathan at July 13, 2008 11:58 AM

"Back in 1938, the film The Four Feathers was released depicting the cruelty of the Dervishes and the Mahdi, and the epic scenes of Omdurman."
--- from a posting above

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spMgkyLzDCg

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2008 11:59 AM

al-Jazeera reminds viewers that Muslems must fight the same battle they have been fighting for 1400 years. It reminds its viewers that nothing has changed.

Posted by: Deus_Vult! at July 13, 2008 12:48 PM

I guess we've decided to cancel 9/11 ceremonies this year?

Posted by: djkca at July 13, 2008 2:15 PM

Here's an interesting footnote: The crusaders had signed a ten-year truce in 1289 with the Mameluk sultan. Hmm--a ten year truce--a hudna--made by Muslims with non-Muslims. This was just two years before the Muslim attack on Acre. Do we see a historical pattern here?
by gravenimage

The attack on Acre was preceded by an attack on Tripoli in March, 1289, in violation of a treaty of peace. The sultan then renewed(?) the treaty with Acre but the people understood that his word meant little.
New troops arrived in Acre in August of 1290 but they were poorly-trained. After a few weeks some of the new recruits killed some unarmed Muslim merchants who had entered the city to sell their produce. The ringleaders were arrested and an apology (Christians were apologizing to Muslims over seven centuries ago.) sent to the Sultan. The Sultan seized on the deaths as a reason to resume hostilities.

Wherever they are there will always be a reason for Muslims to break a truce. Israel must clench its teeth if it's attacked by "renegades" who aren't under the control of the PA or whatever the Muslim authority is at the moment, lest it impede the "peace process".

Posted by: PMK at July 13, 2008 5:42 PM

How can Al Jazeera be condemned when you have FOX neo con extremist propaganda masquerading as a news agency? Everything the US accuses others of doing, it is doing itself.

Posted by: jowen at July 13, 2008 7:23 PM

Western media continuously show the same images after attacks against western cities, so why can't Al Jazeera show the daily suffering of Muslims?

Posted by: jowen at July 13, 2008 7:27 PM

Jowen:
Most of the Muslim suffering is caused by Muslims themselves. Whether it be blowing up their own mosques or executing their own people in the streets, the motivation is a sick supremacist ideology encased in a religious outer shell. Thus, the conclusion that Islam is a political ideology and not a religion. This was seen by the Crusaders and the early leaders of our country but not seen by the degenerates who hold power today in Western lands including FOX news.

Posted by: Briars at July 13, 2008 8:40 PM

Hugh, what have you done for us lately…

What on earth do you mean when you say, “how many of the most advanced people were born into Islam”? You sound like a White racist from the 16th Century. What criteria are you using to determine what an advanced person is? You go on to say that a Muslim must be “punished for any display of free and skeptical inquiry, which prevents the enterprise of science” and that any Muslim who is pursuing any scientific research is nominally Muslim and studying here in the West. When I was in college RIT there were some very serious Muslim students from Saudi Arabia who were far from being nominally Muslim. In fact one was so fanatical that I was bothered by some of his behavior. Looking back into the past you should also remember that during the so-called Golden Age of Islam, Christian Monks would travel to Islamic Spain to get an education, were they nominally Christian for learning Arabic in order to understand works that dealt with the various branches of science, music and art? You said that the Muslim world is basically devoid of artistic expression because it is haram, and that what is left is calligraphy and architecture. Did you ever hear of the Book of Songs? It was written by Abu al-Faraj Ali of Isfahan. It’s a 21, volume work consisting of some 10,000 pages. I would like to point you to the work of the Jewish ethnomusicologist Amnon Shiloah who wrote, Music in the World of Islam: A Socio-Cultural Study as well as to the work of Henry George Farmer who wrote, A History of Arabian Music and last but not least Imam Al-Ghazzali, who wrote a chapter on music in his work the Science of Religion. It’s available online in English if you care to read it. www.ghazali.org/articles/gz-music.pdf These works tell a very different story than the accepted version of music and listening to music as being haram and according to various by Farmer and others, European music has been influenced by Arabic/Islamic music from Spain to Russia and even here in the US by way of enslaved African Muslims and the Spanish in Latin America. Speaking of music in 1206 Al-Jazari created a programmable automata (almost 300 years before da Vinci) called the Drinking Boat. It had two drummers, a harpist and a flautist. Al-Jazari is one of the most important scientists in the history of mechanical engineering.

