Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Er, that link that you posted clearly states that one of the meanings of the word is:
"any of the more or less continuous military expeditions in the 11th to 13th centuries when Christian powers of Europe tried to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims "
and, when one is talking about going to war, that is the meaning that will immediately spring to mind for most people. The Crusades are a very sensitive subject in the Islamic world, and for Mr. Bush to use the word to describe military operations in that part of the world was grossly insensitive to put it mildly.
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Another perspective or definition is:
"any vigorous, aggressive movement for the defense or advancement of an idea, cause, etc.: a crusade against child abuse"
That is one of the definitions of crusade from dictionary.com.
Also, what he said was "crusade against terrorism." Your equating of crusade against terrorism with a crusade against Islam or Muslims is twisting the facts quite substantially.
I'm not a fan of some of Americas tactics during the past few years and I think our Middle East policy needs significant revamping, but I'll also say that this country comes to the aid of just about everyone in the world on a regular basis, but everyone seems to forget those details. Sometimes I think isolationism for awhile would be a good thing and let everyone else fix their own mistakes.