Talk:Tenth Crusade

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Articles for deletion This article was the subject of a previous deletion discussion.
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Redwolf24 (talk) 00:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Articles for deletion

This article was nominated for deletion on December 28, 2005. The result of the discussion was no consensus. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

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[edit] Rhetorical Device

The Tenth Crusade as a metaphor for the War on Terror would not be out of place when the Conservative Republican government is dominated by Theocrats also known as Reconstructionist or Dominionists . The rhetoric is congruent with a theocratic group attacking groups on religious grounds, thus justified despite the original intention of the writer to satirise the government's war effort. See this eloboration further http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Bush_Theocracy and active promotion of religious groups http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Faith-based_and_Community_Initiatives. --58.163.137.74 (talk) 14:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC) --58.163.137.74 (talk) 14:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] It is Satire

It illustrates a disregard of the Secularism and The Secular State when used in political rhetoric, a form of mockery to drive the point home, however American readers, do not get the message. --58.163.136.146 (talk) 02:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

POV is going into the opposition paragrah where it does not belong. Shall we discuss this, I think editing your edits just weaken the article as a whole Dominick 01:23, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I take exception to the following sentences, which are historically and factually in error:

The ancient crusades were fought directly between religious groups with religious leaders commanding the war. In contrast, the current conflict is between a coalition of primarily secular governments on one side and a relatively small cadre of extremist criminal cults on the other. To truly compare with the Crusades, the Pope would have to take command of coalition forces and the world's most respected Imams and Ayatollahs would have to command all Muslims to join the terrorists in attacking Israel, destroying all Christian churches and killing all Christians and Jews worldwide.

  • The crusades were not an ancient, but a very medieval concept
  • On neither sides were the crusades primarily fought by groups with religious leaders. While the pope called for most crusades, they were lead by secular leaders (among them German Emperors and French and English Kings). Christian invaders were opposed by whatever secular (and often local) leaders were in power in the near east at the time. In fact, while the motivation of the crusaders was at least partially religious, the so-called Islamic side was essentially defending their homes and life style.
  • I'm not aware of any respected Imams and Atatollahs at the time of the crusades calling for an attack on Israel (which didn't exist at the time of the crusades) and the destruction of all Christian Churches (Christianity was and is a protected religion of the book under Islamic law) and the killing of all Christians and Jews worldwide (Christians and Jews enjoy a particular protected status as people of the book under Islamic law and tradition).

I would suggest to strike out the above sentences. --Stephan Schulz 16:15, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As the writer of the above sentences I have voluntarily withdrawn them because I agree in general that they are weakly worded and the article makes its points well enough without them, although I also believe some of the arguments you have listed are biased and factually inacurate.

Hi! This is not really a place to discuss these things after we settled the entry. Still, I'd like to reply, and intersperse my comment with yours. If you want to take it to email, you can reach me at schulz@informatik.tu-muenchen.de.
  • "Ancient" and "midieval" may be distinct to historians, but appear as synonyms in Roget's Thesaurus. I agree with you that the more precise definitions should be honored, and apologise for my use of the vernacular.
Ok. I think in a historical context it makes sense to be precise, and I'm glad you agree.
  • Most Christian knights belonged to Catholic religious orders and were bestowed indulgences and leadership titles by the church, including some who were sainted. It may be true that there were a variety of motivations on the Christian side, many of them secular, but the presence of secular motivations does not erase the influence of the Catholic church in the crusades.
Well, that depends on your definition on knight. However, most of the crusaders were not knights by any definition, and nearly all of them were not member of the clergy or a religious order.
  • There were few if any truly secular leaders in the near east at the time of the crusades, a condition resulting from hundreds of years of early (fundamentalist) Islam under which there was no separation between church and state. The idea that most of the "Islamic side" were just defending their homes may have been true for the later crusades, to the same extent that Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan were just defending their homes from the evil bloodthirsty unprovoked Americans (irony). The earlier crusades were launched in response to severe cruelty to Christian pilgrims and desecration of Jewish and Christian holy sites by the more violent Islamic fundamentalists who had come to power. Many innocents were caught in the middle, but such is the nature of all war. Only the later Crusades were largely unprovoked.
The causes for the crusages are, as usual in history, complex. However, the trigger was a cry for help from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I to Pope Urban II. While there were certainly some acts of oppression against Christians, they were mostly the outgrowth of political conflicts, and blown much out of proportion by contemporary propaganda. Alexious was fighting not against the mainly Arab states of Palestine and Syria, but against the at that time reasonably barbarian turks. Then as now, neither Christendom nor Islam are monolithic. I suggest you get and read a good book on the crusades. I like the classic History of the Crusades by Steven Runciman. Early Islam was somewhat fundamentalistic, but at the time of the Crusades, Islam was a lot more tolerant than Christendom. As a response to the Crusades, Islam developed into a more unified and fundamentalistic religion, with Saladin as a major force in that direction.
  • Israel is the set of people descended from the historical personage named Israel, formerly named Jacob, and was most certainly around at the time, as a sociopolitical entity if not a sovereign state in control of its land. But as you say, today we have to assume readers will have a different concept of what we mean by "Israel." My point was that the Israeli holy land was under management hostile to Christians and Jews. My usage of Israel in the allegorical present tense is accurate because the present-day nation in charge of the disputed holy land of the Crusades is currently called Israel. I was comparing the midieval jihad against Jews and Christians in the Israeli holy land to what a similar jihad would look like today, including a modern invasion of the modern nation of Israel.
At that time of the crusades, the Jewish people were diaspora, and spread out all over Europe and the middle east. There were few left in the middle east, and they were certainly not an organized political power. The holy land was under management of a number of independent states, most of which tolerated Christians and Jews among their population just fine. In fact, most of the local Christians very much prefered the local rulers to the crusaders.
ANNNNGH!!!! Wrong!!! There were many Jews living in SW Asia even at the time of the Crusades, they were involved in the general administration and economy. There are also many divergent views on their exact role in during these times.--71.175.104.15 (talk) 03:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
  • The definition of "infidel" in the Q'uran has been a matter of debate in Islam for a long time. At the time of the crusades, as was more common in early Islam, Christians, Jews and anyone who refused to convert to Islam were regarded as infidels to be killed. That idea is considered part of "fundamentalism" because it was dominant when the religion was "founded." The more generous status of Christians and Jews under modern Islam that you have cited was not the predominant view at the time of the early crusades.
I'm sorry, but this is just plain wrong. Tolerance against Christians and Jews was one of the founding principles of Islam, and preached by Mohammed himself. The time of the crusades coincides with the high time of Al Andalus, where Christians, Jews and Muslims lived and cooperated under Muslim leadership.

