I'll be honest: Grim Beorn is one of the bloggers who can raise the hairs on the back of my neck. His piece on heroic epic warfighting was the first thing I'd seen of his, and it was a doozy.

With that in mind, comes now his latest piece, Knights of the White Cross. It concerns the issue of Denmark and the recent efforts against it in the Arab-Islamic world. There are those amongst the blogging community who have taken up the banner of Denmark due to the publication of cartoon images deemed blasphemous (or something) by Islamic peoples. Grim himself describes it as a "cause I am bound by my heart to support".¹

That isn't all that Grim says, though, and it's here that the first hairs stand up, the lips draw tightly, and I sort of look away from the screen:

It won't be forever before the wrathful of the Muslim world notice this. Fate has brought us to where we thought we would not go: we now openly ride under a Crusader's flag.

This is an unpleasant realization. I can cavalierly quip about how this ought to be considered the sequel to "La Reconquista" and so forth, but that's all it is, cavalier quips. Not quite whistling past the graveyard, but not a serious response. I would, in fact, prefer that the billion plus Islamics not think we're on the Next Crusade, because that would play into the propaganda paradigm that I've heard about, where the (Christian) West looks with ravenous eyes upon the holy lands of Islam, or something like that. Such could, theoretically, energize new legions of devotees willing to give their lives in latter-day kamikaze attacks.

Grim also asks if perhaps Deus vult? I don't know how to answer that. Part of me says "I hope not"; what another part of me says is uncertain. He is comfortable to characterize the current struggle in a manner which I am distinctly not. For my part, I am most at ease seeing this struggle through the lens of a cold-eyed exercise in state power and simple theory. "You wish us dead and have taken actions towards that end. Witness the reaction, the response of the most powerful nation on the planet." Nothing more, nothing less.

Grim continues:

I suggest you all prepare for what Fate has brought us. We remain free to choose what we will do with the legacy that this flag will bind to our cause. If we are to be Crusaders, let us take the Cross in righteousness.

It's things like this that make me want to listen for the Hans Zimmer score playing in the background. You know, "Patres!" "Maximus!" "Three weeks from now, I will be harvesting my crops..." The problem is that if I buy into his theory that this is a fated circumstance, my response is not righteousness. Rather, it is ruthlessness, moderated only by the notions of some day being required to explain myself to God and an ends-oriented analysis that asks, "Does this serve our interests in victory, or not?"

Perhaps it is because I am most decidedly not a warrior, either in the figurative or literal sense. Perhaps Grim speaks a language I do not understand, and it would not surprise me if he did. He speaks of a peace between warriors, that of Richard and Saladin. I think of an irreversible, unquestionable victory for the United States and their allies. At some level, my viewpoint may be influenced by what Walter Russell Mead calls the Jacksonian tradition.

Further analysis and reflection largely fail me at this point, because I'm remarkably incapable of putting further words to electrons on this subject. Suffice it to say that I decidedly don't like the idea of taking up the Crusaders' flag. Something seems wrong with it, and I can't articulate why. I definitely am not some weak post-modern cosmopolitan secularist afraid of making value judgments, so it isn't that, but I wonder what it is. Reader response is, as always, welcome.

ADDENDUM: I think I may have thought of a preliminary reason why I am uncomfortable with taking up the flag of the Crusaders. It is simple, and perhaps even at odds with my prior statement of endorsing ruthlessness. I am reminded of the awful things that were done by "our" people---the sacking of Constantinople and the massacre in Jerusalem---and would prefer not to be associated with that. We have enough baggage of our own without having to deal with the historical excesses of eight hundred years ago.

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¹ My own preliminary thoughts---not yet a position---on this is fuzzy with competing objectives and interests; suffice it to say that I have not yet endorsed the action taken by the Danish newspaper.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 02:03 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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