Medieval History
Image: Screenshot from GQ.com, slideshow of covers to Rumsfeld's memos.
GQ now has an article online by Robert Draper, detailing Donald Rumsfeld's tenure as Pres. George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense. 2 things going on here:
--> The whole piece reads like an apologia for a certain segment of the Bush II administration -- Rice, Card, etc. Everything -- even the response to Katrina! -- was Rummy's fault. That stuff's interesting but needn't detain us here.
--> Not at all the main point of the article but contained within it, are the covers to classified intelligence memos that Rumsfeld himself (as Sec. of Def.) would deliver to the President. One of those is captured at right (again, for the full slideshow, go here). They all have images from previous day's events (mostly in Iraq) and they all have "appropriate" biblical quotations. The one in the image here, as it says, comes from Daniel 5. The whole chapter tells of the prophetic vision of King Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, and the false scholars who can't understand God's plan. Daniel, however, can understand the divine writing and foretells Belshazzar's doom, how God will cast down his kindom. The rest of the quotations on the memo covers are similar but this one in particular reminded me of this:
rn France, and asked his listeners to engage in a holy war. Urban believed that God would cast down the proud Muslims who then held the Christian East, including Jerusalem, and those who truly believed would find His favor as instruments of His will. There's a reason one of the chronicles of the First Crusade is called Gesta Dei per Francos ("The Deeds of God through the Franks").
Image: From a 13th-century manuscript; Christ leading Crusaders.
I'm not arguing for any sort of 1-1 comparison. Context matters. You can't simply put events, even very similar events, up next to each other and just look for similarities if those phenomena are separated by more than 900 years. Moreover, going by what Draper has to say in that GQ article, Rumsfeld used these quotations utterly cynically. He didn't care much for religion but he knew that his boss (Pres. Bush II) did. Rumsfeld thus knew that using these quotations would allow him to push Pres. Bush II in directions Rumsfeld wanted, by using language familiar to Pres. Bush II.
But then, this does suggest some similarities. Pres. Bush II perhaps would think this way and be receptive to this type of framing -- the events in Iraq as a holy war. Not Christians vs. Muslims, but the chosen people (for example, see also the image in the slideshow before the one above that has a quotation from Isaiah 26) against God's enemies. If you look at the language of the sources of the First Crusade, they too don't care so much about their enemies. I mean, they have only a very tenuous grasp of the religious difference between their enemies and themselves. The only thing that matters is that they -- the Muslims in this case -- held Jerusalem, that they stood in the crusaders' way, that they weren't Christian. This meant that they were enemies of God, that the crusaders were participants in a cosmic struggle between good and evil for the very fate of the world. You've heard this before, and you'll likely hear it again. Perhaps, I ask again, the best thing to do is to realize that it's time we stop being surprised when it happens.
Sometimes, people ask me how the Middle Ages matter. Sometimes, I want to ask them how they could possibly not.
- Norway, Templars, And Christian Language That Kills
And now I post this yet again (from 1/9/11) in light of what's happened in Norway and in light of how much the killer seems to have been influenced by voices coming out of the US.You can see some of his manifesto here (see especially after 6:56)....
- On Language And Violence (the Health Care "debate")
(image: crusaders killing Jews, 13th c. MS)I have something to say. In May 1096, Christians attacked the Jews of Speyer. The bishop of Speyer protected the Jews & arrested a couple of the perpetrators. This ended the violence at Speyer. ...
- On "just War": Understanding Pres. Barack Obama And His Nobel Speech
Augustine of Hippo, by Botticelli UPDATED (now with more paper): An edited version of this post has now appeared in The Roanoke Times. ----- Today, Pres. Barack Obama formally received his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. The committee...
- John Mccain's Judeo-christian "crusade" (?)
This Boston Globe article caught my eye last week and I've been meaning to blog about it once the hectic-ness of the first week of classes passed. Here, Peter Canellos wonders aloud about McCain's peculiar use of the phrase "Judeo-Christian values"...
- The Problematic Crusades
The crusades as an historiographical (sub-)field have become increasingly problematic. Much of this has to do with 9/11 and the new emphasis on, and interest in, holy war and/or religious violence. But, in fairness, it was trending the way it's now...
