Re: Hiroshima justified? (Invasion should have been attempted at the very least if not carried thru)

[Greg Moritz]

"Linda Terrell" > wrote in message >...

> what's wrong with ending a war as quickly as possible
> and avoiding a costly invasion?
>
> We had a weapon that could end that war in a matter of weeks or
> days. So let's invade and drag it out for weeks and months so
> we can "justify" ending it with a super weapon?

I lived with lots of Japanese folks and studied the language
with native speakers and they all agree that had Japan had such
a weapon, they would have used it. It seems that most of the
hand-wringing over the use of the bomb seems to come from
Americans.

Interestingly, the ignorance of Japanese atrocities is (from
my admittedly limited survey) nearly 100%. People in Taiwan
know all about the Rape of Nanking, but people in Japan don't
seem to know that it even happened.

Has anyone seen/heard any thing different? Just curious.

Also, does anyone know how this thread has managed to multiply
itself to a half dozen? Posts seem to have replicated into
duplicate threads. I post one time and see it four times.

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
(cave fish) wrote:

> "Keith Willshaw" > wrote in message
> >...
> > "cave fish" > wrote in message
> > om...
> >
> > > Also, to say Japanese would have died to the last man in the case of
> > > US invasion based on the evidence of the fanatical fighting spirit
> > > among Japanese soldiers on islands such as Iwo Jima is also
> > > misleading. How do we know civilians would have resisted as doggedly
> > > as the soldiers on those islands?
> >
> > Because the Japanese civilians on Tinian , Saipan and Okinawa
> > did so preferring death to surrender. Then we testimony from
> > the Japanese post war that tells us that they were training
> > women and children to use bamboo pikes to attack Americans
>
> Dropping nukes against people with bamboo pikes sounds rather absurd.

Good, since they were not the target.

> So we are to believe Japan was so run down and desperate that it's
> idea of national defense was women and children with bamboo spears?

No, they were in *addition* to everything else that the Japanese Empire
could muster in the area.

[Cub Driver]

>Interestingly, the ignorance of Japanese atrocities is (from
>my admittedly limited survey) nearly 100%. People in Taiwan
>know all about the Rape of Nanking, but people in Japan don't
>seem to know that it even happened.

Or worse, they deny it. Even reputable historians like Ikuhiko Hata
have lent themselves to this bit of revisionism.

www.warbirdforum.com/deny.htm


all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[Matt Wiser]

"Linda Terrell" > wrote:
>
>> Also, to say Japanese would have died to the
>last man in the case of
>> US invasion based on the evidence of the fanatical
>fighting spirit
>> among Japanese soldiers on islands such as
>Iwo Jima is also
>> misleading. How do we know civilians would
>have resisted as doggedly
>> as the soldiers on those islands?
>
>We didn't, so we didn't take any chances.
>
>
>> The atomic bombs would have been more justified
>if US had at least
>> attempted to invade Japan. If US had tried
>that for a month and failed
>> miserably, perhaps the use of atomic bombs
>would have been more
>> justified, based on more reliable estimates
>based on real experience.
>> But, US didn't even try to invade Japan. It
>just wanted to end the war
>> as quickly as possible and took the most draconian
>measures.
>
>what's wrong with ending a war as quickly as
>possible
>and avoiding a costly invasion?
>
>We had a weapon that could end that war in a
>matter of weeks or
>days. So let's invade and drag it out for weeks
>and months so
>we can "justify" ending it with a super weapon?
>
>Waste soldiers' lives so we wouldn't harm "innocent"
>civilians of
>an enemy country?
>
>Where did youstudy war?
>
>Not ten Japanese civilians were worth one American
>soldier.
>
>We ended it.
>
>LT
Good post, Linda. I concur completely. Japan started the war at Pearl Harbor.
It was ended for all intents and purposes on 6 and 9 August 45 with 15 Kt
on Hiroshima and 20 Kt on Nagasaki. The bombs were far preferable to invasion.


Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

[Matt Wiser]

(Greg Moritz) wrote:
>"Linda Terrell" > wrote
>in message >...
>
>> what's wrong with ending a war as quickly
>as possible
>> and avoiding a costly invasion?
>>
>> We had a weapon that could end that war in
>a matter of weeks or
>> days. So let's invade and drag it out for
>weeks and months so
>> we can "justify" ending it with a super weapon?
>
>I lived with lots of Japanese folks and studied
>the language
>with native speakers and they all agree that
>had Japan had such
>a weapon, they would have used it. It seems
>that most of the
>hand-wringing over the use of the bomb seems
>to come from
>Americans.
>
>Interestingly, the ignorance of Japanese atrocities
>is (from
>my admittedly limited survey) nearly 100%.
>People in Taiwan
>know all about the Rape of Nanking, but people
>in Japan don't
>seem to know that it even happened.
>
>Has anyone seen/heard any thing different?
>Just curious.
>
>Also, does anyone know how this thread has managed
>to multiply
>itself to a half dozen? Posts seem to have
>replicated into
>duplicate threads. I post one time and see
>it four times.
Regarding Japanese attitude on Nanking: A senior Japanese politician called
the Nanking atrocities a hoax by the PRC. The resulting outcry from both
the PRC and Taiwan as well as other SE Asian nations resulted in his apology
and resignation. This was 3-4 years back IIRC. As for Pearl Harbor, a number
of former pilots in Kido Butai have gone back and been welcomed at the Arizona
Memorial by the USN and the Park Service, as well as a number of PH survivors.
The survivors' attitude seems to be "they were doing their job, just as we
were." The survivors attitude towards the Japanese Government is quite different,
however.

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
Cub Driver > wrote:

> >Dropping nukes against people with bamboo pikes sounds rather absurd.
>
> Not if it's your tender belly about to be pierced by a bamboo pike.

Ummm...the nuke would not exactly be helping you much at that point...

:}

[Cub Driver]

>> >Dropping nukes against people with bamboo pikes sounds rather absurd.
>>
>> Not if it's your tender belly about to be pierced by a bamboo pike.
>
>Ummm...the nuke would not exactly be helping you much at that point...

It helped me a great deal, since it made the invasion unnecessary.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

[Matt Wiser]

Pan Ohco > wrote:
>>> ~Michael
>>
>>Yes. Against the prospect of instantly annihilating
>entire populations
>>indiscrimately, I would risk more American
>soldiers' lives. And,
>>unless the invasion was attempted we wouldn't
>know whether it was a
>>good or bad idea.
>>The idea of nuking cities and casually wiping
>out 100,000s in an
>>instant just to save American lives isn't any
>kind of morality.
>
>So the killing of say a 100,000 Americans just
>to see if an invasion
>was a bad idea,is o.k.?
>
>And you would be the first of the landing craft?
>
>
>Pan Ohco
I would hope that he would be in the first amtrac at Ariake Bay (the most
heavily defended) in Kyushu.

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[Steve Hix]

In article >,
Cub Driver > wrote:

> >In 1941 when the Japs attacked the US, we were far from being the most
> >powerful nation in the world!
>
> This is a key point. Our army was not even second-rate--more like
> tenth rate.

We ranked 16th, just after Poland, at the start of WW2.

In no way were we in shape to prosecute a war.

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
Cub Driver > wrote:

> >> >Dropping nukes against people with bamboo pikes sounds rather absurd.
> >>
> >> Not if it's your tender belly about to be pierced by a bamboo pike.
> >
> >Ummm...the nuke would not exactly be helping you much at that point...
>
> It helped me a great deal, since it made the invasion unnecessary.

Sigh. (I know what you meant; my father was on an LST outbound from
Guam to Okinawa when the war ended.)

Someone about to be skewered on a bamboo pike wouldn't benefit much
at that moment from a nuke. It's either too late, or it's too late for
him.

[Richard]

Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
-Rich

[Ed Rasimus]

On 24 Dec 2003 14:41:17 -0800, (Richard) wrote:

>Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
> of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
>-Rich

Maybe because we fear for a product of an educational system that
fails to make distinctions between National Socialists (Nazi) in
Germany and the different political system in Japan.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

[Gene Storey]

"Ed Rasimus" > wrote
> On 24 Dec 2003 14:41:17 -0800, (Richard) wrote:
>
> >Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
> > of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
> >-Rich
>
> Maybe because we fear for a product of an educational system that
> fails to make distinctions between National Socialists (Nazi) in
> Germany and the different political system in Japan.

Actually, the people who complain about us nuking the Japs, haven't
been alive as long as those Japs have been dead. It's a done deal, get
over it.

