History Lessons

 
This week's council winner is Right Wing Nut House. The post, A Solitary Voice for Remembrance, is incisive:

An orgy of remembrance took place all across Europe this last weekend as the continent's increasingly passive and pacific countries celebrated the very war-like achievements of their grandfathers in tossing the regime of Adolph Hitler and all it stood for on the ash heap of history.

The whole post is an excellent history lesson on the events leading to WWII and the perfidy of the West later. His fisking of Bush's speech in Latvia -- what Bush failed to mention, as well as what he eloquently addressed -- provides better coverage than I'd seen elsewhere.

Mr. Moran also brings to our attention the sins of omission of the press. After noting Bush's public gratitude to Latvia, he observes

Curiously, this acknowledgment went unnoticed in the press who instead played up Bush's "apology" for US inaction after Yalta to halt the spread of communism across eastern Europe.

Good post. Made even livelier by his skewering of France.

Non Council Winner

The American Thinker sets the pc record straight re jihad and the Crusades. This post couldn't be more apropros given the publicity for the new movie "Kingdom of Heaven" (which is not linked here. It can be found on the winning post, but Gates will not facilitate any spread of this noxious anti-historical Hollywood entertainment).

Inundated by such disingenuous apologetics Westerners have remained largely ignorant of jihad-the Islamic war of conquest. Thus the chattering classes, confused all too easily by superficial similarities, equate jihad with the Crusades. In fact, there are many fundamental differences between the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad, and the Crusades, as they derive from widely divergent religions and civilizations.

For Gates of Vienna, this is the money quote:

Jihad, as a nascent ideology, originated from the putative military activities of Muhammad himself, described in the Muslim sacred texts. September 622 C.E. marks a defining event in Islam- the hijra

Read this not only for American Thinker's exposition of history, but also his excellent links. If nothing else, it will disincline you to watch that execrable movie.

All the posts which received votes are here. Enjoy.