How America Met the Mideast

Sounds like an interesting read for the history buffs.

Today, the conventional view is that George W. Bush took the United States on a radical departure when he declared a policy to transform the Middle East and that, as soon as he leaves office, U.S. policy will return to an alleged tradition of realism, rooted in the hard-headed pursuit of tangible national interests. This is both bad history and bad prophecy, as Oren shows in Power, Faith, and Fantasy, a series of fascinating and beautifully written stories about individual Americans over the past four centuries and their contact with Middle Eastern cultures.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011901298.html

[bradclark1]

Don't leave the door open Waste Gate. Take a step.

American "churches and evangelist groups will still seek to save the region spiritually." And Americans will regard the region as both "mysterious" and "menacing," as they have for centuries, and will seek to transform it in their own image

Is that George Bush?

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Don't leave the door open Waste Gate. Take a step.

Is that George Bush?

According to Mr. Oren it goes further back than Bush's presidency.

[bradclark1]

Presidential opinion went further back then Bush's presidency. No president acted on his opinion.
If people took Mr. Oren's piece to heart that would mean we are the crusaders that radicals paint us to be.

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Presidential opinion went further back then Bush's presidency. No president acted on his opinion.
If people took Mr. Oren's piece to heart that would mean we are the crusaders that radicals paint us to be.

Of course presidents have acted based on their opinion. To believe otherwise is to remove what is the human experience from every chief executive before George Bush and intellectualy dishonest.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Presidential opinion went further back then Bush's presidency. No president acted on his opinion.
If people took Mr. Oren's piece to heart that would mean we are the crusaders that radicals paint us to be.

The Crusades were not about proselytization. And while America has always been a Christian dominated nation, it's promotion of values are and were for the most part Universal and not theological in nature. At least this is what I understood from this book review and what I've always understood about American history.

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Of course presidents have acted based on their opinion. To believe otherwise is to remove what is the human experience from every chief executive before George Bush and intellectualy dishonest.

I meant in this specific arena.

[bradclark1]

I'll get back to you AL. I have to go find what proselytization means.

Originally Posted by bradclark1

I meant in this specific arena.

Have a look at the link again. Mr. Oren specifically talks about the Jefferson presidency and his response.

President Jefferson -- so often mislabeled as an idealist, pacifist and isolationist -- eagerly launched the war and ordered the permanent stationing of U.S. naval forces thousands of miles from the nation's shores.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by bradclark1

I'll get back to you AL. I have to go find what proselytization means.

Preaching to the unconverted.

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

The Crusades were not about proselytization. And while America has always been a Christian dominated nation, it's promotion of values are and were for the most part Universal and not theological in nature. At least this is what I understood from this book review and what I've always understood about American history.

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns of a religious character waged by Christians from 1095-1291, usually sanctioned by the Pope in the name of Christendom,[1] with the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the sacred "Holy Land" from Muslim rule and originally launched in response to a call from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuq dynasty into Anatolia.[2][3]
The term is also used to describe contemporaneous and subsequent campaigns conducted through the 16th century in territories outside of the Levant[4], usually against pagans, those considered by the Catholic Church to be heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication,[2] for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons.[5] The traditional numbering scheme for the Crusades includes the nine major expeditions to the Holy Land during the 11th to 13th centuries. Other unnumbered "crusades" continued into the 16th century, lasting until the political and religious climate of Europe was significantly changed during the Renaissance and Reformation.

And in todays radical islam the crusades means to force them to change religion.
We have a military force in the middle east.
To me Oren's take on the middle east in that article is that Bush sent us to
change the middle east to our way of thinking. In that context that would be like the middle east coming to the U.S. to force a conversion over to islam. Our reactin would be obvious.
At least thats my take on this anyway.

To me Oren's take on the middle east in that article is that Bush sent us to
change the middle east to our way of thinking. In that context that would be like the middle east coming to the U.S. to force a conversion over to islam. Our reactin would be obvious.
At least thats my take on this anyway.

Are you blurring the lines between self determination and strict adherence to a religious belief with questionable beginnings as to its purpose?

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Have a look at the link again. Mr. Oren specifically talks about the Jefferson presidency and his response.

That was against a specific problem. It wasn't about changing hearts and minds.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collecti.../mtjprece.html

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by bradclark1

And in todays radical islam the crusades means to force them to change religion.
We have a military force in the middle east.
To me Oren's take on the middle east in that article is that Bush sent us to
change the middle east to our way of thinking. In that context that would be like the middle east coming to the U.S. to force a conversion over to islam. Our reactin would be obvious.
At least thats my take on this anyway.

No. You've missed the point. America thinks that the ideas of freedom and democracy are universal in nature and do not contradict Islam in essence. America is not attempting to sway Islamic countries to become Christian. America is in vain trying to convince Islamic countries that they can be freedom loving without contradicting their religion. The American government is extremly naive and dangerously so.

Your definition of the Crusades is historically accurate and reflects what I said about the goal of the crusades not to be the proselytization of non-Christians but rather a clergy-sanctioned military reconquest of lands previously under Christian sway and rule, which were overrun by Islamists.

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Are you blurring the lines between self determination and strict adherence to a religious belief with questionable beginnings as to its purpose?

What self determination?