The term Tenth Crusade is so inherently biased that it may not be possible to describe the term using NPOV without turning it into a substub.

Well, maybe we should stick to what the term means, and not to discuss our opinions about it. --Stephan Schulz 21:15, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well, that would be a good point if the term existed for any purpose other than to express an extremist political opinion.
Actually, that is your POV. The term was coined to suggest an analogy between the medieval crusades and (parts of) the current War on Terror - after Bush himself used the term crusade. If that is an extremist position or not is a very POV thing.
The phrase Tenth Crusade implies that there is some semblance of legitimacy to the comparison of the War on Terror to the historical Crusades, which is easily disputable.
Obviously, you can certainly make a legitimate comparison between the two. If that comes out favour of a strong analogy is POV (a weak analogy is definitly there, by the mere fact that an invader from a western culture with strong Christian influences fights in countries with strong historical Muslim traditions). Now, the position that there is a stronger analogy is certainly disputable (that is a non-informative sentence - everything is disputable). If it is actually wrong again is POV.
Even though we disagree on our historical interpretation of the issues above, we both come to the same conclusion. I have made the case that this is a poor comparison because religion was a much larger factor in the real Crusades, and you have made the case that this is a poor comparison because the midieval Muslims were pure as the driven snow, in stark contrast to the villainy of the modern Taliban, al-Qaeda and Baath party.
Woa there! I'm amazed at what you read into my words. I'm not claiming that medieval Muslims were "white as snow". The mere concept of "medieval Muslims" is badly broken, since the middle east at the time was controlled by a large number of different local gouvernment, all of which had different political interests, but none of which had a strong religious interest in wholesale persecution of Christians and Jews.
On a similar line, talking about the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Baath party in one sentence as if they were somehow similar entities is not useful for understanding. The Taliban are essentially unsophisticated, semi-barbarian tribesmen with a radical fundamentalist view of the world that came into power in the aftermath of the Afghan civil war after the end of the Russian occupation. Their politics a unsavoury (to me), but they are not much beyond a localized nuisance on a world wide scale. Al-Qaeda is a sophisticated, modern, international terror network with strong intellectual and philosphical Islamic fundamentalist underpinnings. And the Baath party is fully secular, theoretically socialist party, which has much more in common with the old communist parties of the eastern block or the German Nazi party. All three are large, diverse organizations that people join (or joined) for a large number of reasons, only a few of which have anything to do with religon.
On the other extreme, I also dispute how the right wing is attempting to rename the War on Terror as World War IV, having designated the US-Soviet Cold War as World War III. For that matter, there are elements of WWI and WWII that more closely resemble the crusades than our current conflict, so if we are to broaden the definition of a crusade to include the current conflict, then being true to history would require a higher ordinal than 10th, probably somewhere between 12th and 16th. Of course, this doesn't matter one whit because the term that is actually in use is "Tenth Crusade," so we're stuck with trying to find the best way we can to write a NPOV article about it.
Actually, the term is a rethorical device, and I doubt that anybody is really claiming we should seriously try to relable any historical or current conflict as a "crusade".
I don't think that anyone is suggesting that 'crusade' is the only, or the best label. Just that looking at it through the lens of the word crusade might give some insights into the motivations of boths sides, and the likely outcomes. It's just an analogy, a possibly useful alternate view. We aren't 100% stuck with the term 10th crusade, we can rename the page, though I don't think we should, given that other people are using the term.
I'm curious to know what parallels between WWI and WWII and the crusades you see.
One reason I'm not 100% comfortable with the term WWIV or GWOT is that where the Bush crowd see a single atomic enemy, I see a loose collection of different groups with different agendas, who happen so share, to some extend, a common enemy. On the other hand, that was somewhat true in WW2, at least of Japan and Germany.
Regards, Ben Aveling 02:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A possible solution

