The big news on Thursday is President Trump’s former lawyer
Michael Cohen has pled guilty – WAIT FOR IT – to lying. What
prosecutorial team snagged Cohen? Special Persecutor Robert Mueller and his
team of Crooked Hillary supporting Prosecutors.
I don’t watch, listen or read Mainstream Media News so I can
only imagine how Cohen’s guilty plea propagandized their sheeple the plea will
lead to imminent impeachment of President Trump.
You should really view the more reasoned reporting on the Cohen Guilty
plea that suggests Mueller’s indictments and guilty pleas have NOTHING TO DO
with an alleged Trump/Russia collusion. It’s been two-years so you may have
forgotten Mueller’s Special Counsel appointment was to investigate Trump for colluding
with Russia to manipulate the 2016 Election to Trump’s favor.
If you did forget Mueller’s mandate be careful to whom you
speak. You might get caught in a perjury trap by making statement dissimilar to
anything you said two years ago.
NOW if Robert Mueller was actually serious about a candidate
who paid for information to sway the 2016 election that involve a Russian source, he
should LOOK to the Crooked Hillary campaign paying for the debunked Steele
Dossier which was used by the Obama Administration to spy on the Trump
campaign. Oh, I forgot the key point. Christopher Steele claimed his Dossier
was sourced by – GASP! – the Russians.
Specifically what is Cohen pleading guilty to? Could it be
facilitating Russian spying on Crooked Hillary? Nope. Again the Russia/Election
2016/American campaign axis is closer akin to Crooked Hillary’s agenda. Cohen
pled guilty to lying to Congress about a Trump project to build a skyscraper in
Moscow. A project, incidentally, Trump the table as his campaign for President
began to pick up steam.
… Cohen admitted
he lied to Congress about key details in the negotiations for the Moscow tower,
most notably that those talks stretched much deeper into the presidential
campaign than previously thought, to June of 2016.
Trump,
speaking to reporters Thursday, disputed Cohen’s timeline and suggested
his former fixer was telling prosecutors what they wanted to hear to save his
own skin. As for why the most recent deal failed, Trump said he made
the decision because he was focused on on [sic] running for president.”
…
But according to Cohen’s new
statement to prosecutors, the tower deal remained viable as late as June 2016,
after Trump had vanquished his Republican presidential rivals and was
mounting his general election campaign against Hillary Clinton. Cohen said
he kept Trump, named as “Individual 1” in the plea, updated about the
deal’s progress, and also “briefed family members of Individual 1 within the
company about the project.” (Attorney's
plea caused by Trump's dream of a Moscow tower; By STEPHEN
BRAUN and BERNARD CONDON; Washington
Times; 11/30/18)
The timing of securing the GOP nomination by late July led
Trump to abandon the Trump Moscow Tower dream. That is a much closer
correlation than a failed real estate deal in June 2016.
The irony about the Steele Dossier is the initial
intelligence poop was initiated by Never-Trump Republicans. As it became
evident Trump would win the nomination, the Never-Trump Republican funded
terminated.
The Clinton campaign and the DNC
are believed to have taken over the project in April 2016, once Trump became
the nominee, and oversaw the compilation and completion of the dossier from
there.
…
Who put it together?
The document was produced by Fusion
GPS, a Washington strategic intelligence firm cofounded by former Wall Street
Journal reporter Glenn Simpson in 2012.
In 2016, the firm hired Steele to
dig into any connections between Trump, then a Republican presidential
candidate, and the Russian government.
…
But it has attracted particular
scrutiny for its work for a U.S. law firm that defended Prevezon Holdings,
which until May was locked in a legal battle with the U.S. government over
allegations the company’s executives fraudulently obtained a $230 million tax
refund from the Russian treasury.
Also working the case defending
Prevezon was Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended the
infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 before which Donald Trump Jr. was
offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Veselnitskaya is known for
her work lobbying against the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 U.S. law aimed at punishing
human rights abusers in Russia.
… READ
ENTIRETY (Clinton, Trump and the Russia dossier: What
you need to know; BY JONATHAN EASLEY, KATIE BO WILLIAMS AND MORGAN
CHALFANT; The Hill; 10/28/17
12:31 PM EDT)
Mueller’s perjury trap faulty memory trick is hardly as
relevant as the overt lies committed and given a pass by the Obama
Administration led FBI and DOJ. I hope Americans wakeup to the injustice of
Mueller tactics against all things President Trump and the actual crimes that Obama/Crooked
Hillary Dems committed with absolutely zero consequences.
Perspectives on Cohen Guilty Plea Ignored by Lying MSM:
Don’t get so caught up debating the
granular issues over ‘muh Russia’ that you fail to elevate and see the
landscape from the 30,000 ft. level. The Rosenstein/Mueller move
today is all about protecting the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
(SSCI) from President Trump (declassification threats); and it was specifically
scheduled, timed, to be launched today as Trump leaves for the G20 to achieve
maximum political damage. … READ
MORE
Special Prosecutor – or is it Counselor or perhaps Deep
State Persecutor – Robert Mueller has been using his prosecutorial powers NOT
TO INVESTIGATEa Trump/Russia connection
to subvert the 2016 Election. RATHER Mueller has used nearly unlimited power provided
by Deep State acolyte Rod Rosenstein to create the delusion of Trump
obstruction of justice via totally unconnected to the Special Counsel purpose
to manufacture perjury traps.
To date every American indicted by Mueller’s team of
Dem/Hillary witch hunters has been tried or plea dealed for undermining the
election as agents of Russia, but perjury traps based on faulty memories rather
than lies
WORSE! How did Mueller get agreements to plea deals from the
accused? Not by evidence of wrong doing, but by taking miniscule differences in
under oath interviews results.
