If you were worried there wouldn’t be a 2012 candidate touting the pro-Crusades platform, then today is your lucky day!
“The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical,” former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) told a South Carolina audience yesterday. “And that is what the perception is by the American left who hates Christendom.”
Santorum’s defense of the Crusades came in Spartanburg, S.C. reports Andy Barr of Politico. South Carolina is an early and important GOP presidential primary state, and Santorum is considering a presidential run.
Referring to the “American left,” Santorum observed: “They hate Western civilization at the core. That’s the problem.” Sanoturm also suggested that American involvement in the Middle East is part of our “core American values.”
“What I’m talking about is onward American soldiers,” Santorum continued. “What we’re talking about are core American values. ‘All men are created equal’ — that’s a Christian value, but it’s an American value.”
The Crusades were religiously sanctioned military campaigns waged in Europe during the Middle Ages and pre-dated the emergence of the United States by a few centuries. The original goal was to recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule, though along the way the Roman Catholic forces massacred thousands of Jews, among others.
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.