To write a NPOV article in this situation minimally requires us to dispassionately explain how the term was coined, directly quote the key arguments explaining why the term was coined, and direct readers to consult the main articles about the War on Terrorism and the Crusades that constitute the term's metaphoric references, leaving all explanations of the Crusades and the War on Terrorism to those articles. Under most circumstances, we could probably end there, but this term is so inherently extreme that to omit an equal-space refutation would be to express POV by omission.

Nope. Here you are introducing your POV. The term is not inherently extreme - at best your interpretation of it is.

We should probably also explain the opposition by quoting outside sources rather than adding our own opinions as narrative, as I was tempted to do in response to my perception that the same had been done elsewhere in the article (very lazy and uncalled for on my part, two wrongs don't make a right, I was new to this process, mea culpa).

That does not improve things significantly. Wether you write the text or use one-sided quotes will not change the POVness.
As shown below, in this particular situation, it actually does.

I vote for a rewrite along these lines. Any other ideas?

Shorten it to e.g. the following:


Tenth Crusade is a term denoting the US-lead intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks, used to suggests an analogy between the current conflict and the historical crusades.

Columnist Alexander Cockburn is generally credited with coining the term (using it as the title of a feature article he authored in the September 7, 2002 issue of Counterpunch), which proposes picking up the numbering of the medieval Crusades (of which there were nine) where it left off. He was probably inspired by President George W. Bush's controversial use of the term crusade against terrorism in a speech on September 16th, shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 (2001).

The term is nearly exclusively used by critics of the US operations. Most supporters of the US gouvernment's position claim the analogy is misleading and eschew its use.

--Stephan Schulz 22:48, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is pretty close to what I had in mind, a substub. However, I make the following observations:
OT: Is there any way to stop the Wikipedia editing field to react to Emacs keystrokes in a non-standard way by reloading the article (and throwing away the edits)? I've lost half of the large edit yesterday and another sentence just now...Grrr!
Me, too! I had responded point-by-point to your other arguments, and lost them all, which is probably for the best, considering that we have almost come to consensus on the article.:::On topic again: I wouldn't call this (especially your improved version) a substub or even a stub. It contains all the pertinent information.

Minor style issue: that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks from first paragraph and on September 16th, shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 (2001) in the second paragraph can probably be consolidated as that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the first paragraph and September 16, 2001 in the second paragraph.

As a European with a secular outlook, I feel that the term "Tenth Crusade" is appropriate because of the support among Christian Fundamentalists in the US for the Iraq war and for intervention in Iran. Someone made the point that the fact that the Pope isn't involved means it isn't really a Crusade. Nonetheless, many later historical Crusades e.g. Edward I of England, Louis IX of France, were unilateral and did not involve sanction by the Pope. The common thread linking the old Crusades with this war is that all sides claim to have God on their sides - like Saladin and Richard the Lionheart. (European 18/07/07).

US-lead intervention

The major article on this topic is at War on Terrorism, and this is the best place for a link to be inserted to it, replacing intervention.
I choose the more neutral term because War on Terrorism actually is a propagandistic (and POV) term. However, since it is generally used as a proper noun now, I think we can let it stand.

feature article

Journalistically speaking, it was an opinion column, not a feature article.
Ok.

He was probably inspired

"Probably" doesn't really cut it for NPOV, does it? The article does not directly cite this as a reason, so unless we want to contact the author to confirm, then we should just disconnect Cockburn from Bush, and reorder chronologically.
Ok, I like your version better, and it has more detail.

controversial use

No doubt there was controversy, but I think for the sake of those who will read POV into the controversial label, we can just omit the phrase without weakening the article. Bush also later retracted the term "crusade."
I wont let you of here ;-). What about "President George W. Bush used the phrase "this crusade, this war on terrorism" in a speech on September 16, 2001, causing significant controversy especially in Europe and Arab countires." ? We might also want to wikify President and George W. Bush.
Conceded. But we should also find at least one or two good links to solid sources (published journal articles or coverage in reputable news sources, etc.), documenting that this is not just our own POVs. I have added your phrasing to the proposal below.

the term crusade against terrorism

This term doesn't actually appear verbatim in the speech. The phrase Bush used is "this crusade, this war on terrorism"

Most supporters of the US gouvernment's position ...