Why wouldn’t the accused fight the accusations? Because of
the threat of horrendously outrageous legal bills that would bankrupt the
accused families. These Prosecutors/Persecutors – win or lose – have no
personal financial stake. And so at the end of the day, they go home to their
families planning activities, vacations, birthdays, Christmas gatherings, etc.
WITHOUT the worry that litigation placed a strain on their budgets.
I have noticed Jerome Corsi is the latest victim of this
expensive to defend perjury trap ploy. It appears that Corsi – so far – is not
willing to cave to the financial burdens imposed by Mueller with frivolous
legal traps to bring down Trump and all who support the President against
Democratic Party wickedness.
Below are some details of Corsi’s plight from a WND article.
JRH 11/28/18
So readers, I’ve been using a seven year old laptop to fulfill the old blogging habit. It’s time for an upgrade. The best laptop with buzzes & whistles for my purposes is about a $1,000.00. My grandson found a similar but not quite all the buzzes & whistles for a little over $500.00. I’m a relatively small-time blogger but with a consistently growing readership despite some token censorship from the liberal-oriented blog and social platforms. Whatever my readers can chip in for a laptop upgrade will be appreciated: https://www.paypal.me/johnrhouk
Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh became audibly livid
Wednesday as he lamented how the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller into
alleged Russian collusion with Donald Trump continues with no end in sight,
ruining the lives of people tangentially connected in the meantime.
“It’s all rooted in the fact that they’ve got nothing!”
Limbaugh shouted. “And I’m sorry if I sound mad about this, ’cause I am! I am
fit to be tied over it! It has been a hoax. It has been a travesty from the
very get-go.”
He blamed what called a “fake, phony, fraudulent dossier”
about Trump as the main reason for the ongoing probe, saying it “frosts me to
the degree that I’ve run out of words to express my anger.”
“A made up political opposition research document that
contains not one element of truth was used to get FISA warrants to spy on the
Trump campaign. It’s why [former Trump campaign manager Paul] Manafort’s going
to jail. It’s why [author] Jerome Corsi’s being pressured with threatened with
going to jail and [former Trump adviser Roger] Stone and all these ancillary
players that had nothing to do with anything regarding the 2016 election.
“And there’s nothing anybody can do to stop these people.
You’ve got the rest of the Drive-By Media acting as cheerleaders for all of
this. It is a travesty. It is an outrage. And all the while we’re being told
the people running this investigation have impeccable honor, impeccable
integrity. The people we can trust, of all people in Washington. What an
absolute crock this is.”
Limbaugh said minor players such as Stone and Corsi in the
drama “have as much do with Russian collusion as Mickey Mouse and Minnie
Mouse.”
“The idea that Jerome Corsi has anything to do with this is
literally absurd! But because they think they found a connection between Corsi
and Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and the Podesta emails – wait a minute. What
happened to Trump colluding with Putin? What happened to the Russians tampering
with votes? What happened to the Russians colluding the – what is this
about WikiLeaks and all these people supposedly connected to WikiLeaks?”
Limbaugh said the only way to battle what’s taking place is
to flood the American people with truth and facts about this:
What really galls me is that we
keep hearing and have always heard about the integrity of Robert Mueller. You
must be very careful criticizing Robert Mueller. Robert Mueller has served as
the director of the FBI, served presidents of both parties. He’s perfectly
nonpartisan. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Open our mouths and let them shovel
it all in. And we happily chew away, and it’s all a crock!
If there were any integrity
– and I mean this from the bottom of my sizable and beating-in-rhythm
heart – if there were any integrity in this investigative team, they would
have shut this thing down a month after they learned what has never happened
and they would have shifted their direction toward the Democrats and the
Hillary campaign and all of the fraud that existed in taking a phony document
to the FISA court to get warrants to spy on innocent people while the FBI
planted spies in the Trump campaign.
People with integrity, the kind of
integrity we’re told Mueller has in abundance, would have immediately seen
what’s gone on and brought a stop to all this. But no. That’s not what
happened. It’s very clear what this is. This is the Washington establishment,
the elites, the Deep State, whatever you want to call it, remaining focused and
using every ounce of federal power they can amass to continue their efforts to
overturn the results of the election of 2016 and to destroy anybody they can
who had anything to do with Trump winning.
_____________________________
My Intro Thoughts on WND’s
Limbaugh on Perjury Traps
About those Christian Crusaders that loaded their weaponry
to RE-TAKE the Holy Land from Muslim invading conquerors. Closer to the truth
than lying Multicultural Leftists and Muslim Apologists.
My only criticism I have is Geri Ungurean’s source downplays
the Antisemitism of the Crusaders. That’s a bit surprising considering Ms.
Ungurean is a Messianic Jew (i.e. a Jew that has accepted Christ as Lord and
Savior).
Not deviate too much from this otherwise awesome post, my
take is the Crusaders were Antisemites largely because the Church had spent
centuries calling Jews Christ-Killers which if you read your Bible is a bit of
a stretch. The Pharisee/Sadducee ruling class empowered by the Roman government
feared any Jewish movement that might be a threat to their station in life
under Roman rule. The Jewish population on the other hand reviled Roman rule;
hence many Jewish Messianic and Rebellion Movements (of which as far as Christians
concerned was the Messianic Movement of Christian Redemption in Christ).
But as Gentiles became the dominating group over the Jewish
Christians, Jew-hatred began to be taught even though pre-Resurrection Jesus
was raised under Jewish traditions and every single person among the Twelve
Apostles was Jewish.
The Jewish perspective of Jew-hatred Medieval propaganda HERE.