Medieval History
(Perceived?) Holy War in Iraq: The Rumsfeld Memos
Image: Screenshot from GQ.com, slideshow of covers to Rumsfeld's memos. GQ now has an article online by Robert Draper, detailing Donald Rumsfeld's tenure as Pres. George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense. 2 things going on here:
--> The whole piece reads like an apologia for a certain segment of the Bush II administration -- Rice, Card, etc. Everything -- even the response to Katrina! -- was Rummy's fault. That stuff's interesting but needn't detain us here.
--> Not at all the main point of the article but contained within it, are the covers to classified intelligence memos that Rumsfeld himself (as Sec. of Def.) would deliver to the President. One of those is captured at right (again, for the full slideshow, go here). They all have images from previous day's events (mostly in Iraq) and they all have "appropriate" biblical quotations. The one in the image here, as it says, comes from Daniel 5. The whole chapter tells of the prophetic vision of King Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, and the false scholars who can't understand God's plan. Daniel, however, can understand the divine writing and foretells Belshazzar's doom, how God will cast down his kindom. The rest of the quotations on the memo covers are similar but this one in particular reminded me of this:
et ipse mutat tempora et aetates transfert regnaWhy did I think of this last quotation? It was a favorite quotation of Pope Urban II (1088-99), the man who in 1095 stood in a cold field at Clermont, in what's now southe
He changes times and seasons, deposes kings and sets up kings (Daniel 2:21)
rn France, and asked his listeners to engage in a holy war. Urban believed that God would cast down the proud Muslims who then held the Christian East, including Jerusalem, and those who truly believed would find His favor as instruments of His will. There's a reason one of the chronicles of the First Crusade is called Gesta Dei per Francos ("The Deeds of God through the Franks").Image: From a 13th-century manuscript; Christ leading Crusaders.
I'm not arguing for any sort of 1-1 comparison. Context matters. You can't simply put events, even very similar events, up next to each other and just look for similarities if those phenomena are separated by more than 900 years. Moreover, going by what Draper has to say in that GQ article, Rumsfeld used these quotations utterly cynically. He didn't care much for religion but he knew that his boss (Pres. Bush II) did. Rumsfeld thus knew that using these quotations would allow him to push Pres. Bush II in directions Rumsfeld wanted, by using language familiar to Pres. Bush II.
But then, this does suggest some similarities. Pres. Bush II perhaps would think this way and be receptive to this type of framing -- the events in Iraq as a holy war. Not Christians vs. Muslims, but the chosen people (for example, see also the image in the slideshow before the one above that has a quotation from Isaiah 26) against God's enemies. If you look at the language of the sources of the First Crusade, they too don't care so much about their enemies. I mean, they have only a very tenuous grasp of the religious difference between their enemies and themselves. The only thing that matters is that they -- the Muslims in this case -- held Jerusalem, that they stood in the crusaders' way, that they weren't Christian. This meant that they were enemies of God, that the crusaders were participants in a cosmic struggle between good and evil for the very fate of the world. You've heard this before, and you'll likely hear it again. Perhaps, I ask again, the best thing to do is to realize that it's time we stop being surprised when it happens.
Sometimes, people ask me how the Middle Ages matter. Sometimes, I want to ask them how they could possibly not.
- Norway, Templars, And Christian Language That Kills
And now I post this yet again (from 1/9/11) in light of what's happened in Norway and in light of how much the killer seems to have been influenced by voices coming out of the US.You can see some of his manifesto here (see especially after 6:56)....
- On Language And Violence (the Health Care "debate")
(image: crusaders killing Jews, 13th c. MS)I have something to say. In May 1096, Christians attacked the Jews of Speyer. The bishop of Speyer protected the Jews & arrested a couple of the perpetrators. This ended the violence at Speyer. ...
- On "just War": Understanding Pres. Barack Obama And His Nobel Speech
Augustine of Hippo, by Botticelli UPDATED (now with more paper): An edited version of this post has now appeared in The Roanoke Times. ----- Today, Pres. Barack Obama formally received his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. The committee...
- John Mccain's Judeo-christian "crusade" (?)
This Boston Globe article caught my eye last week and I've been meaning to blog about it once the hectic-ness of the first week of classes passed. Here, Peter Canellos wonders aloud about McCain's peculiar use of the phrase "Judeo-Christian values"...
- The Problematic Crusades
The crusades as an historiographical (sub-)field have become increasingly problematic. Much of this has to do with 9/11 and the new emphasis on, and interest in, holy war and/or religious violence. But, in fairness, it was trending the way it's now...