This is accurate, but I believe we should avoid relying on anonymous sources and cite references supporting this claim, if only by hyperlink, just to be responsible enough so readers won't see an open invitation to expound. I haven't found any yet, still searching.

In a Newsday article issued December 4, 2003, political commentator James Pinkerton cited two intermediate wars also called "Tenth Crusade." Pinkerton's renumbering of the current conflict as the "Twelfth Crusade" has been overshadowed by references to the title of the Cockburn article.

I suggest adding this reference in order to make mention of earlier usages of "Tenth Crusade," to generalize the article.

Here's an example of my edits, along with some quotations that explain usage and give more context to the statements in the main part of the article...

As stated above, I like it. If you agree with the above addition on controversy, I think we have consensus. Will you put it in? --Stephan Schulz 10:32, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Great, done. But I have also changed some wording and linking when I went in and added the controversy clause. Please review and comment. Most of the edits were minor or in line with points already discussed above. The big one is changing "term" in first sentence to "rhetorical device," which you specified above, and which I think will help reassure folks like me that we are not necessarily projecting the POV that the current conflict should be cited in future history books as the "Tenth Crusade." I have also noticed that our use of the term "current conflict" in the article will date it in the future, so I have removed "current". But there are also a few other changes in wording I thought were minor, but you may consider significant, so I am awaiting your comments before replacing the main article with the proposal. I am also still planning to add references to support our claims of controversy and that "most supporters" eschew the term, which perhaps we can add later.
I think I already saw the last version. Anyways, I'm happy with the text as it currently stands. This is a fine example of cooperation - I think the current version is much better than the original and also better than anything I could have written with reasonable resources. And we don't even agree on much else ;-) --Stephan Schulz 21:26, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tenth Crusade

Tenth Crusade is a rhetorical device denoting the U.S.-led War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The term suggests an analogy between the recent conflict and the historical crusades.

US President George W. Bush used the phrase "this crusade, this war on terrorism" in a speech on September 16, 2001, causing significant controversy especially in Europe and Arab countries. For the September 7, 2002 issue of Counterpunch, columnist Alexander Cockburn authored an opinion column titled "The Tenth Crusade" in which he numbered the conflict to follow the nine medieval Crusades. In a Newsday article issued December 4, 2003, political commentator James Pinkerton cited two intermediate wars also called "Tenth Crusade." Pinkerton's renumbering of the conflict as the "Twelfth Crusade" has been overshadowed by references to the title of the Cockburn column. Cockburn is often credited with coining the term, which is almost exclusively used by critics of the US operations. Most supporters of the US government's position claim the analogy is misleading and eschew its use.

See also: Crusade, War on Terrorism.

[edit] Other usages

[edit] Quotations

US President George W. Bush, from a speech September 16, 2001. 
"We need to go back to work tomorrow and we will. But we need to be alert to the fact that these evil-doers still exist. We haven't seen this kind of barbarism in a long period of time. No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft - fly U.S. aircraft into buildings full of innocent people - and show no remorse. This is a new kind of -- a new kind of evil. And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient. I'm going to be patient. But I can assure the American people I am determined, I'm not going to be distracted, I will keep my focus to make sure that not only are these brought to justice, but anybody who's been associated will be brought to justice. Those who harbor terrorists will be brought to justice. It is time for us to win the first war of the 21st century decisively, so that our children and our grandchildren can live peacefully into the 21st century."
Alexander Cockburn, "The Tenth Crusade," Counterpunch, September 7, 2002. 
"Islamic fanatics flew those planes a year ago and here we are with a terrifying alliance of Judaeo-Christian fanatics, conjoined in their dreams of the recovery of the Holy Lands of the West Bank, Judaea and Samaria. War on Terror? It's back to the late thirteenth century, picking up where Prince Edward left off with his ninth crusade after St Louis had died in Tunis with the word Jerusalem on his lips."
James Pinkerton, "Century In, Century Out - It's Crusade Time," Newsday, December 4, 2003. 
"And now, in 2003, the Americans, the Twelfth Crusaders. The West is no longer 'Christendom,' but we, as first cousins to the Europeans, retain the old faith and bring new kinds of idealism, such as democracy and human rights. But the Crusader spirit is still there; it's still about bringing civilization and salvation of a backward people. As the born-again George W. Bush says, 'This is about good vs. evil.'"