The Christian perspective for Jew-Hatred Medieval propaganda
HERE
and HERE.
JRH 11/27/18
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider
chipping in a few bucks to keep my blogging habit flowing:
We know this because God told us this in His Holy Word.
Satan is the father of lies. He is a master of deception and the author
of confusion.
Through the centuries, history has been rewritten with the
help of the evil one. If you asked the typical person on the street about the
Crusades, most of them would begin to disparage Christianity and speak of
‘horrors’ committed against Muslims.
Do you remember when Obama spoke of Christian
aggression during the Crusades?
I would encourage the reader to print this article out.
I am using a piece from thenewamerican.com to dispel the lies which have
been perpetrated throughout the centuries about the Crusades.
This article is rather long. For those who would rather
watch a video concerning truth about the Crusades, I will insert a link for
that at the end of this piece.
The year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam,
born a mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim
Moors are on the march.
Growing in leaps and bounds, the Caliphate, as the Islamic
realm is known, has thus far subdued much of Christendom, conquering the old
Christian lands of the Mideast and North Africa in short order. Syria and Iraq
fell in 636; Palestine in 638; and Egypt, which was not even an Arab land, fell
in 642. North Africa, also not Arab, was under Muslim control by 709. Then came
the year 711 and the Moors’ invasion of Europe, as they crossed the Strait of
Gibraltar and entered Visigothic Iberia (now Spain and Portugal). And the new
continent brought new successes to Islam. Conquering the Iberian Peninsula by 718,
the Muslims crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into Gaul (now France) and worked
their way northward. And now, in 732, they are approaching Tours, a mere 126
miles from Paris.
The Moorish leader, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, is supremely
confident of success. He is in the vanguard of the first Muslim crusade, and
his civilization has enjoyed rapidity and scope of conquest heretofore unseen
in world history. He is at the head of an enormous army, replete with heavy
cavalry, and views the Europeans as mere barbarians. In contrast, the
barbarians facing him are all on foot, a tremendous disadvantage. The only
thing the Frankish and Burgundian European forces have going for them is their
leader, Charles of Herstal, grandfather of Charlemagne. He is a brilliant military
tactician who, after losing his very first battle, is enjoying an unbroken
16-year streak of victories.
And this record will remain unblemished. Outnumbered by
perhaps as much as 2 to 1 on a battlefield between the cities of Tours and
Poitier, Charles routs the Moorish forces, stopping the Muslim advance into
Europe cold. It becomes known as the Battle of Tours (or Poitier), and many
historians consider it one of the great turning points in world history. By
their lights, Charles is a man who saved Western Civilization, a hero who well
deserves the moniker the battle earned him: Martellus. We thus now know him as
Charles Martel, which translates into Charles the Hammer.
The Gathering Threat in the East
While the Hammer saved Gaul, the Muslims would not stop
hammering Christendom — and it would be the better part of four centuries
before Europe would again hammer back. This brings us to the late 11th century
and perhaps the best-known events of medieval history: the Crusades.
Ah, the Crusades. Along with the Galileo affair and the
Spanish Inquisition (both partially to largely misunderstood), they have become
a metaphor for Christian “intolerance.” And this characterization figures
prominently in the hate-the-West-first crowd’s repertoire and imbues everything,
from movies such as 2005’s Kingdom of Heaven to school
curricula to politicians’ pronouncements. In fact, it’s sometimes peddled so
reflexively that the criticism descends into the ridiculous, such as when Bill
Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University and, writes Chair of the History
Department at Saint Louis University Thomas Madden, “recounted (and
embellished) a massacre of Jews after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in
1099 and informed his audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered
in the Middle East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing
of Jews was not explained.)” Why, indeed. Yet, it is the not-so-ridiculous, the
fable accepted as fact, that does the most damage. Madden addresses this in his
piece, “The Real History of the Crusades,” writing:
Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The
Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by
power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been
the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history
of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A
breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the
peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving
it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for
example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the
Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted
by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.
But what does good history tell us? Madden continues:
Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid
fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful,
Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the
means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the
world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War…. In the
eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which
had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to
modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than
Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the
Christians of western [sic] Europe asking them to aid their brothers and
sisters in the East.
[The Crusades] were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope
or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in
which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At
some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be
subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.
The reality is that in our modern conception — or, really,
misconception — of the word, it is the Muslims who had launched “crusades”
against Christendom. (In the true sense of the word, the Moors couldn’t be
Crusaders, as the term means “those who are marked with a cross,” and the
Muslims just wanted to erase the cross.) And like Martel before them, who
ejected the Moors from most of southern Gaul, and the Spaniards, who — through
what was also a Crusade — would much later wrest back control over Iberia, the
Crusades were an attempt to retake conquered Christian lands. So how can we
describe the view taken by most academics, entertainers, and politicians? Well,
it is the Jihadist view. It is Osama bin Laden’s view. It is a bit like
ignoring all history of WWII until December 8, 1941 — and then damning the
United States for launching unprovoked attacks on Japan.
Christendom Pushes Back
So now the year is 1095. Just as the Muslims had invaded
Europe from the west in the days of Charles the Hammer, now they are pushing
toward it from the east. And just as they had taken the Byzantine lands of the
Mideast and North Africa in the seventh century, they now have seized Anatolia
(most of modern Turkey), thus robbing the Byzantines of the majority of what
they had left. The Muslims are now just a few battles away from moving west
into Greece itself or north into the Balkans — the “back door” of Europe.
Rightfully alarmed and fearing civilizational annihilation, Byzantine emperor
Alexius I in Constantinople reaches out to a rival, Pope Urban II, for aid.
