http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20130921/

Because the West is currently dominating the scene, whenever we deal with the Middle East militarily it seems like kicking an opponent who's already down. Not that Middle Eastern countries don't have its own power, but it doesn't have the effective fighting force to really invade us back. Which is why Sohmer projected our current feelings back onto the Middle Ages and the Crusades: It's westerners once again invading the Middle East and they should just leave it alone.

I took a just war theory class, and there was one guy there who remained steadfastly isolationist. Toward the end of the term, the professor put a bunch of dates on the board: 637, 711, 732, 902, 1453, and 1529. Being the only historian in the room, I was the only person who was able to understand his point: the fall of Jerusalem (637), the fall of Spain (711), the Battle of Tours (732), the fall of Sicily (902), the fall of Constantinople (1453), and the siege of Vienna (1529). For several centuries it was the Muslims who were attacking the West, and the West was getting its ass kicked. Look at Tours and Vienna on a map. That's pretty fucking deep in. Back then there was no choice about being isolationist because the Muslims were coming for you either way. Some historians believe they never ventured further into Europe because there was nothing useful there.

Besides having misgivings about empire being completely anachronistic in 1099 for both sides, to the crusaders it wasn't conquering the Levant so much as reclaiming it. That's why it's called the Reconquista of Spain rather than just the Conquest; the Christians were taking it back from the Muslim invaders as they would for the Holy Land. And if they could, they'd take back the Roman Empire, which if you can recall was all of North Africa too. Yeah, think about that: Egypt back in the day was known as the cultural center of Christianity, even surpassing Rome and Constantinople. St. Augustine, the dude I can't shut up about, is from modern-day Algeria. The Byzantine Empire traditionally gathered its fighting force from Anatolia, which is in modern-day Turkey. Christianity was deeply entrenched in all of those locations, but it's hard to imagine it now because the Muslims invaded.

We can't pretend we've always been the assholes in this situation. Because if we're gonna demand a live-and-let-live policy, what the fuck were the Muslims doing around 1099? Oh yeah, attacking the Byzantines. The Crusades started because the Byzantine emperor sent a letter to the pope asking for help against the Seljuk Turks. He got more than he asked for, but it's not like western Christendom one day decided to just up and leave for Jerusalem. We can't take our modern-day situation and apply it to the past. It doesn't work.