Maggie's Farm

I see the Crusades as our problems today, but in a very different setting.
While Islam ignited the problem with jihad, that was not the original intent of Islam. Mohammed hoped to bind a people together to improve relations with the West and the Jews.

Politics ruins everything. The Islamic states were, prior to Islam, and are now, highly factional. So Islam was used to promote each faction's view. The most aggressive obviously won out.

But to say the Crusades were blameless is wrong. There were instances of chivalric behavior, and cooperation, on both sides along the way. There were also examples of barbaric behaviors on both sides. Each sides chose their friends and partners carefully along the way, sometimes working with peoples they disliked to achieve a short term goal.

That's all politics. It's not indicative of the inherent supremacy of the West over Islam or vice versa.

In the end, the West has prevailed, or is prevailing, because we overcame most of our factional differences. We began to understand the nature of the individual and decentralization in a manner the Islamic world is having difficulty doing. Islam tries it, but fails each time due to power struggles.

The West does it and succeeds frequently, but fails sometimes because of the same reason.

But I see much myth on both sides and don't see either side as blameless, except to say if Islam had stayed at home, this would all be moot. Given they didn't, they sparked a series of behaviors, vendettas, retributions and other activities which can only be laid at the feet of human nature and emotional response. These reactions were not just from the West toward Islam, but also internal to Islam, and internal to the West. The West has been winning its internal battle over time. Islam is not winning its internal battle. It is losing to base human nature.