Genghis Khan

Who Should #BringBackOurGirls?

I’m not among those who object to the Twitter campaign focusing on the kidnapping and enslaving of hundreds of Nigerian school girls. As syndicated columnist, Charles...

Ud. Debe Recordar Esto

 Hay un aniversario que puede nos haga bien recordar. El 29 de mayo de 1453 - hace apenas 555 añitos – las tropas lideradas por Mehmed II penetraron las murallas de la antigua c...

You Must Remember This

 There’s an anniversary this week we might do well to recall. On May 29, 1453 – just 555 short years ago -- troops led by Mehmed II broke through the walls of the ancient Christi...

Phony-Soldier Sympathizers Stoke a Phony Controversy

Rush Limbaugh has never done anything but honor our armed forces.

You Must Remember This

The Siege of Constantinople

There’s an anniversary this week we might do well to recall. On May 29, 1453 – just 555 short years ago -- troops led by Mehmed II broke through the walls of the ancient Christian capital of Constantinople.
 
Mehmed the Conqueror – as he would be known from that day forward -- rode triumphantly into the city on a white horse. Soon, churches would be converted into mosques. Constantinople would become Istanbul.
 
“For the West this was a dark moment,” writes historian Efraim Karsh in his masterful book, Islamic Imperialism. “For Islam it was a cause for celebration. For nearly a millennium Constantinople had been the foremost barrier – physically and ideologically – to Islam’s sustained drive for world conquest and the object of desire of numerous Muslim rulers.”
 
Mehmed cast himself as not just as a master builder of the Ottoman Empire, but also as the caliph – the supreme spiritual and temporal ruler of all the world’s Muslims, chosen to “act as Allah’s Sword ‘blazing forth the way of Islam from the East to West.’” He would go on to conquer Greece, Serbia, the Balkans south of the Danube and the Crimean peninsula.  His grandson and great grandson would extend the caliphate to include the Levant, Egypt, the Arabian Hijaz including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Iraq, North Africa, and most of Hungary.
 
The desire to conquer the world – or even just one’s neighbors -- is hardly an Islamic invention. Genghis Khan is not a name: It’s a title. It means “universal ruler.” The man history knows as Genghis Khan believed it was his divinely ordained mission to lead the Mongols to global domination.
 
And he loved his work. “Man's highest joy is victory: to conquer his enemies,” he said, “to pursue them; to deprive them of their possessions; to make their beloved weep; to ride on their horses; and to embrace their wives and daughters.”

Ships of Fools?

To fully appreciate the complications and dangers America faces in the post Sept. 11, 2001, world, consider recent actions taken by the government of one of America's strategic allies....

Phony-Soldier Sympathizers Stoke a Phony Controversy

There really was a news story, generated by the mainstream media of all people, about phony soldiers — poseurs who falsely claim to have put their lives on the line in our country’s armed forces, at least some of whom engage the pretense precisely to libel real heroes as terrorists and marauders.

An Old-fashioned War

To be fair to our enemies, they are only doing what comes naturally. We are the historical oddballs. Wars have been fought since time immemorial. The vast majority have been over power a...