I'm of the opinion that the US needs to abandon nuclear weapons, as we
don't have the guts to use them, and keeping 1500 nukes on alert every day
could be better spent on more important things (like another Army Infantry
Division).

[B2431]

>From: (Richard)
>
>Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
> of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
>-Rich
>

Because those of us who know the difference between a militaristic monarchy and
National Socialism (Nazi) know full well those who forget the lessons of
history are sure to repeat it. The excesses of Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism etc
are more common historically than most people know.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
(Richard) wrote:

> Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
> of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
> -Rich

Perhaps, knowing that there was no such thing as "Nazist Japs" back
then, they have things of interest to discuss. The more you learn, the
more interesting the world and life can be. :}

[Red Cloud]

(Richard) wrote in message >...
> Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
> of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
> -Rich

that's because ****ing white fatass fascist is taking over the world.

[B2431]

>From: (Red Cloud)
>Date: 12/25/2003 1:59 AM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: >
>
(Richard) wrote in message
>...
>> Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
>> of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
>> -Rich
>
>that's because ****ing white fatass fascist is taking over the world.
>
>
Actually the British Empire was already in decline prior to WW2.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

[Mike1]

(Red Cloud) wrote:

>> Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
>> of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
>> -Rich
>
>that's because ****ing white fatass fascist is taking over the world.


Bush's presidency is a fart in the wind compared to Islam's 1,400 year
reign of slaughter and oppression.

--

Reply to sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.

"An election is nothing more than an advance auction of stolen goods."
-- Ambrose Bierce

[TCS]

On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 04:45:07 -0600, Mike1 > wrote:
(Red Cloud) wrote:

>>> Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
>>> of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????
>>> -Rich
>>
>>that's because ****ing white fatass fascist is taking over the world.


>Bush's presidency is a fart in the wind compared to Islam's 1,400 year
>reign of slaughter and oppression.

And Islam's 1400 reign of slaughter and oppression is merely dejavu compared
to christianity's reign. Have you never heard of the cruisades, inquisition,
etc.?

[trotsky]

Richard wrote:
> Why do people spend so much time worrying about what happened to a group
> of Nazist Japs 60 years ago????



Because only idiots don't try and learn from history?

[Steve Hix]

In article
>,
TCS > wrote:
>
> And Islam's 1400 reign of slaughter and oppression is merely dejavu compared
> to christianity's reign. Have you never heard of the cruisades,

No, but I have heard of the Crusades.

Apparently, you don't know (either) that the crusades were initially a
reaction to Islamic conquest of the heart of Christian Africa, Egypt,
Syria, Spain...a 500-year military campaign that was reaching for
France, Greece, the Balkans, and up towards Austria, Germany, and Russia.

> inquisition, etc.?

The Inquisition was aimed at suppressing Christian heresy, and not at
Muslims nor Jews.

[Tex Houston]

"Steve Hix" > wrote in message
...
> In article
> >,
> TCS > wrote:
> >
> > And Islam's 1400 reign of slaughter and oppression is merely dejavu
compared
> > to christianity's reign. Have you never heard of the cruisades,
>
> No, but I have heard of the Crusades.
>
> Apparently, you don't know (either) that the crusades were initially a
> reaction to Islamic conquest of the heart of Christian Africa, Egypt,
> Syria, Spain...a 500-year military campaign that was reaching for
> France, Greece, the Balkans, and up towards Austria, Germany, and Russia.
>
> > inquisition, etc.?
>
> The Inquisition was aimed at suppressing Christian heresy, and not at
> Muslims nor Jews.

Did either of these groups use military aviation?

Tex Houston

[Mike1]

TCS > wrote:

>>Bush's presidency is a fart in the wind compared to Islam's 1,400 year
>>reign of slaughter and oppression.
>
>And Islam's 1400 reign of slaughter and oppression


[Audience note: "TCS" stipulates to Islam's 1,400 reign of slaughter and
oppression.]


>....is merely dejavu compared
>to christianity's reign. Have you never heard of the cruisades


Why yes; I have:

http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2002/cover.htm

The Real History of the Crusades
By Thomas F. Madden

With the possible exception of Umberto Eco, medieval scholars are not
used to getting much media attention. We tend to be a quiet lot (except
during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on
Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places), poring over
musty chronicles and writing dull yet meticulous studies that few will
read. Imagine, then, my surprise when within days of the September 11
attacks, the Middle Ages suddenly became relevant.