Inspired to act, in November of 1095 the pope addresses the matter at the
Council of Clermont, an event attended by more than 650 clerics and members of
European nobility. On its second-to-last day, he gives a rousing sermon in
which he appeals to the men of Europe to put aside their differences and rally
to the aid of their brothers in the East. Here is an excerpt of the sermon as
presented by the chronicler Fulcher of Chartres:
Your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of
your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been
promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have
attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as
far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called
the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those
Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and
captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If
you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impunity, the faithful of God
will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the
Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to
persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich,
to carry aid promptly to those Christians.
In addition to this call, the pope articulates a second
goal: the liberation of Jerusalem and other Mideast holy sites. The pope’s
words are so moving that those in attendance are inspired to shout, it is said,
“God wills it! God wills it!” The first crusade is born.
Modernity, the Middle Ages, and Myth
Yet, in modern times, much cynicism would be born. People
just can’t believe that these medieval “barbarians” didn’t have ulterior
motives. This brings us to the “ambitious pope” and “rapacious knights” bit,
the 20th-century myths about 11th-century motivations. Let’s examine these one
at a time.
First we have the notion that the Crusaders were
imperialists. This is an understandable perspective for the modern mind, as the
not-too-distant past has been one of a dominant West colonizing a world of
backwaters. Yet this was a recent and relatively short-lived development. Do
you remember how Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi considered the eighth-century
Europeans barbarians? It was no different in the 11th century; Dar al-Islam was
the burgeoning civilization. It was the imperialist force — and this wouldn’t
change for another 600 years.
Next we have two myths that contradict each other; although,
considered individually, they may seem tenable. One is that, despite the Crusaders’
purported religiosity, they were just seeking riches by the sword. The other
myth is, they were so darn religious that they were seeking to convert Muslims
by the sword. It seems unlikely that both could be true, and, as it turns out,
neither is.
Today we like to say “Follow the money.” Well, if you
followed it in the 11th century, it led right back to Europe. The reality is
that most Crusader knights were “first sons,” men who had property and wealth —
much to lose (including their lives) and little to gain. And just as the United
States can drain the public treasury funding Mideast interventions today,
medieval warfare was expensive business. Lords were often forced to sell or
mortgage their lands to fund their Crusading, and many impoverished themselves.
It also doesn’t seem that the average knight entertained visions of becoming
“the man who would be king” in a faraway land, either. As Madden said in an
October 2004 Zenit interview, “Much like a soldier today, the
medieval Crusader was proud to do his duty but longed to return home.”
As for conversion, the Crusaders were warriors, not
missionaries. They had no interest in converting Muslims; in fact, I doubt the
notion ever entered their minds. They viewed the Muslims as enemies of God and
His Church and a threat to Christendom, nothing more, nothing less. Treating
this matter in a piece entitled “The Crusades: separating myth from
reality,” Zenit cited medieval history expert Dr. Franco
Cardini and wrote:
“The Crusades,” says Cardini, “were never ‘religious wars,’
their purpose was not to force conversions or suppress the infidel.” … To
describe the Crusade as a “Holy War” against the Moslems is misleading, says
Cardini: “The real interest in these expeditions, in service of Christian
brethren threatened by Moslems, was the restoration of peace in the East, and
the early stirring of the idea of rescue for distant fellow-Christians.”
Yet, whether or not the Crusades were religious wars, they
certainly flew on the wings of religious faith. And when the Crusaders sought
treasure, it was usually the kind that was stored up in Heaven. As to this
sincerity of belief, Madden has pointed out that Europe is peppered with
thousands of medieval charters in which knights speak of their deepest
motivations, of their desire to do their Christian duty. Then, Professor Rodney
Stark, author of the new book God’s Battalions: The Case for the
Crusades, tells us that while the knights were serious sinners, they were
also serious about becoming more saintly. Anne Godlasky of USA Today quotes
him as stating, “These knights did such terrible things that their confessors
kept saying, ‘I don’t know how you will ever atone for this — why don’t you try
walking to Jerusalem barefoot.’ And they would do it — they took their faith very
seriously.” Moreover, when the Crusaders met with failure, Europeans embraced a
characteristically religious explanation: They blamed their own sinfulness.
Then, seeking to purify themselves, piety movements arose all across their
lands. Perhaps this is why Oxford historian Christopher Tyerman has called the
Crusades “the ultimate manifestation of conviction politics.
”
We should also note that the Crusaders didn’t see themselves
as “Crusaders”; the word wasn’t even originated till the 18th century. They
viewed themselves as pilgrims.
Having said this, it would be naïve to think that all
Crusaders’ worldly endeavors were animated by heavenly thoughts. Some say that
Pope Urban II might have hoped he could regain control over the Eastern Church
after the Great Schism of 1054. It’s also said that Urban and others wanted to
give those militant medieval knights someone to fight besides one another. As
for those on the ground, the Crusades involved a motley multitude encompassing
the regal to the rough-hewn, and it is certain that some among them dreamt of
booty and betterment. Yet is this surprising or unusual? People are complex
beings. Within a group or even an individual’s mind, there are usually multiple
motivations, some noble, some ignoble. Charles the Hammer might have very well
relished the glory won on the battlefield, for all we know. But it would be
silly to think that was his main motivation for fighting the Moors. Likewise,
if the Crusaders were primarily motivated by covetous impulses, it was the most
remarkable of coincidences. For those dark urges then manifested themselves
just when a Christian emperor appealed for aid, just when Europe again seemed
imperiled — and after 400 years of mostly unanswered Muslim conquests.
