A reminder...Western/Middle East tensions began during the Crusades

[Ken Burch]

Everyone in the Arab/Muslim world still sees that as a despicable and unprovoked invasion by outsiders. Anger over that helped give Osama Bin-Laden his big break in show business.

Given that the people there are STILL mad about what our "civilized Western Christian" forbears did(and that's going back 14 centuries by now)why should we ever do anything there again that has anything in common with the Crusades and the Crusaders.

We KNOW what pisses these guys off...isn't it the definition of insanity to keep doing it and expect it NOT to keep pissing them off?

(Also, isn't it about time for Europe and Britain to apologize for pulling that stunt in the first place?)

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. Martell n/t

[NoOneMan]

2. Is that really true or just truthy?

Honest question for middle-east experts. Do the people in that region care any more about what happen 14 centuries ago than the Europeans care about the Roman Empire's incursion?

Or is the anger due to more recent events like propped up dictators and sponsored coups.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. It's a load of nonsense

The Middle East (which, as Said teaches us, is a Western invention in any case - there is no uniform "region" as we imagine it) is much like other places: you'd be hard pressed to find 4 in 100 who could tell you jack squat about the Crusades.

A lot of ignorant and essentializing blather, as if people in the "Middle East" are sitting around stewing about the Crusades. What foolishness.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. On the other hand, Al Andalus. Hispania taken by Muslims in 710. First Crusade 1095

Then long after the Crusader era the Ottoman Turks invaded Europe, defeated at the battle of Vienna in 1683. September 11 to be exact, and 12th.
So not exactly a one way street out of Christendom, this strife came both ways, from the one toward the other.
710 seems to be the first blow in the Euro/Islamic tussle.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

4. Yeah, what I was referring to w/Martell.

They were stopped in southern France in The Battle of Tours.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Exactly.

The OP seems to have read history from a very specific and limited point of view.

[dimbear]

5. It reaches a little further back than that.

"Carthage must be destroyed." Discord was there just waiting for Islam to be invented.

[mia]

7. Tension began with Abraham,

and the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael.

[LittleBlue]

8. It started before the conquest of Visigothic Spain

I've seen some posters above reference Charles Martel, but it started before even Tours. The first major battle between Christianity and Islam was during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius at Yarmouk in 636. This happened before the great schism 400 years later, so the Byzantine Empire at the time was Catholic.

[gopiscrap]

9. Thought it might have happened even before then

[JVS]

10. Centuries before the crusades

[MicaelS]

12. Please.

The justification of today's violence based on that of someone's long ago ancestors being oppressed by someone elses long ago ancestors is just an excuse to commit violence. People should just admit that want to just to be able to go out an kill lots of other people for no other reason than they are full of hate and want to kill.

And no, it isn't "about time for Europe and Britain to apologize for pulling that stunt in the first place." Anymore than Italians should apologize for the actions of Ancient Rome, or modern day Asians should apologize for the actions of Genghis Khan.

[EX500rider]

13. You got the Crusades backwards...

The medieval Crusades were a series of wars fought in response to Islamic violence against Christians, not the opening act of aggression against Islam that continues to the present. The First Crusade (1096–1099) started as a widespread pilgrimage (France and Germany) and ended as a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands taken in Muslim conquests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade