Were The Crusades Justified? - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Were The Crusades Justified?

1. Yes, The Crusades Were Justified.
17
35%
2. No, The Crusades Were Not Justified.
16
33%
3. Neither, Both Sides Were Equally Justified or Not-Justified.
9
18%
4. Other.
7
14%
#14943665
The Crusades were not justified.

They had the effect of all but destroying the ancient Orthodox Christian, Monophysite, and Nestorian communities of the Middle East, radicalized the forces of Islam so that they eventually overran the Balkans, and fatally weakened the East Roman Empire so that it fell to the Turks. A waste of blood and treasure, a sign of the collective gracelessness of the Papist and Frankist West.
#14943675
The first Crusades against Muslims were not only justified, they were necessary. The Crusades against Pagans on the other hand was immoral and completely unnecessary. Pushed the West back 100 years but I guess that was one of the points.

There's a Crusade inside the Crusade which is rarely mentioned, but extremely important. When Portugal got gangster over the Vatican and decided to protect the Templar's instead of joining the purge the Pope and France were doing across Europe, they created a crack, a division, in Catholicism that remains until today. That division changed the course of history. I advise once in Portugal to go visit the Templar city which is called Tomar. Very interesting.
#14943682
The Crusades were not justified.
The Crusades were a money/land grab by the Church. There was no 'good' reason for them.

The Muslims, Jews, and Christians were co-existing in Jerusalem, until the fundamentalist Crusaders came along. :knife:
#14943686
It was a medieval collective security system similar today's NATO led by the United States. The Crusades meant to prevent the downfall of the Eastern Roman Empire, which eventually collapsed two hundred years after the First Crusade with the expansion of the Ottomans. The Turks in Anatolia became too powerful to be contained and they were far more civilised than Eastern Europeans until the 19th century, when the Ottoman Empire was called the "sick man" by Western Europeans, who overtook the Ottoman Turks militarily and defeated them in critical battles.
#14943691
Godstud wrote:The Crusades were not justified.
The Crusades were a money/land grab by the Church. There was no 'good' reason for them.

The Muslims, Jews, and Christians were co-existing in Jerusalem,

They were not co-existing. The Jews and Christians may have been existing, but the Muslim parasites were more than existing living off the labours of others. Maybe you feel grateful to the Muslim if he allows you to exist, but I demand greater rights.

But hang on isn't this what the Confederate lovers say: Whites and Blacks were peacefully co-existing, why did that war monger Lincoln have to stick his nose in?
#14943692
Rich wrote:Maybe you feel grateful to the Muslim if he allows you to exist, but I demand greater rights.
As if you lived during those times... :roll: God that's a stupid thing to say.

@Rich trying to take it to be about race is exactly what you complain and bitch about in other threads. Your comments are childish, and show a great deal of ignorance.
#14943809
Victoribus Spolia wrote:I. On Your Claim Of An Ongoing World-Wide Race War Between Whites and Blacks.

This position is problematic for several reasons;

1. it takes my usage of protracted conflict, which is obviously meant to refer to a state of declared war/animosity between two larger groups and attempts to take that definition and say it can equally apply to a civil rights movement or social justice. My context was quite clear and I even referred to the conflict between Islam and Christendom as a world war. Likewise, I differentiated it by its lack of either a treaty formally ending this war/animosity or an agreement to co-governance.

2. Your attempt to twist my definition to force a contradiction in my position is not only based on a red-herring and false-equivalency (both fallacies), but now also on equivocation.

3. Your duplicity:

And I didn't answer that question because I asked you to first define a military, which you openly refused to do because you said it was irrelevant. Apparently it wasn't irrelevant and you were being duplicitous and dishonest.

You KNEW that if you were forced to define "military" you would not be able to include a political struggle within a nation as a protracted conflict in the sense I was clearly using. Which is why you refused to define such when asked. So you simply assumed in your own mind your own terms to create an imaginary contradiction in my position which simply does not exist.

This is some of the most despicable and dishonest debating I have ever seen and this is why people refuse to engage you and have advised me not to do so.

4. The Problem with Your Definition of Conflict.

If you insist to expand war/conflict to include social conflicts between white and blacks within a nation or state, not only would it call into question the definition of a nation and state to the point that we would almost have to accept ethno-nationalism by default, but your position would also imply that we are currently in a world-wide race war between blacks and whites.

Besides the fact that this position is crazy-talk, if it were conceded (which it won't because that is not how I defined a protracted conflict), not only would I agree that blacks are justified in taking white lands, but any retaliation by whites and white nations would likewise be justified as further retaliation is an on-going war.