As a Crusade historian, I found the tranquil solitude of the ivory tower
shattered by journalists, editors, and talk-show hosts on tight
deadlines eager to get the real scoop. What were the Crusades?, they
asked. When were they? Just how insensitive was President George W. Bush
for using the word "crusade" in his remarks? With a few of my callers I
had the distinct impression that they already knew the answers to their
questions, or at least thought they did. What they really wanted was an
expert to say it all back to them. For example, I was frequently asked
to comment on the fact that the Islamic world has a just grievance
against the West. Doesn¹t the present violence, they persisted, have its
roots in the Crusades¹ brutal and unprovoked attacks against a
sophisticated and tolerant Muslim world? In other words, aren¹t the
Crusades really to blame?

Osama bin Laden certainly thinks so. In his various video performances,
he never fails to describe the American war against terrorism as a new
Crusade against Islam. Ex-president Bill Clinton has also fingered the
Crusades as the root cause of the present conflict. In a speech at
Georgetown University, he recounted (and embellished) a massacre of Jews
after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and informed his
audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered in the Middle
East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing of Jews
was not explained.) Clinton took a beating on the nation¹s editorial
pages for wanting so much to blame the United States that he was willing
to reach back to the Middle Ages. Yet no one disputed the ex-president¹s
fundamental premise.

Well, almost no one. Many historians had been trying to set the record
straight on the Crusades long before Clinton discovered them. They are
not revisionists, like the American historians who manufactured the
Enola Gay exhibit, but mainstream scholars offering the fruit of several
decades of very careful, very serious scholarship. For them, this is a
"teaching moment," an opportunity to explain the Crusades while people
are actually listening. It won¹t last long, so here goes.

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are
generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by
power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to
have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black
stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western
civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders
introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then
deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For
variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example,
Steven Runciman¹s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or
the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are
terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some
of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters,
the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a
direct response to Muslim aggression‹an attempt to turn back or defend
against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims
really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was
born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means
of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the
world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War.
Christianity‹and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion‹has no
abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under
Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must
be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war
against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant
religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it
spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it
was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the
earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next
thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the
Christians shortly after Mohammed¹s death. They were extremely
successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt‹once the most heavily Christian
areas in the world‹quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim
armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the
eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey),
which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman
Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced
to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in
Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them
to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of
an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four
centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds
of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a
culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were
that defense.

Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the
conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was
tremendous. Many thousands of warriors took the vow of the cross and
prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to that question has
been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was
usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne¹er-do-wells
who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway
land. The Crusaders¹ expressed sentiments of piety, self-sacrifice, and
love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously. They were only a
front for darker designs.

During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have
demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading
knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in
Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the
holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily
impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did
so not because they expected material wealth (which many of them had
already) but because they hoped to store up treasure where rust and moth
could not corrupt. They were keenly aware of their sinfulness and eager
to undertake the hardships of the Crusade as a penitential act of
charity and love. Europe is littered with thousands of medieval charters
attesting to these sentiments, charters in which these men still speak
to us today if we will listen. Of course, they were not opposed to
capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that the Crusades
were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast
majority returned with nothing.

* * *

Urban II gave the Crusaders two goals, both of which would remain
central to the eastern Crusades for centuries. The first was to rescue
the Christians of the East. As his successor, Pope Innocent III, later
wrote:

How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself
when, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held
by the perfidious Muslims in strict confinement and weighed down by the
yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote himself to the task of
freeing them? ...Is it by chance that you do not know that many
thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the
Muslims, tortured with innumerable torments?

"Crusading," Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith has rightly argued, was
understood as an "an act of love"‹in this case, the love of one¹s
neighbor. The Crusade was seen as an errand of mercy to right a terrible
wrong. As Pope Innocent III wrote to the Knights Templar, "You carry out
in deeds the words of the Gospel, ŒGreater love than this hath no man,
that he lay down his life for his friends.¹"

The second goal was the liberation of Jerusalem and the other places
made holy by the life of Christ. The word crusade is modern. Medieval
Crusaders saw themselves as pilgrims, performing acts of righteousness
on their way to the Holy Sepulcher. The Crusade indulgence they received
was canonically related to the pilgrimage indulgence. This goal was
frequently described in feudal terms. When calling the Fifth Crusade in
1215, Innocent III wrote:

Consider most dear sons, consider carefully that if any temporal king
was thrown out of his domain and perhaps captured, would he not, when he
was restored to his pristine liberty and the time had come for
dispensing justice look on his vassals as unfaithful and
traitors...unless they had committed not only their property but also
their persons to the task of freeing him? ...And similarly will not
Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords, whose servant you
cannot deny being, who joined your soul to your body, who redeemed you
with the Precious Blood...condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and
the crime of infidelity if you neglect to help Him?

The reconquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act
of restoration and an open declaration of one¹s love of God. Medieval
men knew, of course, that God had the power to restore Jerusalem
Himself‹indeed, He had the power to restore the whole world to His rule.
Yet as St. Bernard of Clairvaux preached, His refusal to do so was a
blessing to His people:

Again I say, consider the Almighty¹s goodness and pay heed to His plans
of mercy. He puts Himself under obligation to you, or rather feigns to
do so, that He can help you to satisfy your obligations toward
Himself.... I call blessed the generation that can seize an opportunity
of such rich indulgence as this.

It is often assumed that the central goal of the Crusades was forced
conversion of the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth.
From the perspective of medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of
Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders¹ task to defeat and defend
against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won
territories were generally allowed to retain their property and
livelihood, and always their religion. Indeed, throughout the history of
the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Muslim inhabitants far outnumbered
the Catholics. It was not until the 13th century that the Franciscans
began conversion efforts among Muslims. But these were mostly
unsuccessful and finally abandoned. In any case, such efforts were by
peaceful persuasion, not the threat of violence.

The Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterize them as
nothing but piety and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence
was brutal (although not as brutal as modern wars). There were mishaps,
blunders, and crimes. These are usually well-remembered today. During
the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders
led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing
and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local
bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In te eyes of these warriors,
the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and
killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a
righteous deed, since the Jews¹ money could be used to fund the Crusade
to Jerusalem. But they were wrong, and the Church strongly condemned the
anti-Jewish attacks.

Fifty years later, when the Second Crusade was gearing up, St. Bernard
frequently preached that the Jews were not to be persecuted:

Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the
Jews in the Psalm. "Not for their destruction do I pray," it says. The
Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always
of what our Lord suffered.... Under Christian princes they endure a hard
captivity, but "they only wait for the time of their deliverance."

Nevertheless, a fellow Cistercian monk named Radulf stirred up people
against the Rhineland Jews, despite numerous letters from Bernard
demanding that he stop. At last Bernard was forced to travel to Germany
himself, where he caught up with Radulf, sent him back to his convent,
and ended the massacres.

It is often said that the roots of the Holocaust can be seen in these
medieval pogroms. That may be. But if so, those roots are far deeper and
more widespread than the Crusades. Jews perished during the Crusades,
but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite the
contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of
Europe were to be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic
deaths like these "collateral damage." Even with smart technologies, the
United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the
Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose
of American wars is to kill women and children.

By any reckoning, the First Crusade was a long shot. There was no
leader, no chain of command, no supply lines, no detailed strategy. It
was simply thousands of warriors marching deep into enemy territory,
committed to a common cause. Many of them died, either in battle or
through disease or starvation. It was a rough campaign, one that seemed
always on the brink of disaster. Yet it was miraculously successful. By
1098, the Crusaders had restored Nicaea and Antioch to Christian rule.
In July 1099, they conquered Jerusalem and began to build a Christian
state in Palestine. The joy in Europe was unbridled. It seemed that the
tide of history, which had lifted the Muslims to such heights, was now
turning.

* * *

But it was not. When we think about the Middle Ages, it is easy to view
Europe in light of what it became rather than what it was. The colossus
of the medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The Crusades are
interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter that trend.
But in five centuries of crusading, it was only the First Crusade that
significantly rolled back the military progress of Islam. It was
downhill from there.

When the Crusader County of Edessa fell to the Turks and Kurds in 1144,
there was an enormous groundswell of support for a new Crusade in
Europe. It was led by two kings, Louis VII of France and Conrad III of
Germany, and preached by St. Bernard himself. It failed miserably. Most
of the Crusaders were killed along the way. Those who made it to
Jerusalem only made things worse by attacking Muslim Damascus, which
formerly had been a strong ally of the Christians. In the wake of such a
disaster, Christians across Europe were forced to accept not only the
continued growth of Muslim power but the certainty that God was
punishing the West for its sins. Lay piety movements sprouted up
throughout Europe, all rooted in the desire to purify Christian society
so that it might be worthy of victory in the East.