Into the Mouth of Dar al-Islam
But however great the Europeans’ faith, the first Crusade
was a long shot. The soldiers had to travel on foot and horseback 1,500 miles —
traversing rivers, valleys, and mountains; braving the elements; dealing with
hunger and thirst and whatever unknowns lay ahead — and then defeat entrenched
Muslim forces. And the endeavor had gotten off to a rather inauspicious start:
An unofficial Crusade comprising peasants and low-ranking knights had already
departed — only to be massacred by the Seljuk Turks.
So, now, it is August 15, 1096, and the official Crusader
armies depart from France and Italy. Arriving in Anatolia many months later,
they lay siege to Muslim-occupied Nicea; however, Emperor Alexius I negotiates
with the Turks, has the city delivered to him on June 1, 1097, and then forbids
the Crusaders to enter. They then fight other battles against the Muslims on
the way to their next objective: the great city of Antioch. It is a must-win
scenario; if they do not take it, they cannot move on to Jerusalem. The siege
continues for seven and a half months, during which time the Crusaders are
hungry, tired, cold, and often discouraged; Antioch’s formidable walls seem an
impenetrable barrier. On June 2, 1098, however, they are able to enter the city
with the help of a spy. It is theirs.
Yet the Crusaders soon find themselves besieged and trapped
in Antioch with the arrival of Muslim relief forces. Nevertheless, they manage
a break-out on June 28, defeat the Turks, and, after a delay caused by
internecine squabbling, move south to Jerusalem in April 1099. Starving after a
long journey, they arrive at the Holy City on June 7 — with only a fraction of
their original forces. Despite this, Jerusalem will not pose the problems of
Antioch, and they capture it on July 15.
The First Crusade successes give Christendom a foothold in
the Mideast for the first time in hundreds of years with the establishment of
four outposts known today as “Crusader states.” They are: the County of Edessa
and the Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098; the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
founded in 1099; and the County of Tripoli, founded in 1104. Perhaps the tide
has finally turned in Christendom’s favor.
But it was not to be. It was still a Muslim era, and more
Crusades would be launched in the wake of Islamic triumphs. In fact, there was
a multitude of Crusades — if we include minor ones — lasting until the end of
the 17th century. However, it is customary to identify eight major Crusades,
dating from 1096 through 1270, although this does omit many significant
campaigns.
Great passion for a second Crusade was sparked when the
County of Edessa was overcome by Turks and Kurds in 1144. Led by Kings Louis
VII of France and Conrad III of Germany and advocated by St. Bernard, it was an
utter failure. Most of the Crusaders were killed before even reaching
Jerusalem, the campaign did more harm than good — and Muslim power continued to
grow.
Because of this, Madden writes, “Crusading in the late
twelfth century … became a total war effort.” All are asked to answer the call,
from peasants to patricians, either by devoting blood and treasure to the
defense of Christendom or through prayer, fasting, and alms to make her worthy
of victory. Yet these are the days of the great Muslim leader Saladin, and in
1187 he destroys the Christian forces and takes one Christian city after
another. And, finally, after almost a century of Christian rule, Jerusalem
surrenders on October 2.
The loss of the Holy City inspires the Third Crusade. Led by
storybook figures such as England’s King Richard the Lionheart, German Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa, and France’s King Philip II, it is sometimes called the
Kings’ Crusade. Yet it is no fairytale affair. Frederick’s army quits the
campaign in 1190 after their aged German leader drowns while crossing a river
on horseback, and King Philip leaves after retaking the city of Acre, owing to
continual friction with Richard. Despite this, the English King is undeterred.
Displaying brilliant leadership and tactical skill, he fights his way south, taking
on all comers, and eventually recaptures the Holy Land’s entire coast. Yet the
crown jewel, Jerusalem, eludes his grasp. Believing he would not be able to
hold it (since most Crusaders will be returning home), he must swallow hard and
settle for what he can get: an agreement with Saladin to allow unarmed pilgrims
unfettered access to the city. Richard then returns home and never sees the
Holy Land again, dying from a battle-related wound sustained in Europe in 1199.
While the passion for Crusading remained strong in the 13th
century and the Crusades were greater in scope, funding, and organization, they
were lesser in accomplishment. There would be no more Richard the Lionhearts.
Mideast Christian lands would slowly be overcome. And Jerusalem would never
again be in Crusader hands. In fact, by 1291, the Crusader kingdom had been
wiped off the map.
The Next Crusades Battle: The History Books
Because the Crusades ultimately failed to achieve their
objectives, they are typically viewed as failures. And this brings us to a
common Crusades myth. It’s said that those medieval campaigns are partly to
blame for anti-Western sentiment in today’s Middle East, but this is nonsense.
The reality is, as Madden told Zenit, “If you had asked someone in
the Muslim world about the Crusades in the 18th century he or she would have
known nothing about them.” This only makes sense. Why would the Crusades have
been remembered? From the Muslim perspective, they were just routine victories
— like so many others — events that would just naturally fade into the mists of
time. What in truth is partly to blame for Islamic anti-Western sentiment is
19th-century pro-Western propaganda. That is to say, when England and France
finally started colonizing Arab lands, they wanted to rubber-stamp imperialism.
To this end, they taught Muslims in colonial schools that the Crusades were an
example of an imperialism that brought civilization to a backward Middle East.
And, not surprisingly but tragically, when imperialism was later discredited,
the Crusades would be discredited along with it. Muslims would start using the
false history against the West.