Hence, my position would then be that we are at war with blacks and that we should respond appropriately.......we all know how that would end now don't we? :lol:

NOTE: I can see now why SJWs are so crazy, they actually believe we are in a worldwide race war. :eek:


I. I never said there was a world wide race war between whites and blacks. This is a strawman.

1. I was not discussing civil rights or social justice. You started with the justification of having land taken away by an empire, and the fight to get it back. That is the comparison I am using. As far as I can tell, whether or not it fits into a social justice or civil rights framework is irrelevant.

The conflict between Islam and Christianity is not a world war. I know you believe it is, but that is a conservative meme that is not supported by facts. I assume you thought I was saying the conflict between blacks and whites was a world war because you think that the conflict between Islam and Christianity is that way. That is incorrect. The supposed conflict between Islam and Christianity became a meme shortly after 9/11. It is contradicted by things like the Treaty of Tripoli, and US supoort for the Taliban during the Afghan/USSR war. I assumed there was a prolonged conflict between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks, just like there was a prolonged conflict between the indigenous and blacks of SA and the white minority in SA.

Apartheid was not an agreement to simply stop all hostilities and conflicts and disagreements everywhere and just hold hands and sing kumbaya. If it were, the whites would have loved it and the blacks would have trued to stop it, because this would have solidified and protected all the gains that whites made with their racist laws during Apartheid. It would have supported the status quo at the time, which was decidedly in favour of the whites. The reason why blacks wanted the end of Apartheid and whites did not is because it was one battle in part of a larger conflict for blacks to regain power in their own land.

2. No, none of these fallacies apply.

3. Calling me a liar, I see. Let us ignore your disrespect and move on to your misunderstanding. This idea that I lied is based entirely on your misconceptions.

Well, to begin with, I did answer your question. You asked how I was defining military, and I said I was using the commonly accepted definition.

Whether or not a family protecting its property or if it is a state actor or not is irrelevant to the discussion.

If this justification of yours had been solely reserved for military, then we would have had to have some discussion as to why. Since you replied that this also applies to non-military movements that meet the same criteria as the military crusades, why does it matter if we define military as one way or another? The justification is acceptable for non-military actors as well, according to you.

I suggest rereading the thread and the discussion before jumping to erroneous conclusions about what a big meanie I am. Perhaps you were too angry at the time to read clearly, because of your misconceptions about my supposed deceit.

4. The fact that there is an ongoing and protracted conflict between the white minority and the black majority in SA does not, in any way, imply that there is a worldwide race war.

I have no idea how you came up with that.

Also, please note that the defintion of a nation is not the same as the definition for a state. They are not synonymous.

II. On The Nature of The Post-Apartheid Regime As Co-Governance.

The forming of a mutually black-white constitution with equal protections under law and both having representation in a popular government are ample proofs that this is not a WAR. These peoples came together and formed a co-governance (per my definition). Of course there are still disagreements, what government lacks partisan disagreement? Given your definition, are Labor and Conservatives in the UK literally at war? That is preposterous.

The blacks in South Africa lost wars to the whites, fair and square, and joined with them in a popular government as co-governors which is a de facto agreement to do just that; cooperate with each other going forward. Its even stronger in its binding significance than a peace treaty ending formal hostilities.


II. You do realise that two nations can make an agreement to co-govern, while still be in a state of conflict with each other, right?

I never said it was a war. I said it was and is a prolonged conflict.

And the forming of the constitution did not make the conflict go away. It merely made it impossible for the whites to overtly use the state apparatus to oppress blacks. This is what Apartheid was, and the ending of Apartheid was just that, not an agreement to end the conflict.

Your comparison (blacks and whites in South Africa are analogous to political parties) is illogical. The former are two nations involved in a colonial conflict resulting from European empire building. Political parties do not resemble this at all.

Whether or not the loss of lands to European settlers was “fair and square” is not relevant. You previously argued it was not justified due to the obvious violation of the NAP. Nows you seem to be contradicting yourself. Unless the “fairness” of the previous war (the one that resulted in the original loss of land) makes a difference to the “fairness” of the conflict to get back the land, I fail to see why you mention this. Please note that in both cases, the previous one was a war with a foreign empire invading and taking the land by force.

Now, from a factual (i.e. de facto, as you say) perspective, the conlfict in SA has not ended simply because Apartheid ended. From a factual perspective, neither side in this conflict saw the end of Aparthied as the end of hostilities. Instead, it was seen as the end of state support for the white minority. And that is what it has factually become. i would argue that people who support white rule in SA wish that it meant an end to all hostilities and an agreement to cooperate, but that does not make it an actual fact.

III. On The Crusades and The Criteria of Justification.

That the Crusades are categorically different is grounded in several points.

1. The protracted conflict between Islam and Christianity was, as I always intended given the context, a hot war or series of hot battles not resolved by treaty or an agreement to co-governance. NONE of which is true about the situation is South Africa.