Crusading in the late twelfth century, therefore, became a total war
effort. Every person, no matter how weak or poor, was called to help.
Warriors were asked to sacrifice their wealth and, if need be, their
lives for the defense of the Christian East. On the home front, all
Christians were called to support the Crusades through prayer, fasting,
and alms. Yet still the Muslims grew in strength. Saladin, the great
unifier, had forged the Muslim Near East into a single entity, all the
while preaching jihad against the Christians. In 1187 at the Battle of
Hattin, his forces wiped out the combined armies of the Christian
Kingdom of Jerusalem and captured the precious relic of the True Cross.
Defenseless, the Christian cities began surrendering one by one,
culminating in the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2. Only a tiny
handful of ports held out.

The response was the Third Crusade. It was led by Emperor Frederick I
Barbarossa of the German Empire, King Philip II Augustus of France, and
King Richard I Lionheart of England. By any measure it was a grand
affair, although not quite as grand as the Christians had hoped. The
aged Frederick drowned while crossing a river on horseback, so his army
returned home before reaching the Holy Land. Philip and Richard came by
boat, but their incessant bickering only added to an already divisive
situation on the ground in Palestine. After recapturing Acre, the king
of France went home, where he busied himself carving up Richard¹s French
holdings. The Crusade, therefore, fell into Richard¹s lap. A skilled
warrior, gifted leader, and superb tactician, Richard led the Christian
forces to victory after victory, eventually reconquering the entire
coast. But Jerusalem was not on the coast, and after two abortive
attempts to secure supply lines to the Holy City, Richard at last gave
up. Promising to return one day, he struck a truce with Saladin that
ensured peace in the region and free access to Jerusalem for unarmed
pilgrims. But it was a bitter pill to swallow. The desire to restore
Jerusalem to Christian rule and regain the True Cross remained intense
throughout Europe.

The Crusades of the 13th century were larger, better funded, and better
organized. But they too failed. The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran
aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the
Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to
Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great
rewards and support for the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of
the Caesars, their benefactor found that he could not pay what he had
promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders
attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest
Christian city in the world. Pope Innocent III, who had previously
excommunicated the entire Crusade, strongly denounced the Crusaders. But
there was little else he could do. The tragic events of 1204 closed an
iron door between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, a door that even
today Pope John Paul II has been unable to reopen. It is a terrible
irony that the Crusades, which were a direct result of the Catholic
desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the two further‹and perhaps
irrevocably‹apart.

The remainder of the 13th century¹s Crusades did little better. The
Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) managed briefly to capture Damietta in Egypt,
but the Muslims eventually defeated the army and reoccupied the city.
St. Louis IX of France led two Crusades in his life. The first also
captured Damietta, but Louis was quickly outwitted by the Egyptians and
forced to abandon the city. Although Louis was in the Holy Land for
several years, spending freely on defensive works, he never achieved his
fondest wish: to free Jerusalem. He was a much older man in 1270 when he
led another Crusade to Tunis, where he died of a disease that ravaged
the camp. After St. Louis¹s death, the ruthless Muslim leaders, Baybars
and Kalavun, waged a brutal jihad against the Christians in Palestine.
By 1291, the Muslim forces had succeeded in killing or ejecting the last
of the Crusaders, thus erasing the Crusader kingdom from the map.
Despite numerous attempts and many more plans, Christian forces were
never again able to gain a foothold in the region until the 19th century.

* * *

One might think that three centuries of Christian defeats would have
soured Europeans on the idea of Crusade. Not at all. In one sense, they
had little alternative. Muslim kingdoms were becoming more, not less,
powerful in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The Ottoman Turks
conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam,
but also continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and
plunging deep into Europe itself. By the 15th century, the Crusades were
no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts
of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began
to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim
of conquering the entire Christian world. One of the great best-sellers
of the time, Sebastian Brant¹s The Ship of Fools, gave voice to this
sentiment in a chapter titled "Of the Decline of the Faith":

Our faith was strong in th¹ Orient,
It ruled in all of Asia,
In Moorish lands and Africa.
But now for us these lands are gone
¹Twould even grieve the hardest stone....
Four sisters of our Church you find,
They¹re of the patriarchic kind:
Constantinople, Alexandria,
Jerusalem, Antiochia.
But they¹ve been forfeited and sacked
And soon the head will be attacked.