[edit] Article Degression

Honestly, looking over the article history, I think it has mostly degraded from [1]. Moving from the correct rhetorical device to the incorrect "term of rethoric" (and then further down the slope, until the last revision, which is ok if less elegant) is one thing. And the expansion of the simple term "analogy" with different, mostly guessed interpretations leads to unnecessary POV/NPOV conflicts. There is no need to carefully balance the imagined intention of a speaker - just leave it off!

Comparing the two articles, is anybody seriously in favour of the current version? Or should we revert (modulo minor fixes)?

We should revert, modulo minor fixes. The older version was well-negotiated. I'm not sure how to do it myself, or I would. Be bold.

Well folks. We are stuck with this wart of an article. Lets fix this article about Mr. Cockburn's rhetorical device into a coherent wart. Dominick (ŤαĿĶ) 00:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we need to merge the quotations, or lose them. And I'd like to retrieve one or two of Striver's quotes, if we can find a cite for them.

I'll make the following changes now:

  • Tighten the intro. Chop out "in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The term suggests an analogy between the recent conflict" People can follow the links if they need to know that information.
  • Tighten the next paragraph into a cleaner version, without some of the side discussion and speculation.
  • Split the last sentance off into a new paragraph, which could do with some expansion.

Here's a good article we might draw from [2]

Regards, Ben Aveling 03:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AFDed redirect

A redirect of this article (Crusade (modern)) had an AFD debate that agreed to delete the page. However, nobody offered a reason to delete the redirect, and mind you, most of the delete votes came after the redirect was created. With this in mind, I've let it be. Anyone interested in deleting the redirect can check out Redirects for Deletion or whatever. Johnleemk | Talk 13:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Original crusades defensive?

I've just reverted the following addition:

The War on Terrorism cannot intellectually be referred to as a crusade, because the crusades were a defensive measure launched after Christian lands had been attacked by Arab Muslims (most Muslim countries in the middle east were at one time majority Christian).

This is very misleading. For one, by the time of the crusades, the middle east had been predominantly Islamic for more than 400 years. By comparison, would Spain attacking the Netherlands be defensive? Or any Indian tribe attacking the US (or should that be Britain, France, and Spain?). Secondly, the first Muslim expansion did not deplace the original population. Many people converted (and many did not - there were very siziable Christian communities e.g. in Syria (and many of these orthodox Christians were later slaughtered by the Crusaders)). Many of the "attackers" of the first Muslim expansion were indeed newly converts, not Arabs. The Crusades are a complex topic, but calling them defensive is much more wrong than right.--Stephan Schulz 07:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Historically the statement is correct, because the first few crusades were in response to the Turkish victory at the Battle of Manzikert, which shattered the Byzantine imperial army and brought the Anatolian plateau under Moslem rule. The original crusades, all fiascos and in one case redirected at the Byzantines themselves (the Fourth), were originally meant as relief for the Eastern Christian Empire. Papal propaganda and knightly ambition soon brought the control of the Holy Land to question, and so the usual identification of the Crusades is with that region. The crusades which established Frankish and Norman kingdoms in Syria-Palestine were not defensive; but the original motivation of the Crusades was decidedly defensive. And did involve a response to a major loss of Christian territory (not as major as when Egypt and Syria and North Africa jumped ship a few centuries before, but major enough).
BTW why is this called the Tenth Crusade? Weren't there more than nine historical crusades?Skookum1 00:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, this is being discussed elsewhere in the Wikipedia as well as all over the Internet. Another view of the Crusades being defensive was that along with the appeal of assistance for the Eastern Roman Empire, was that Christian pilgrims were being attacked by the new Fatimid rulers who destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Jerusalem was conquered by Pompey in 63 BC and fell to Omar in 683 AD, so the Romans considered it one their own for about 750 years vs. 400 years of foreign occupation.
My own view is that calling this The Tenth Crusade is a bit silly, but we're dealing with Alexander Cockburn's rhetorical device for undermining the defense of the West from terrorism, so we note it here. patsw 01:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I missed it previously, but "undermining the defense of the West from terrorism" is a very peculiar POV. --Stephan Schulz 09:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
This is what I don't understand. Why is Cockburn's rhetorical device more notable than one of Chomsky's, or one of Bush's, or Christopher Hitchens for that matter?--csloat 09:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, it is, apparently. Probably because it hit a nerve, and was reasonably widely circulated by the original article.--Stephan Schulz 09:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually it's not at all apparent that it is more notable, or that it "hit a nerve." As my research established, it was not widely used by anyone in the print media. It was not used on television (I searched television transcripts for it as well). It was only used on blogs and on copies of the same article on various websites. This is what is strange to me. I can think of neologisms from Chomsky, for example, that are far more widely used by the print media (and have withstood the test of time) that are not the topics of separate articles. This neologism will not withstand the test of time if Wikipedia did not enshrine it. I agree that a page talking about the view of the GWOT as a new crusade is a notable rhetorical strategy, but this phrase the "tenth crusade" bugs me because it has little basis in reality -- the notion itself is pure bombast, when it comes from Cockburn or from Bush, or from that "my god is bigger than yours" general Boykin I think is his name; it does not describe any reality (there is little question of Bush planting a crucifix in Baghdad as much as Ann Coulter might want him to). Anyway I just had to vent, lol...--csloat 09:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
As for the numbering, for some reasons historically only 9 (all to the eastern mediterranean area) were numbered. The other ones got distinctive names ("Crusade against the ..." or "Baltic Crusades"). For Cockburn's aim, calling it the "Tenth" is rather smart, as it puts it into clear continuation with the main ones. As for "Defensive": The battle of Manzikert had been 24 years earlier - that's nearly a generation. The eastern Roman empire was indeed under continous pressure from the turks. But as far as we know, even in the very speech at Clermont, Urban II did not primarily call to defend the Byantines. Of course he used the standard rhetoric devices - "let's aid eastern Christs", "the Saracenes are murdering and enslaving innocent pilgrims", but the clear thrust was to conquer the "Holy Land", i.e. what became Outremer. From our perspective, calling this defensive is very misleading.--Stephan Schulz 09:13, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