2. The settlers in South Africa did not settle into an area that they had won during a battle as occupied territory (Like the Muslims and Crusaders did as part of a larger world war). Many colonial settlers were surprised or confused when they found natives in many of the places they settled. Sometimes contact was not immediate and did not occur for some time after they arrived (which is only possible because of unused lands btw). This is manifestly not the case with Arabs settling in places like Jerusalem. That was a movement of population to a place that was recently conquered in a war. Me moving to Japan after hiroshima and nagasaki is infinitely differently than a pilgrim landing at plymouth rock.

But all of that is irrelevant, for even if the European settlement was unjustified trespassing, it resulted in actual war between two extended groups, and he who wins, wins the spoils of war.

The conflict is ended when the enemy is either annihilated, integrated, or they settle by a treaty or an agreement to co-governance.

But thats my point, the Crusades were a justified response in an ongoing protracted conflict or war, as would have been a Bantu raiding party in response to whites burning a village during a war between the two groups.

That is not what is happening is South Africa, to say otherwise is to engage in sophistry and clear derangement.


III. We finally get to the actual argument.

1. This protracted conflict between Islam and Christianity that you imagine is not actually real. It was not, as you always intended given the context, a hot war or series of hot battles not resolved by treaty or an agreement to co-governance.

Relationships between Islam and Christianity have been diverse and cannot be reduced to “a clash of civilisations”. Even in today’s anti-Muslim climate, the conflict between Islamists and western forces is about control of petroleum resources in MENA countries instead of an ideological difference between cultures.

2. We discussed your incorrect claim about no one being there when the settlers arrived. I disproved that with sources from the era that clearly showed that the indigenous people were there at the time and the settlers knew they were there and had contacted them.

By the way, the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock did meet indigenous people. The actual story disproves this claim on so many levels that it is darkly humourous and ironic for you to use this as an example.

If the Europeans were justified in their settlement because the spoils go to the victor, then the crusades were justified, the empire building of the Seljuk Turks was justified, and the current expropriation of land by the SA government is justified. Because they were, or are, the winners. And if that is the case, all this discussion about the NAP and protracted conflicts and terra nullius is window dressing and is therefore actually irrelevant.

I not only disagree that the conflict is ended when a agreement to co-govern is signed, but the facts disagree with you too. As we all know, the conflict is still going on with the expropriation of colonised lands. You have yet to address this except to dismiss it as unfair.

IV. OTHER

Not off the top of my head, but this area is not my strong suit and I have not researched all of the on-going post-colonial movements currently active in the Third World.

Like I said, if you have an example you would like me to look at with my criteria, I would gladly do so.

Not it wasn't. You brought that up.


I find it interesting that many “an-caps” claim to support anti-colonial and anti-imperial sovereignty movements, yet they never actually do.

Also, you brought up settlement here:
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=174510&start=20#p14943235
#14943812
Pants-of-dog wrote:The conflict between Islam and Christianity is not a world war.

If someone would describe the worldwide war between communists and everyone else as a "World War" would you think that was not an accurate description? What is your personal definition of a "World War"?
#14943813
SolarCross wrote:If someone would describe the worldwide war between communists and everyone else as a "World War" would you think that was not an accurate description? What is your personal definition of a "World War"?


No, I would not think of that as an accurate description. For example, it is based at least partly on your rabid anti-communism instead of facts.

    A world war is a large-scale war involving many of the countries of the world or many of the most powerful and populous ones. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in many theaters. While a variety of global conflicts have been subjectively deemed "world wars", such as the Cold War and the War on Terror, the term is widely and generally accepted only as it is retrospectively applied to two major international conflicts that occurred during the 20th century: World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war
#14943815
Pants-of-dog wrote:No, I would not think of that as an accurate description. For example, it is based at least partly on your rabid anti-communism instead of facts.

    A world war is a large-scale war involving many of the countries of the world or many of the most powerful and populous ones. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in many theaters. While a variety of global conflicts have been subjectively deemed "world wars", such as the Cold War and the War on Terror, the term is widely and generally accepted only as it is retrospectively applied to two major international conflicts that occurred during the 20th century: World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war

By the bolded definition then the communist wars could be classed together as a world war because including not just the Cold War but also the closely related hot wars of Korea, Vietnam, Tibet and even skirmishes like the Bay of Pigs then you exactly have:

1. A war involving "many of the countries of the world or many of the most powerful and populous ones".

2. A war that spanned "multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in many theaters".

By this definition the Islamic Wars which started with Mohammad's first campaigns and arguably continues to the this day also could count as a World War for the same reasons as above.
#14943817
SolarCross wrote:By the bolded definition then the communist wars could be classed together as a world war because including not just the Cold War but closely related hot wars of Korea, Vietnam, Tibet and even skirmishes like the Bay of Pigs then you exactly have:

1. A war involving "many of the countries of the world or many of the most powerful and populous ones".

2. A war that spanned "multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in many theaters".

By this definition the Islamic Wars which started with Mohammad's first campaigns and arguably continues to the this day also could count as a World War for the same reasons as above.


