Was Obama Right on the Crusades and Holy War

I have generally praised Obama's speech on here. However I wish to point out that perhaps Obama was a tad overbroad in two areas.

. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint - no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or even a person of one's own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but the purpose of faith - for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

I know this is un PC but is that always true? For instance in the American Civil War a lot of folks thought the calling was Divine (either rightly or wrongly). A good bit of that conflict was still held to traditional Christian practices on the rules of War

Spengler notes:
A cloud of myth protects Americans from the truth about bloody Abe Lincoln. His statue sits in a mock-Greek temple like the statue of Zeus at Olympus. Chiseled into the marble are Lincoln's words to the nation weeks before the war's end, an abiding source of horror for European tourists:

"Fondly do we hope - fervently do we pray - that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

It sounds like a sort of religious fanaticism that would make the mild Methodist George W Bush hide under the bed-covers. Yet that is how the Northerners sang as off to war they marched: "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat/He is sifting out the souls of men before his judgment seat/O be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet!"

War is horrific but I think it is a mistake of history to think that all religious wars were some sort of "Anything Goes Proposition" I am not endorsing HOLY Wars but just wanted to point that out.

Which brings us to the Crusades which Obama mentions. There was of of course some serious misconduct in the Crusades. But they were largely a defensive measure over it's history. There is a new book on them that sheds perhaps a more positive light on them. I have not read it but I am interested in it. See via the Catholic Thing Stark Truths

I think this is another good review that points out the book is not shying away from the bad stuff Christians did either.