But there are many Crusade myths. For example, some would
characterize the campaigns as anti-Semitic. Yet, while there were two notable
massacres of Jews during the Crusades, there is more to the story — as Madden
also explained in the Zenit interview:
No pope ever called a Crusade against Jews. During the First
Crusade a large band of riffraff, not associated with the main army [the
aforementioned “People’s Crusade”], descended on the towns of the Rhineland and
decided to rob and kill the Jews they found there…. Pope Urban II and
subsequent popes strongly condemned these attacks on Jews. Local bishops and
other clergy and laity attempted to defend the Jews, although with limited
success. Similarly, during the opening phase of the Second Crusade a group of
renegades killed many Jews in Germany before St. Bernard was able to catch up
to them and put a stop to it.
This obviously adds perspective. In every war there are
rogue forces that commit transgressions. Why, the United States had the My Lai
Massacre in Vietnam and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Yet, to echo Madden on this count,
it would be unfair to claim that the goal of American forces was to,
respectively, murder innocent civilians or commit sexual abuse.
There were other Crusader sins as well. In the Second
Crusade, the warriors foolishly attacked Muslim Damascus, which had been an
ally of the Christians. Worse still, the Fourth Crusade saw the sacking of
Constantinople itself — occupied by the very eastern Christians the Crusades
were designed to protect — after the Crusaders helped an imperial claimant gain
the Byzantine throne and then were refused the aid he had promised them as a
quid pro quo. In response, the pope at the time, Innocent III, condemned the
attack (and he had already excommunicated the Crusade). Nevertheless, the
damage was done. The act widened the Great Schism of 1054 to perhaps
irreparable proportions.
Yet, again, perspective is necessary. Medieval armies didn’t
have modern discipline or rules of engagement, and they were, above all,
medieval. You could not have put hundreds of thousands of men in the field
during the course of centuries in that age without writing some dark chapters.
Really, though, you couldn’t do it in the modern age, either.
With all these failures and missteps, we may wonder why
Europeans continued Crusading well beyond the 13th century’s close. We may ask,
was it worth the blood and treasure? Yet the answer boils down to one word:
survival. The threats to Europe mentioned earlier would not remain theoretical.
The Muslims would extinguish the Byzantine Empire — and Constantinople would be
renamed Istanbul. They would cross into the Balkans, and their descendants
would clash with Christians there in the 1990s. The Ottoman Turks would capture
the Italian town of Otranto in 1480, prompting the evacuation of Rome. The
Ottomans would occupy what is now Hungary for 158 years. And, in 1529 and 1683,
they would reach the gates of Vienna.
Yet the tide would finally turn against Dar al-Islam. The
Ottomans would lose the Battle of Vienna in 1683, and, more significantly,
Europe was blossoming. It would outpace the Muslim world technologically, and
in its march toward modernity, the Christian “barbarians” would become the
burgeoning civilization. In fact, they would become dominant enough to forget
how recent their time in the sun is — and how, perhaps, it almost never was.
So, were the Crusades really a failure? Sure, there was no
Charles Martel and Battle of Tours, no Duke of Wellington at Waterloo; there
was no history-changing engagement where we could say, ah, that is where we
slew the dragon or “this was their finest hour.” And they accomplished none of
their stated goals. But the Crusades era might have constituted a “holding
action,” a time when Christendom was pushed toward the abyss and, outweighed
and wobbling, pushed back. Of course, this isn’t the fashionable view. But it
is easy today to characterize those medieval warriors any way we wish; they are
no longer around to defend themselves. But had they not defended the West, we
might not be troubling over the past at all — because we might not have a
present. –source
Brethren, it is important to be able to chronicle the events
leading up to the Crusades. We must attempt to shut down revisionist historians
who present history from a politically correct vantage point.
Truth is truth!! Jesus would have us tell the truth
about events in history regarding His church.
The Left have made Islam and Muslims into “victims.”
Not all Muslims are war lords or terrorists, but many are. Their
prophet Muhammad was the originally war lord and his fundamental followers
continue in his footsteps.
Shalom b’Yeshua
MARANATHA!
______________________
Intro to Ungurean Post on ‘CRUSADES:
The TRUTH’
John R. Houk, Editor
Posted November 27, 2018
_______________________
The CRUSADES: The TRUTH
About Islam and Why Christendom FINALLY Pushed Back
Bio: I am a Jewish Christian who was born-again in 1983.
Yeshua is my life. Writing about Him is my passion. My subject matter varies.
Sometimes I write on Bible Prophecy. Other times on apostasy in the church. And
often times I address the political climate of our country and our world. My
greatest love is writing about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I pray that some
of my articles will fall in the hands of my Jewish people. If you would like to
bless us with a gift, please send to: Geri Ungurean P.O. Box 1031 Savage, MD
20763 Your generosity is most appreciated! Shalom
In this essay, Justin Smith’s states a determination for the
America that has been. The America resulting from the Founding Fathers’
original concept of a Republic that the rule of is accountable to We the People.
And that We the People make informed political decisions based on
Judeo-Christian Moral Principles and Values.
Any lack in this determination is to align with America’s
transformation into a rule of law determined by the principles and values of an
elite few dedicated Secular Humanistic
Marxist-Socialism.
It’s a choice between godly individualistic Liberty versus a
totalitarian collective. Which is best for you and your familial descendants?
JRH 11/26/18
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider
chipping in a few bucks to keep my blogging habit flowing:
It is a bit of an alienating experience for one to see the
nation of his birth and the principles of our ancestors under constant assault,
from foreigners and people born here who are amerikkans rather than
Americans. I refer to those Muslims who desire Sharia law, the Black Muslims
who simply hate America, La Raza with its Hispanic communists and conquerors
who want to reclaim the Southwest for Mexico, the communist Democrat Party that
seeks the eradication of our Founding Principles and the destruction of our
Constitution and Republic, and those communist proletarians, the TAKERS, who
seek their upkeep and livelihood at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.
