Every war in human history is marked by atrocities, unintended consequences, evil, greed and every other type of evil imaginable, and all made possible by “good intentions”.
Nevertheless, we should ask ourselves why we would want to beat ourselves up over the actions of people we could not control and why we should be asked to justify what they did and why. At the end of the day, most wars that are fought are out of aggressive tendencies or out of necessity. Only the western world (Catholics, western European decent especially) actually sits around worrying and apologizing for sins and perceived sins of the past. Do you think collectively Islam is sorry for the fact that it helped enslave and sell the blacks sent to pick cotton and tobacco in the US? Are they sorry for having overrun Africa, Iberian Peninsula, southern France all within 200 years of its creation? Are they sorry for waging constant war with the West from its inception to the 16th century when they were finally turned around at Vienna and slowly rolled back?
How can we look at the Crusades? The same way we can look at World War 2. We carpet bombed cities, civilian population centers, waged total global war including naval blockades that harmed civilians, sometimes didn’t take prisoners when we should have, and made allies with an empire only slightly less worse than Hitler’s (USSR). If Hitler won, do you think Germans would be sitting around wondering if Hitler should have cleansed the world of Jews, enslaved hundreds of millions, occupied entire continents? Of course not. The true mark of evil is zero recognition of past wrongs and the inability to self-reflect on past or present actions while applying any moral standard to ones actions. So the question boils down to, does the enemy you’re fighting have the capacity to look back at their victory and admit the slightest hesitation at their actions and methods employed in their war against you? If not, then you know you’re on the right side. For all the wrongs, Islam was the aggressor, the “West” employed just and unjust means to retaliate and likely saved itself. If you don’t believe me, find me an openly practicing and evangelizing Christian in one Muslim country that isn’t risking his/her life for their faith.
For a modern example of what I’m talking about (since Islam is on the march again), ask yourself if there is any prominent discussion within ANY Muslim society that the Arabs are on the wrong side of the Arab Israeli conflict? Despite the fact that Israel has had to fight 5 wars of self defense since its recreation in 1948, despite the fact that if the Arab world left it alone at its creation it would be even smaller than the current accepted 1948 boundaries, we are made to believe that they are the victims in this conflict (probably because they also all believe Jews control all the banks, media, and every other western country). It’s a sick joke. Islam is using our own morality and God-given Christian empathy as we fight ourselves over our perceived wrongs while zero similar debate takes place on their side.