Of course your argument runs the same as others before you that if it weren’t for the non-Muslims who were absorbed into the Islamic Empire nothing wouldn’t be an Islamic science to talk about. Again this is the same kind of “White” European racism that claims to be the torchlight of civilization and you are wrong to state that Muslims didn’t recognize nor give credit to the influence of Christians, and Jews. I’m going to cite one example out of many that proves you wrong. There is a journal published out of Pakistan entitled, The Hamdard Medical Digest, which deals mainly with pharmaceutical medicine and the Hamdard Foundation, the publisher is known throughout the Muslim world. In 1976 they published an issue entitled Al-Tibb Al-Islami, Islamic Medicine and here are some excerpts. The Chinese possessed great expertise in diagnosis… The ancient Hindus regarded Ved as oracular medicine and Shusrat has described some 760 medicines…Ayurveda included animal and mineral medicines and made it into an art…The contribution of the Greeks is the most outstanding, it put medicine on scientific footing, gleaning the knowledge of the predecessor civilizations. The later statement is important because it is the Greeks who never gave credit to those before them and the standard European histories state that civilization began with the Greeks and Romans, the great Classical Civilizations of antiquity, and then came the Dark Ages. The majority of those Classical works might not have survived the Dark Ages if it weren’t for the unlearned Arabs who wanted to study the works of those who came before them and set up schools for the translation of Greek works into Arabic.

Perhaps the funniest part of your diatribe is the nostalgia of a Cairo and Alexandria that were once more interesting places with, “locally-produced French and English language newspapers…and now I find myself practically writing some Farouk-era [movie] scene. You are writing as if you are someone who currently lives in Egypt however you must be living in Cairo of the 1950s and by the way there are still locally published English language newspapers and today’s Egyptian movies look like nothing from, “the last days of Lord Cromer.” I’ve watched some of the movies that are being produced out of Egypt that have English subtitles and some parts even in English when there are scenes that have been shot in the US and the music videos are full of half naked girls shaking their booties and there are Moroccan women in France starring in porno videos and Um Khaltum, the goddess of Arabic music, is sampled and remixed with Western dance music, which is playing in night clubs from NYC to Dubai. So much for your Farouk-era movie scene.

Briars, I couldn’t agree with you more that Muslim suffering is caused by Muslims themselves however to contrast the Crusades and the early leaders of America as being motivated by something other than a supremacist ideology that isn’t encased in a religious outer shell is a fabrication of the truth. Have you ever read some of the writings about how God shined on the Europeans giving them the New World and exterminating the Native Americans by cursing them with diseases? Ironically they got those diseases, from the diseased Europeans who brought their germs with them to which the Natives had no resistance. Europeans were so sick and demented that they thought they could cure themselves of STDs by having sex with their enslaved Africans and the KKK is really a supremacist organization wrapped in a religious shell as were the slave owners and even Hitler who also hated Blacks and claimed that they were the descendents of apes. One of the reasons why African Americans fought so hard in the campaigns against the Germans was because of Hitler’s position on German Blacks, whom were also victims of the Holocaust. The French also manipulated their Muslim soldiers from North and West Africa by claiming that Hitler hated Muslims.

Anyway the funny thing about Al-Jazera is that, even though it was launched by that Prince from Qutar it is run by a bunch of Brits and the main office is in London, go figure…

Posted by: go figure at July 14, 2008 1:40 AM

Why should we be surprised by this blatant Islamic propagand put out by Al Jazeera. They are simply restating a common propagandistic theme in the Islamic world, but now for all to see. The West faces the same age old enemy once again. The reason we are now seeing a resurgence of war by Islamic forces, is because they have the ability to do so. An enemy uses every means at their disposal to win and propaganda is a critical part of warfare.

Our real problem is that we have shaped our world to be nice, no matter what. We refuse to allow for the possibility that we have this very dedicated enemy called Islam. I fully understand that not all Islamic peoples want to chop off our heads. But when the chips are down, they will all fall in line and support those who do.

Posted by: Spot on at July 14, 2008 8:02 AM

The posting by "go figure" is so full of semi-nonsense that I know only too well where to begin but I'm not going to. Vita brevis, vita longa. I've got other things to do, and right now I'm feeling peckish. Lunch beckons.

Posted by: Hugh at July 15, 2008 11:38 AM

Hugh,

When you state that my observations are semi-nonsense, you should give me an education so that I don't make the same mistakes.

I'll be checking back

Posted by: gofigure at July 16, 2008 6:29 PM