Osama bin Laden's view of the Crusades

[Ming]

Boris... obviously a cross post to my warning... back on topic... stop with the personal crap.

[Imran Siddiqui]

harmless joke in a kid's movie simply about American's buying things becomes the most awful attack on America ever!

Yeah, I'm not exactly certain how that joke was anti-American.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
It is that the Christians were portrayed as essentially evil people.

We are talking about Crusaders, right? They were evil!

[Pax]

Okay, I saw it on thursday.
I can see why Ned does not like it.
It happens to show SOME Christians committing evil acts in the name of god. Was this ever done?
On the other hand, it does not show muslims as being as bad as the Christians.
Ned, I think you should consider that the story was told from the POV of a man who interacted with more Christians than Muslims. It just so happens that the TWO muslims he did interact with were decent guys. There were more good christians than good muslims. There were also more bad Christians than bad Muslims. Only five Saracens(Muslims) actually spoke(by my count).
I imagine that if the story was told from a Saracen POV, there would be more evil Saracens. The most moral character of all was a Christian(Balen). The King of Jerusalem and the Sheriff were pretty good guys as well. So was Saladin and his protege. All in all, I thought it was pretty fair in the portrayals.
I also agree with Ned that Saladin may not be as good as he was portrayed. I do not believe that the king of Jerusalem could have been such a fine upstanding man either.
Two things I was glad to see shown was that both sides thought they were right and that god was on there side.

The movie was decent. I want to see it again for the way it was shot. Certain scenes remind of 28 days later. I wonder if they used minidv or high def cameras. The movie has increased my already high interest in that time period.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Only five Saracens(Muslims) actually spoke(by my count).

Ned is PWNED!

[Ned]

Originally posted by Pax
Okay, I saw it on thursday.
I can see why Ned does not like it.
It happens to show SOME Christians committing evil acts in the name of god. Was this ever done?
On the other hand, it does not show muslims as being as bad as the Christians.
Ned, I think you should consider that the story was told from the POV of a man who interacted with more Christians than Muslims. It just so happens that the TWO muslims he did interact with were decent guys. There were more good christians than good muslims. There were also more bad Christians than bad Muslims. Only five Saracens(Muslims) actually spoke(by my count).
I imagine that if the story was told from a Saracen POV, there would be more evil Saracens. The most moral character of all was a Christian(Balen). The King of Jerusalem and the Sheriff were pretty good guys as well. So was Saladin and his protege. All in all, I thought it was pretty fair in the portrayals.
I also agree with Ned that Saladin may not be as good as he was portrayed. I do not believe that the king of Jerusalem could have been such a fine upstanding man either.
Two things I was glad to see shown was that both sides thought they were right and that god was on there side.

The movie was decent. I want to see it again for the way it was shot. Certain scenes remind of 28 days later. I wonder if they used minidv or high def cameras. The movie has increased my already high interest in that time period.

Excellent post, PAX, and very fair. Earlier in this thread I posted a rendition of this event from the Muslim side. Even that rendition is much fairer to the Christians than this movie.

Salah al-Din has gone down in history as a good man because he kept his word on deals he struck with Christians. He was fair and honorable. I have no qualms about that. But the way they have the "Christian" hero saying that all they have to fight for is themselves because no religion has a claim on Jerusalem is a total fabrication. The Christians were zealots and true believers at that time. One of the reasons they fought so hard is that they did not want the tens of thousand of Christian women to be captured by the Muslims and forced to convert. This is the exact opposite of what they had the bishop of Jerusalem saying.

[Imran Siddiqui]

the "Christian" hero saying that all they have to fight for is themselves because no religion has a claim on Jerusalem is a total fabrication.

Um.. that paints the Christians in a HIGHLY favorable light.

[Ned]

Imran, that is a very "modern" view of Jerusalem, though. I hardly think it existed in Western thinking at the time. Given that the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 quickly brought two more crusade in a dozen years, I think that most Westerners still held the belief that it was important to keep Jerusalem in "Western" Christian hands.

[Imran Siddiqui]

But it paints the Christians in a HIGHLY favorable light... totally contradicting the title to this thread.

[Dracon II]

I may have overlooked some posts... but how did anti-americanism enter into a debate over the crusades?

Anti-americanism is a sloppy term... criticism of Bush/Conservatism/Christianity/Capitalism does not amount to anti-americanism, any more than I can be said to be unaustralian if I criticized John Howard and his proposal to de-regulate the industrial relations system. The fact is that America is such a diverse and many shaded nation with so many different historical and philosophical themes intertwining to form it that the term Americanism appears to me simply be an attempt by one side of politics to monopolize the claim to legitimacy. This can be seen in foreign policy. How is it that criticism of Bush's foreign policy can amount to anti-americanism when such criticism can easily find it's philosophical origin in the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, when he warned against "foreign entanglements"?... and even then Jefferson's view has no monopoly either... American foreign policy has shifted and transformed so many times that neither can be said to be any more legitimate than the other.
America has always had in it's system an institutional and philosophical mode of self-criticism.... there is no one America, and no single American-ism, and anyone who says so is betraying illiberal and dangerously undemocratic motives.

[JohnT]

This can be seen in foreign policy. How is it that criticism of Bush's foreign policy can amount to anti-americanism when such criticism can easily find it's philosophical origin in the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, when he warned against "foreign entanglements"?...

Actually, that was Washington in his farewell address of 1796:

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Note that W. was talking about Europe - the US's role in the Pacific and the rest of the world was unimaginable to him at the time.

[DaShi]

Come on guys, this thread is getting boring. Start making it personal.

[Dracon II]

Ah I see. My confusion arose from the fact that in american politics we were taught that that strand of thought was called "Jeffersonian" foreign policy... part of a 4 part typology of American foreign policy:

Jeffersonian - avoiding foreign entanglements
Jacksonian - emphasis on honour and military accomplishment
Hamiltonian - emphasis on securing commerce
Wilsonian - exporting democracy

I'd say Bush's policy is an amalgam of the latter three strands.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by DaShi
Come on guys, this thread is getting boring. Start making it personal.

Oh, just shut up, you....you....DaShi!!!

[DaShi]

That's the spirit!