Remarkable.
Then Urban, in preaching the First Crusade, offered them a solution. He called upon them to kill, and told them that on this occasion it was not a sin—indeed, that it would win them remission of past sins. By the Fourth Crusade, participants were guaranteed absolution of all confessed transgressions—in other words, a ticket straight to paradise. The arrangement that Urban offered to the men of the First Crusade is less clear, but they were promised “eternal rewards.” So it was two in one: the knights could go on slaughtering people and get to Heaven thereby. That was “positive violence,” and, according to Asbridge and Phillips, it was the motor of the Crusades.
This passage is almost identical to what a French born Muslim cleric was saying about the how some agitators are recruiting young European Muslims for "Jihad". In short those who cannot live a clean life to begin with find salvation in doing more of what they already do under religious pretext. The program, of course being made in France by the French and for the French, cast the French prejudice and stupidity in the best possible light (oh ya, we had to pass on anti hijab dress code before they overthrow the republic). Just the same, I have no doubts that these tactics are as effective today on both sides of the camp as they were 900 years ago.
The insistence on the Crusaders’ sense of religious duty, as opposed to bloodlust and greed, comes across as a justification. However much the authors may historicize it, it starts to sound virtuous. Does this mean that Asbridge and Phillips think the Crusades were O.K.? Not according to many of their statements, particularly about the sack of Jerusalem and of Constantinople. But before those events, as the Franks are lobbing the stones and mounting the battlements, our chroniclers are full of admiration for them. Asbridge praises the “inspired and audacious” tactics of the leaders of the First Crusade, their “military genius”; Phillips roots for the men of the Fourth Crusade as, with their boats swaying beneath them and with scores of Greek bowmen firing at them, they climb their ladders and jump out onto the walls of Constantinople. Later, the authors bemoan the slaughter, but what did they think the audacious tactics were for? There is a curious amorality here. It may be endemic to military history. (What an exciting battle! Oops, what a lot of dead people!) Still, it is strange.
hmmm...seems remarkably similar to attitudes of many in the pro-war camp...oh ya, we are on a crusade to establish democracy and secularism (the new religion) but while we are at it, of course we cannot allow the oil reserves to fall into the hands of anyone but ourselves...oops I mean hands we cannot trust; the wrong hands...and our heros have to do whatever they have to do.
Strange morality indeed!
ST
US Army drilled to see all Arabs, Muslims as terrorists - deserter in Canada
AP
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
TORONTO (AP) - An American seeking to become the first US soldier granted refugee status in Canada after refusing to serve in Iraq told immigration officials yesterday that the Army was drilling its soldiers to think of all Arabs and Muslims as potential terrorists.
"We were being told that it was a new kind of war, that these were evil people and they had to be dealt with," Pfc Jeremy Hinzman, 26, told the Immigration and Refugee Board on the second of his three-day hearing for political asylum.
"We were told that we would be going to Iraq to jack up some terrorists," said Hinzman, who fled from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on January 2 and now lives in Toronto with his 31 year-old wife, Nga Nguyen, and 2 year-old son Liam.
He said US military training since Sept 11 is designed to "foster an attitude of hatred. It gets your blood boiling to carry out the mission." Hinzman is arguing that the war in Iraq is illegal and fighting in it would have made him a war criminal.
He also said he would face prosecution if forced to return to the United States because he likely would be court-marshalled and sentenced to an Army jail.
Immigration and Refugee Board officials noted that others who had deserted from the military typically spent only one year in jail. "Serving one day in prison for refusing to comply with an illegal order is one day too long," Hinzman told the tribunal, which likely will take several weeks to reach its decision.
Hinzman said he enlisted for four years in 2000 to experience the army, believing it would give him guidance and maturity. But he fled the 82nd Airborne Division about two weeks after learning his outfit would be sent to Iraq. Hinzman had served three years in the Army and applied for conscientious objector status before his unit was sent to Afghanistan in 2002, but the Army told him it lost his application.
He said he wanted to fulfil his service obligation but not to participate in combat. "The military is to fight justified wars," said his lawyer Jeffrey House, an American who first came to Canada as a draft dodger during the Vietnam War.
"I don't think he joined the military to invade other countries who had done nothing to the United States, just at the pleasure of the United States president." Hinzman is among several young American soldiers seeking refugee status in Canada, hoping to capitalise on the country's opposition to US President George W Bush's foreign policy.
Canada has declined Bush's request for troops in Iraq and the majority of its people are opposed to the war. Some 30,000 to 50,000 Americans fled to Canada during the Vietnam War and were allowed to settle there. Jimmy Massey, a staff sergeant who served in Iraq before being honourably discharged after 12 years with the Marines, testified on behalf of Hinzman, saying US soldiers routinely committed atrocities against innocent Iraqis.
"The code of silence you take in the Marines is much like the one in organised crime," he said, noting it was not uncommon for Marines to fire on wounded Iraqi combatants - a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
"I have witnessed Marines putting rounds into enemy combatants who are expiring," Massey told the tribunal. Massey, whose unit was stationed at a checkpoint in the southern Baghdad district of Rashid, said his men killed more than 30 civilians in 48 hours, including unarmed demonstrators.
"We were shooting up people as they got out of their cars trying to put their hands up," said Massey, who was with the 7th Marine weapons company. He said there was confusion communicating with Iraqis, who may have misconstrued the Marines' warning shots as a sign of celebration.
"I don't know if the Iraqis thought we were celebrating their new democracy," he said. "I do know that we killed innocent civilians." |