So maybe it's time for another AfD for this article, but I think you'll uncover a cabal of Alexander Cockburn supporters who like the prominence this article gives to the phrase Tenth Crusade. patsw 03:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Well , I hardly know Cockburn, except from these discussions. But I think [3] applies for at least some more weeks. I also don't see why people want this deleted so bad. It's not as if it hurts someone or jumps out of the dark at small children and grannies to eat them. Compared to the second credit screeen of someones least favourite TI99 game from 1985 (which does seem to have a page on Wikipedia ;-), this is indeed a notable topic. The article also is reasonably NPOV and sourced. --Stephan Schulz 08:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] deletion debate?

I don't see how this term is notable enough for its own article; the point made here belongs in other articles instead. But if we are going to keep it here, the claim that GWBush was the "first" to use the term is patently absurd; long before Mr. Bush had ever heard of al Qaeda, bin Laden and other Salafi jihadists were calling American forces in the Middle East "Crusaders." If we're going to keep this silly article at least it should be accurate.--csloat 20:18, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

yep I agree. Put it up for AfD again... Dominick (TALK) 03:48, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name Change??

Since there was no consensus to delete this silly entry, can we at least change the name to something like Crusades (modern) or something else that doesn't give it a bogus enumerator? There are only one or two people who use the phrase "tenth crusade" and it is totally inaccurate.--csloat 23:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm agreed on a change, but to what? I'd rather get agreement first, then move, than play move and move again. Regards, Ben Aveling 01:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Candidates:

  1. Crusades (modern)
  2. Crusade (modern)
  3. Bush Crusade
  4. Bush's Crusade
  5. Tenth Crusade
  6. Iraq Crusade
  7. Crusade on terror
  8. Crusade on terrorism
  9. Crusades (war on terrorism)
  10. War on terror - a modern crusade
  11. The new crusade
  12. The American crusade
  13. The crusade theory of warfare [4]
  14. Crusade for democracy [5]