But I am not powerless, even in my moments of weakness when
I feel a bit lonely in the realization that far too many Americans are not
concerned, as much as they should be over these developments. Although I may
still suffer over the suffering of others, I know a better way than the
“fundamental transformation” [Blog Editor: Essays of interest on Obama fundamental
transformation – HERE
and HERE]
of America and "Democratic" Socialism exists for Us all; having
things has never been so important to me as having Quality of Life and Liberty,
and I intend to fight 'til my last dying gasp to keep this America, I love so
well, on a path towards the greatest Freedom and Liberty for All.
And as I stand firm against the rising tide of statists and
globalists, I do not doubt my convictions and my rightness in this war for the
heart and soul of America.
I have not lost my sense of duty and dignity, and I am not
for sale, no matter how much the Leftists of America try to isolate me from the
public square, through their politically correct Commie castigation and
censorship. I remain the same man I have always been -- Free and Unashamed to
be an American for ANY reason. I will never be coerced or forced to abandon the
TRUTH and bow at the altar of the Super State,
the Leviathan.
You are not powerless either. All of You out there ... All
of You Fine American Patriots ... have it within You to effect the changes You
wish to see, in the manner in which We are all governed.
If You Love Freedom, Independence and Liberty, surely You
have the clarity of a normal mind that finds joy in a life lived well and free,
unlike the insane hive of the collectivists and communists and those
anti-American proponents of Big Government, government intrusions, overregulation,
Open Borders and tyranny. Rather than hope these sick Evil individuals will
cure themselves or try to find compromises where none exist, or, worse yet, try
to adapt Yourself to a failed system, FIGHT for greater INDEPENDENCE and True
LIBERTY for All Americans, and FIGHT for America's Original Founding
Principles, Her Traditions and Her Heritage.
I long to see the insanity within our society end. For too
long now, we have allowed those who call evil "good" to control the
direction of America. For myself, I will never validate or accept their
depravity, seen in abortion, and perversion, flaunted in “Gay Pride” parades,
homosexual marriage and child pornography, as the "new normal". I
will never accept their Open Borders and their intent to destroy the United
States' Sovereignty.
It is time to end this madness, that is allowing the enemies
of America to rip apart the fabric of society and Her Founding and destroy
everything good and decent about Her. End it now, however You must.
God Bless You All and God Bless Our Beloved America. May He
Keep Her Free For All Eternity and Damn Her Enemies Both Foreign And Domestic
to the Hell They Have Earned And So Richly Deserve.
de Oppresso Liber ___ Voire Dei
On My Honor and On My Life
~ Justin O Smith
____________________
Edited by John R. Houk
Text enclosed by brackets and
reference links are by the Editor.
Consider this relatively recent development in European rule
of law:
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
passed a verdict last Thursday that insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammed would be
a punishable offense and will not be protected as ‘free speech’.
A panel of seven-judges decided
that defaming or demeaning the Prophet Mohammed goes ‘beyond permissible limits
of an objective debate. And it could cause prejudice in the society and
will risk religious peace’.
The court case was about a lecturer
who would talk about Mohammed being a pedophile. The court said … READ
ENTIRETY (European Court Makes it Illegal to Criticize
Mohammed. Free Speech Does NOT Apply; By Avi Abelow; Israel Unwired;
11/14/18)
I’ve always been flabbergasted by Leftist Multiculturalist
support for adherents of Islam to practice their Anti-West, Anti-Christian,
Jew-Hating faith unrestrained by Western principles and the Western rule of
law.
My astonishment is based on the fact evidenced by Islam in
history, that whenever Islam attains political supremacy either by conquest
(via Jihad)
or by gradual conversion; Islamic Supremacism ALWAYS takes over forcing
non-Muslims into a discriminated (often abused) second class citizen whereby
acts of humiliation are exacted further securing a socio-politico stranglehold
on ALL THINGS cultural.
That would include the Multicultural Left whose political
hubris of expecting gratefulness from such a counter-culture as Islam would
ever coexist peacefully amidst non-Islamic cultures or lifestyles. That hubris
if perpetuated will lead to the complete destruction of all things Western that
has evolved from Graeco-Roman-Judeo-Christian thought.
This Multiculturalist support to ensure Muslims practice
their faith according to the tenets of their theo-political religion enforced
by Islamic Sharia Law makes Western tenets of Liberty subservient to the
dictates of Islam. MEANING telling historical truths about Islam and its
founder is considered insulting under Sharia. In Sharia shining the light on
Muslim practices in history – including the nefarious acts of Muhammad – can be
penalized up to and including death.
An EU Court ergo, has criminalized anything that Sharia
would list as insulting.
THE HYPOCRISY: Yet Muslims in adherence to their
revered writings (Quran, Hadith and Sunna [Sira]) can insult the Godhoodand Sonship of Jesus as well as call for the death of Jews (Quran,
Hadith
& Sira [PDF
pg. 37 documentpg. 29]) without ANY legal penalty whatsoever in
European Courts.
AND NOW, even after ECHR says criticizing a religion – Islam
– is now a criminal offense in Europe (Thank God the USA still stands with
the Bill of Rights). It appears the ECHR ruling is only a one-way street.
BECAUSEMuslim Imams all over Europe are
calling for the death Jews. The implication is Islam can criticize ANY
religion, even call for the murder of the members of any non-Islamic religion
and there is European Judicial outrage.
Dear God in Heaven! Islam is not even the majority religion
in Europe yet the religion’s adherents can execute Islamic Supremacy!
AMERICANS CANNOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN HERE!