Of course, that is not what happened. But it very nearly did. In 1480,
Sultan Mehmed II captured Otranto as a beachhead for his invasion of
Italy. Rome was evacuated. Yet the sultan died shortly thereafter, and
his plan died with him. In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to
Vienna. If not for a run of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress
and forced him to leave behind much of his artillery, it is virtually
certain that the Turks would have taken the city. Germany, then, would
have been at their mercy.

Yet, even while these close shaves were taking place, something else was
brewing in Europe‹something unprecedented in human history. The
Renaissance, born from a strange mixture of Roman values, medieval
piety, and a unique respect for commerce and entrepreneurialism, had led
to other movements like humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age
of Exploration. Even while fighting for its life, Europe was preparing
to expand on a global scale. The Protestant Reformation, which rejected
the papacy and the doctrine of indulgence, made Crusades unthinkable for
many Europeans, thus leaving the fighting to the Catholics. In 1571, a
Holy League, which was itself a Crusade, defeated the Ottoman fleet at
Lepanto. Yet military victories like that remained rare. The Muslim
threat was neutralized economically. As Europe grew in wealth and power,
the once awesome and sophisticated Turks began to seem backward and
pathetic‹no longer worth a Crusade. The "Sick Man of Europe" limped
along until the 20th century, when he finally expired, leaving behind
the present mess of the modern Middle East.

From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in
disgust at the Crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars
over. But we should be mindful that our medieval ancestors would have
been equally disgusted by our infinitely more destructive wars fought in
the name of political ideologies. And yet, both the medieval and the
modern soldier fight ultimately for their own world and all that makes
it up. Both are willing to suffer enormous sacrifice, provided that it
is in the service of something they hold dear, something greater than
themselves. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that
the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The
ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy
toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the Crusades,
it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam¹s rivals,
into extinction.

Thomas F. Madden is associate professor and chair of the Department of
History at Saint Louis University. He is the author of numerous works,
including A Concise History of the Crusades, and co-author, with Donald
Queller, of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople.

--

Reply to sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.

"An election is nothing more than an advance auction of stolen goods."
-- Ambrose Bierce

[Peter Kemp]

On or about Thu, 25 Dec 2003 12:58:04 -0700, "Tex Houston"
> allegedly uttered:

>
>"Steve Hix" > wrote in message
...
>> In article
>> >,
>> TCS > wrote:
>> >
>> > And Islam's 1400 reign of slaughter and oppression is merely dejavu
>compared
>> > to christianity's reign. Have you never heard of the cruisades,
>>
>> No, but I have heard of the Crusades.
>>
>> Apparently, you don't know (either) that the crusades were initially a
>> reaction to Islamic conquest of the heart of Christian Africa, Egypt,
>> Syria, Spain...a 500-year military campaign that was reaching for
>> France, Greece, the Balkans, and up towards Austria, Germany, and Russia.
>>
>> > inquisition, etc.?
>>
>> The Inquisition was aimed at suppressing Christian heresy, and not at
>> Muslims nor Jews.
>
>Did either of these groups use military aviation?

Angels with flaming swords?

---
Peter Kemp

Life is short - Drink Faster

[B2431]

>From: Steve Hix
>
<snip>

>The Inquisition was aimed at suppressing Christian heresy, and not at
>Muslims nor Jews.
>
Maybe initially, but Jews were a particular target.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

[Steve Hix]

In article >,
(B2431) wrote:

> >From: Steve Hix
> >
> <snip>
>
> >The Inquisition was aimed at suppressing Christian heresy, and not at
> >Muslims nor Jews.
> >
> Maybe initially, but Jews were a particular target.

Other than the Conversos in Spain?

[B2431]

>From: Steve Hix
>
>

> (B2431) wrote:
>
>> >From: Steve Hix
>> >
>> <snip>
>>
>> >The Inquisition was aimed at suppressing Christian heresy, and not at
>> >Muslims nor Jews.
>> >
>> Maybe initially, but Jews were a particular target.
>
>Other than the Conversos in Spain?
>
The Inquistion involved all of the Catholic World, not just Spain. The roots of
the Inquistion can be traced back to Pope Innocent 3 although it was Pope
Gregory 9 in the middle 13th century who really got the ball rolling. Heretics
were their first targets. Then all non Catholics and Catholics that didn't toe
the party line like Galileo, found themselves under fire.

Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella took the Inquisition to a new low. Among
other atrocities it was their version of the Inquisition that was exported to
the New World.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

[mg]

"B2431" > wrote in message
...
> >From: Steve Hix
> >
> >
>
> > (B2431) wrote:
> >
> >> >From: Steve Hix
> >> >
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> >The Inquisition was aimed at suppressing Christian heresy, and not at
> >> >Muslims nor Jews.
> >> >
> >> Maybe initially, but Jews were a particular target.
> >
> >Other than the Conversos in Spain?
> >
> The Inquistion involved all of the Catholic World, not just Spain. The
roots of
> the Inquistion can be traced back to Pope Innocent 3 although it was Pope
> Gregory 9 in the middle 13th century who really got the ball rolling.
Heretics
> were their first targets. Then all non Catholics and Catholics that didn't
toe
> the party line like Galileo, found themselves under fire.
>
> Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella took the Inquisition to a new low.
Among
> other atrocities it was their version of the Inquisition that was exported
to
> the New World.

Also remember that the entire inquisition has been blown way out of
proportion. It is a convienient topic for those who want to bash Catholics
(I am not one) and western civ. The inquisition was punctuated by some high
profile atrocities but was mostly low key. Lots of confusion also between
Inquisition type action taken by political rulers, for political gain, and
church sponsored actions aimed at heresy. They usually get lumped into one
when there was distinct difference.

MG

[Johnny Bravo]

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 16:20:50 GMT, Glenn Jacobs
> wrote:

>On 22 Dec 2003 17:07:57 -0800, cave fish wrote:
>
>> This is the sort of lunacy that leads to war. Not 100 Poles are worth
>> the life of one German soldier. So for every German soldier killed,
>> Nazis would round up 100s of Polish civilians and machine gun them to
>> death.
>
>And in your eyes this justifies not trying to win the war by the means
>available?
>
>> It's also predicated on the comfortable notion that you live in the
>> most powerful nation in the world, a kind of arrogance that breeds
>> moral laxity.
>
>In 1941 when the Japs attacked the US, we were far from being the most
>powerful nation in the world!

I disagree, our elite army troops - 15 cavalry regiments mounted on
horseback would have wiped the floor with... oh, yeah, I see your
point. :)

--
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft

[Matt Wiser]

"Warchild" > wrote:
>
>"Tsarkon" > wrote in message
>news:QKuIb.875145$pl3.247775@pd7tw3no...
>> Cub Driver wrote:
>>
>> >>I think that if you are going to use Devil's
>algebra like yours,
>> >>you should at least explain from where it
>commences.
>> >
>> >
>> > Anyone who has lived in the real world uses
>this identical algebra.
>> > (Well, perhaps Mother Theresa didn't.)
>> >
>> > It is easy and cheap to live in a world
>made safe by the blood of
>> > soldiers past, and to say that all human
>life is created equal. But
>> > it's not equal when it is your child who
>is dying, or your buddy in
>> > the next foxhole. Anyone who has ever seen
>war would readily swap ten
>> > enemy civilians for one of his own soldiers.
>> >
>> > Without those civilians, the enemy could
>not have prosecuted his
>> > aggressive war. If it was the only way to
>end the war, then killing
>> > them was the right thing to do.
>> >
>> > all the best -- Dan Ford
>> > email:
>> >
>> > see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
>> > and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com
>>
>> Congratulations you've just summed up OBL
>reasons for 9/11.
>>
>
>I am so sick and ****ing tired of this stupid
>comparison. The circumstances
>during WW2 were entirely different than any
>current situation. You have no
>concept of what things were like then, you mistakenly
>think that everthing
>was like it is now. No Grasp of History.
>
>
I'll agree with that; different times, different context. Hiroshima and
Nagasaki were attacks against military/industrial targets. 9-11 at the WTC
was an attack against a purely civilian target; and the hit on the Pentagon
was still against the Law of War due to its nature: a hijacked civilian jetliner
with passengers and crew still aboard. Sooner or later, just like Saddam,
OBL is going to be pulled out of a hole somewhere and he will answer for
his heinous crimes with a bullet, needle, or a noose.

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