I'd support #1 or #9. "Bush's Crusade" is ludicrous and way too POV. Tenth crusade is hardly a name change. Iraq Crusade is also ludicrous since the war referred to is not the Iraq war (the term was used earlier in regards to the war in Afghanistan, and even earlier by bin Laden and his followers to refer to US troops in Saudi Arabia). "Crusade on terror" and "crusade on terrorism" are not used by anybody.--csloat 02:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I put #5 in because staying the same is an option that maybe someone wants to consider. #6 was suggested during the AFD. I don't feel limited to names that people currently use, so long as the name we come up with makes sense to people. Using an existing name would be preferable, if there is a good one, but I'm not sure there is. If verbosity wasn't an issue I might suggest "The war on terror - a crusade in disguise". Maybe #10? It makes it clear that this concept is part of the wider concept of war on terror(ism). #11 is another neologism that has some currency. #12 likewise, but less so. #13 has very few google hits but I like it because it is sort of catchy, and it feels like it might have nice clearly defined boundaries, which most of the other candidates probably don't. [6] Regards, Ben Aveling 07:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think any of the new articles is better than the old one. Crusades (modern) would have to include "Crusade against Poverty/Drugs/...", not just the current topic of the article. "Crusade on Terror" may be the best of the bunch, but is not POV (people in Iraq and Afghanistan will have a very different opinion on that)". The qualified ones are to long - no one will find or look for them. Also, they sound like opinion pieces. "The new crusade" is underspecified. "The American crusade" understates the international participation, and also is used for many other things (check Google). "The crusade theory of warfare" sounds like an interesting topic for a Ph.D., but has nothing to do with this article. There is no "theory" here. "Tenth Crusade" apparently is in use. 9 of the first 10 hits on Google fit. --Stephan Schulz 08:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Google is a terrible measure of that given how things spread on the internet. Mainstream news sources in any of the top ten? I checked lexis/nexis and got no hits for tenth crusade in this context; the only hits for it talked about an actual crusade, the tenth one, in fact.-csloat 09:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, Google measures actual usage. Most of the hits are on blogs and blog-like sites, most offering political commentary. The first two are on Wikipedia (this page and the main article), and some on Cockburns site. I asked above (probably you missed it): Which one is the "Tenth Crusade"? Given that the nordic crusades were run contemporarily with the standard 1-9, it's hard to justify any medieval crusade as the "tenth". Numbers 1-9 at least had (officially) more or less the same target, and have been known by this name for a long time. --Stephan Schulz 09:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Google does not measure "actual usage"; it measures reproduction on the internet. Political blogs are not a significant part of the worldview of 90+% of the US population, much less the world's. The main source for this is Cockburn; I don't think it's notable enough for a wikipedia article just because there are bloggers who picked up on it, especially when many other sources historically refer to an actual tenth crusade (the one in jerusalem as I said on the AfD page, the one that is written about in the book called the _Tenth Crusade_ that was written at the turn of the 20th century). The point is, nobody in the real media is calling this a crusade, and while it may be in vogue among a certain segment of blog writers who are fond of Cockburn -- perhaps 20-30 people max -- in five to ten years, nobody in their right mind will be looking back at this as the "tenth crusade" and you still won't see any hits on lexis/nexis. Look, I like Cockburn too, and I do think it's a good idea to have a page that focuses on the misrepresentation of the war on terror by a small segment of Islamists and by Bush occasionally as a "Crusade" but this title is ludicrous. And your complaint that Crusades (modern) requires Crusade on drugs or whatever is bogus -- the word may have been used in that context but only in the generic sense of a vigorous campaign rather than having a specifically religious meaning. That could be explained in a sentence if you think it's necessary.
This is a neologism that is not in widespread use, is inaccurate at best, and I think Wikipedia should not make such a neologism more popular or legitimate than it is.--csloat 09:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
"it measures reproduction on the internet" - well, that is (part of) actual usage. From my quick survey, most are not literal copies of any one article, but independent usage of the word. 90+% of the American public don't know about a lot of things we have in Wikipedia (SCO v. IBM, Foraminifera, Verdon River...), so that is not a good reason to exclude something (no dig at Americans...the same is probably true in Europe and elsewhere as well). Apparently, the Cockburn use swamps the medieval or any other use at the moment. As far as I can make out Cockburn is part of the real media (although nearly unknown in Europe, so I have no opinion on him). This article does not claim that the current conflict is a crusade. It documents and describe the usage of the phrase.
I checked back the AfD page, and still could not clearly make out which actual crusade "Tenth" should refer to. Various of the traditional nine medieval ones reached Jerusalem, and nearly all tried to. --Stephan Schulz 10:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Well I'm not going to keep fighting about this; it's turning into a crusade :) So I'll try to make this my last word on the matter, and let others talk about it, and perhaps we can vote on some choices. But your argument about usage on blogs is backwards -- political blogs are even less important to people in the rest of the world than they are to Americans. The fact that a memorable phrase from a mordant wit got picked up by a lot of bloggers does not make it encyclopedic, methinks, especially when nobody in the mainstream media outside of Cockburn is using it (and you're right, he is part of the media, but a tiny part, and he's Irish, by the way, and though he lives in the US he's not unknown to Europeans). As for which actual crusade, I just looked up the sources, and I'm not an expert on the actual Crusades. You're right that 9 is the traditional numbering, but there are several works which refer to an actual tenth, so at the very least there should be a disambiguation page here. I really think we would all be better with Crusades (modern) or Crusades (war on terror) -- we could have "tenth crusade" in the intro as a name specifically coined by Cockburn. The thing is, a lot of people talk about this concept without using the silly "tenth crusade" label.--csloat 11:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
The name Crusade is inherently PoV. The term "Tenth" is wrong. Put them together you have a term that is meaningless, and even as it is used in articles, it is a neologism. It is indelible cruft. Move or merge, but dont use the term Crusade. Dominick (TALK) 16:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, we don't invent and we don't judge. We describe. If Bush uses it, he has a POV ("We are the holy warriors with the just cause"). If Cockburn does, he has a (different) POV ("We are the barbarian invaders, driven by religous zeal"). If we write "Bush used the word crusade and Cockburn drew an analogy to the medieval crussades by coining the phrase tenth crusade", there is nothing POV about it. --Stephan Schulz 16:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
If we say "This war is a crusade", that is indeed a POV statement. If we say "Here's why some people think this war is motivated by the same things that motivated the original crusades ..." then (that far) we will have been NPOV (if long winded) The problem is what to call the page? What do you suggest we move it to? The ideal name would be accurate, and widely used, unique and instantly recognisable. Ideally, however many people you asked what Thing is called, they would all reply with the same answer. If you ask them what Name means, they would all reply with the same answer. We don't have that. Most of the proposed names have been used, but none of them widely. Mostly people just say 'crusade' and rely on context. Most of the proposed names are about as accurate as the others. Not all of them are unique or self explanitory. Do we keep looking? Do we pick one for now, and change when something better comes along? Regards, Ben Aveling 02:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with calling the article the Tenth Crusade which is Cockburn's usage. I think it serves a useful purpose to put in one place the Bush quotes and Cockburn's POV. I disagree with people who believe that in its current form the article is anti-Bush POV. It might be concluded by the reader that Bush's usage of crusade really was non-religious, and Cockburn's claim that its usage was religious to be unsupported (even though we as Wikipedians have faithfully documented it). Certainly, in this crusade since September 11, 2001, there is no evidence that the United States wishes to raise the Cross of Christ over the mosques of Afghanistan or Iraq. patsw 03:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe the biggest objection to this is the fact that many people in the west find the term "Crusade" offensive. However, I view a Crusade not necessarily as a war between Islam and Christianity, but rather a war of Western Ideas Vs. Eastern Ideas. According to this definition of the word, the War on Terrorism IS indeed a 10th Crusade. This should be a neutral term, seeing as Osama Bin Laden calls us Americans "Crusaders" and views himself as Saladin, in addition to George W. Bush using the term "Crusade". I believe the article should either be named The American Crusade, or have the name changed to "10th Crusade" seeing as the other Crusade articles are not spelled out as 'Second', or 'Third'. AmericanColumbia 05:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