I first became aware of this tolerance of Islamic Jew-Hatred
via a Facebook Group post at New English Reviewby Jerry Gordon. Gordon pointed out an Israel National News
(Arutz Sheva) post by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld.
I’m going to begin with Gordon’s Facebook post which is a
cross post of the Gerstenfeld About Page, followed by Gerstenfeld’s post.
JRH 11/24/18
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider
chipping in a few bucks to keep my blogging habit flowing:
Read chaver [For those pro-Israel Christians as myself – chaver
defined] Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld's chilling Arutz Sheva -
Israel National News report on European Imam's calling for the murder of Jews.
Dr. Gerstenfeld is a noted Israeli expert on European and Global Antisemitism
and Emeritus Chairman of the Jewish Center for Public Affairs.
Outright calls to murder Jews have become a pattern among
European Muslim clergy, but western politicians are bent on hiding it. They
know why.
About Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
The writer has been a long-term adviser on strategy issues
to the boards of several major multinational corporations in Europe and North
America. He is board member and former chairman of the Jerusalem Center for
Public Affairs and recipient of the LIfetime Achievement Award (2012) of the
Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
++++++++++++
European Imams call for murder of Jews
Outright calls to murder Jews have become a pattern
among European Muslim clergy, but western politicians are bent on hiding it.
They know why.
The massive immigration of Muslims into Western European
countries has also brought with it major whitewashing efforts to keep resulting
problems hidden. The main whitewashers are western politicians as well as media
and Muslim leaders. There are also many others. A central reason for the
strong whitewashing efforts is that publishing the details of the criminality,
incitement and other serious problems that segments of the Muslim immigrants
and their descendants have brought with them would be a huge accusation against
European governments. They have let millions of people in without adequate
screening.
Other issues are distorted as well. Many pseudo-progressives
falsely assert that all cultures are equal, a claim simple to deconstruct.
Furthermore, mainly as a result of the evils of colonialism, the misbelief that
only white people can be racists has been promoted.
This collection of fallacies is particularly problematic for
Jews. There is a disproportionately large number of antisemites among Muslim
immigrants and their descendants. Jews have therefore become a preferred target
of several of them. Some Muslims commit violence, and a few more extreme ones
are even murderers. All Jews who have been murdered for ideological reasons in
the new century in Western Europe have been killed by Muslims.
Due to the physical aggressions, violent attacks and even
murder, verbal violence against Jews is studied with much less attention.
Yet, many of the most extreme expressions of antisemitic hate mongering come
from Muslims, including religious leaders. Explicit calls for the murder of
Jews have been made by imams in several countries.
In July 2018, a Danish prosecutor charged Imam Mundhir
Abdallah with calling for killing of Jews. This religious figure preaches at
the Masjid Al Faruq mosque in Copenhagen. In Facebook and YouTube video posts
in March 2018 Abdallah quoted a hadith, a classic religious narrative saying;
"Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill
them," In May 2017 Denmark published a list of six foreigners accused of
preaching hatred. Five of them were Muslims and one was an evangelical
preacher. They were banned for at least two years.
In December 2017, Mohamed Tatai, the imam of the Grand
Mosque in Toulouse, France, quoted the full hadith which is attributed to the
prophet Mohammed about the final and decisive battle: ‘Judgement Day will not
come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the stones and
the trees, and the stones and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of
Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him – except for the
Gharqad tree, which is one of the trees of the Jews.’” This extreme antisemitic
inciter was a member of an interfaith dialogue group with Jews.
In August 2014, Italy expelled Raoudi Albdelbar, a Moroccan
imam who preached against Jews in a mosque near Venice: "Oh Allah, count
them one by one and kill them to the very last one." This came to public
knowledge in a video released by the Washington based media monitoring group,
MEMRI.
In 2001, the El Tawheed mosque in Amsterdam was forced by
the authorities to remove several statements from its website, including the
following: “The Jews possess the weapons industry and, on the other hand, they
are the ones who make the wars.” In 2018, it became known that the Amsterdam El
Tawheed mosque was frequently visited by people who joined armed Jihad and
terrorists.
Jews are not the only target of Muslim hate preachers. In
December 2016, in the Dittsbury mosque in Manchester, imam Mustafa Graf, called
for armed jihad. One of the regular attendees there was Salman Abedi. Six
months later he would detonate a suicide bomb that killed 22 people at a
concert given by singer Arianne Grande in that town.
In 2016, Belgium expelled the Dutch Moroccan imam El-Alami
Amaouch. Since then he preaches in the Netherlands. Yet another hate preacher
in the Netherlands is Imam Fawas Jneid. Once, in Arabic he verbally attacked
Rotterdam mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, an orthodox Muslim, calling him an apostate
Muslim and an enemy of real Islam. Dutch Minister of Justice, Fred Grapperhaus,
informed parliamentarians that this preaching was within the borders of the
law. The Dutch imams’ association told a newspaper that it would not publish an
official statement on Jneid’s comments. ‘There are so many people saying crazy
things,’ a spokesman observed.
Muslim hate preachers can also be found in Canada and the
United States. In the latter country the problematic First Amendment of the
Constitution is a severe handicap in acting against extreme inciters. In the
Arab world and in some Muslim countries religious and other leaders calling for
the murder of Jews are common. For many years the “murder hadith” was part of
the Hamas charter.
All the above is only the tip of the iceberg. Muslim
organizations in Europe frequently claim that mosques have nothing to do with
antisemitism. If the European Union was serious in its fight against
anti-Jewish hate mongering it would see to it that in all member countries,
police services investigate the preaching of hate in mosques and by Muslim
religious leaders wherever they may be. Then the information obtained should be
made public.