Not really.

For one thing, the supposed combatants were not always the same group nor did they all fight for the same reasons. If one war is fought to end slavery along the Barbary coast, and then another is fought to seize oil revenus in Iraq, they do not magically become the same war because Muslims are involved in both.

Secondly, this imaginary war you speak of was not continuous in time, or in space. Do wars take breaks? Do they commute?

As far as I can tell, the only thing that ties together all these dfferent conflicts is the religion of one of the combatant groups.
#14943820
Pants-of-dog wrote:Not really.

For one thing, the supposed combatants were not always the same group nor did they all fight for the same reasons. If one war is fought to end slavery along the Barbary coast, and then another is fought to seize oil revenus in Iraq, they do not magically become the same war because Muslims are involved in both.

Secondly, this imaginary war you speak of was not continuous in time, or in space. Do wars take breaks? Do they commute?

As far as I can tell, the only thing that ties together all these dfferent conflicts is the religion of one of the combatant groups.

By those qualifications then neither WW1 nor WW2 were world wars either. Also this new qualification of yours is just your personal view not a product of consensus thus it is not decisive over say another personal view that would find that the commonality behind Mohammad's campaigns and all the later Islamic campaigns which spread all over the world actually could plausibly tie those wars together as a singular World War.

Consider the Wars of Religion as they were named retrospectively for all the schism wars between Catholics and Protestants. On the one hand you could say that the attempted invasion of England by Spain, The English Civil War, The Thirty Years War, The Hugenot rebellions, The Eighty Years War, The Hussite Wars and all the rest were unrelated conflicts which just happened to strongly involve the disagreements over what constitutes the proper way to do Christianity, or you can class them together as a collection of wars under one title The Wars of Religion exactly because of the common elements.

That is to say if we can identify the common elements between the thousands of wars fought all across the world by Muslims upon the Kuffar for religious reasons then it is by no means unreasonable to class them together as The Islamic Wars, 622AD to present. Taken together like that they are certainly a World War albeit a very large and long lasting one.
#14943905
ThirdTerm wrote:. The Crusades meant to prevent the downfall of the Eastern Roman Empire,
.

Well only in nominal terms. The Italian Normans who had been waging serious wars of conquest against the Eastern Roman Empire just shortly before certainly were not. Tehre is a bunch of differing reasons. The Pope wanted to smehow funnel western feudal violent energy into a more productive force, some participants had pious motivations but most of the leaders of the crusaders were pretty driven by material motives, personal gain and conquest.

ThirdTerm wrote: which eventually collapsed two hundred years after the First Crusade with the expansion of the Ottomans. T.


Mostly by the fourth Crusade which was nothing less than a war of conquest against the East Roman Empire.
#14943930
Pants-of-dog wrote:Okay, please provide evidence for your claim that there has been an ongoing war between Islam and Christianity for the last 1400 years.

There has been an ongoing war with tactical breaks between Islam and everyone else for the past 1400 years. They attack Buddhists, Polytheists, Hindus and whoever else is not a Muslim as well, not just Christians and Jews. This is what their beliefs demand of them.
#14943958
SolarCross wrote:There has been an ongoing war with tactical breaks between Islam and everyone else for the past 1400 years. They attack Buddhists, Polytheists, Hindus and whoever else is not a Muslim as well, not just Christians and Jews. This is what their beliefs demand of them.


Okay, please provide evidence for your claim that there has been an ongoing war between Islam and Christianity for the last 1400 years.
#14943967
Pants-of-dog wrote:Okay, please provide evidence for your claim that there has been an ongoing war between Islam and Christianity for the last 1400 years.


What would count as evidence for you, Mr Sea Lion?
#14943970
SolarCross wrote:What would count as evidence for you, Mr Sea Lion?


I have already explained this to you many times.

This thing where you repeatedly ask me to explain and define things over and over again is ironic, considering your accusations.
#14943972
Pants-of-dog wrote:I have already explained this to you many times.

This thing where you repeatedly ask me to explain and define things over and over again is ironic, considering your accusations.


You didn't answer the question.

What would count as evidence for you, Mr Sea Lion?

There are plenty of online resources that list some or all of the Islamic campaigns. I could also cite scriptural quotes which establish the motivation for the campaigns. However would that satisfy you or do I need to build a time machine, go back in time and collect / kidnap the thousands of Islamic war leaders including Mohammad himself, Bill & Ted stylee, teach them all English then parade them before you and make them confess to you personally what they did and why they did it?
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