But this article is not about the War on Terror (or on civil liberties, or for oil, or whatever), but about the phrase "Tenth Crusade". That's why "American Crusade" totally fails. Using a number also suggests an overly strong connection to the original crusades. I'd suggest to leave it as it is. --Stephan Schulz 20:14, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eisenhower

When Eisenhower used the word crusade, he did use it in a religous sense.

"You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade [...] let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking." (http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/dday/orderofthedayaudio.html)

I can't see how a crusade could be non-religious. It implies furthering God's will, not totally unlike jihad.

A crusade does not have to have Islam as its target, any more than a jihad must have Christianity as its target, but it has to be religious or why use the word?

Regards, Ben Aveling 06:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

What religion was Eisenhower going to impose upon Germany? And, does every political speech which ends "...and God bless America" invoke a religious crusade?
In a technical sense, asking God for a blessing for an action is not declaring that action to have as its immediate (or even remote) purposes a victory for one religion over another. On the other hand, the call for a religious crusade or jihad, is explicit in seeking the triumph of Christianity or Islam respectively. patsw 13:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
So I guess Batman, the Caped Crusader, is just the Pope in tights? When used in the context of history or an East-West conflict, the word's original religious overtone's emerge. However, the word "crusade" is used so commonly in the American South that it is plausible that Bush may not have given a second thought to its origins. Is this just another Bushism, a more sinister Bushian slip, or an unabashed call to Holy War? Intentional or not, is it accurate, to any extent? Whether the intelligencia have jumped in or not, such questions have been discussed worldwide as a result of this singular event in history, Bush's call to "crusade". Limiting our measures of the impact of this concept to the English language belies the extreme concern that flooded most other regions when an Arab leader invoked Jihad!, a Western leader invoked Crusade!, and the two sent their armies to clash in the Mideast. The top three religions all have prophesies regarding such things, and they have large followings outside the West. Bush's "Crusade" was such a major milestone to many that if Howard "Screech" Dean didn't already have a trademark on the phrase, we could rename the article "The Shout Heard 'Round The World". As it is, I think Tenth Crusade works, not because it is in widespread use in the West, nor even because it was intentional or accurate, but because it crystallizes, albeit weakly, how the conflict was perceived by millions. Is it a fair or accurate model of the current conflict? Maybe not, but it is very real to very many people. We've reported it accurately, and explained it well enough. We've debated whether to erase one of the few good documentations of it from our cultural memory, and decided to keep it. Good for us. Pats on the back all around. Score one for Wikipedia. History as it happens. Show's over, move along.

[edit] out of context

  • This article is really out of context. You can call it Bush-Laden War or Bush war on terrorism or even Bush Crusade or whatever. but tenth Crusade ! When we talk about Crusades then we mean specific wars that took place during Dark ages. These wars were between states. We can not call every war or armed action a crusade. Title should be changed or you are trashing History.  :( Samsam22 (talk) 19:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)