I hate to share an image so insensitive to Muslims, especially to Muslims in ISIS, but here goes. Below is a representation of the new medal to be awarded to American soldiers to recognize their service in the fight against ISIS:
Horrifying and insensitive. Inexcusable.
What? You don’t see it? Fortunately, The Atlantic is on the case. You see, medieval knights wore chain mail, and the image of a mailed hand holding a dagger could be construed as a shout-out to the dastardly Richard the Lionheart. Here’s Uri Friedman describing why the imagery is so “surprising:”
More importantly, it’s surprising because ISIS, in its propaganda, often depicts the Western participants in that campaign as modern-day Christian Crusaders invading the Middle East once again. In claiming responsibility for the recent bombings in Brussels, for example, ISIS asserted that it was targeting “Crusader Belgium, which did not stop targeting Islam and its people.”
“The display of such martial imagery is somewhat ironic, as the Pentagon has often gone out of its way to play down U.S. involvement in combat operations” against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Thomas Gibbons-Neff wrote in The Washington Post on Wednesday. The imagery might also “be construed to imply religious zealotry—insignia and call signs that invoke armor-clad crusaders have embroiled the U.S. military in controversy before. Last year, two Army units were criticized for using crusader names, shields and imagery in their unit logos.”
Friedman went to the trouble of actually contacting the Department of Defense and asking if the Pentagon was intentionally alluding to the Crusades. The DoD politely described that an armored hand represents nothing more than ”strength and courage in the defense of liberty and freedom.” In fact, it’s “widely used in military heraldry for this purpose.”
First, the idea that we would engage in this level of cultural sensitivity — deliberately eschewing even an image of chain mail – to avoid offending Muslims is simply absurd. It’s absurd, but it’s not funny. It speaks not just of deep shame in our own culture but also of a fundamental misunderstanding of our own enemies. Islamic radicals’ hatred is so deep and longstanding that images like this are utterly meaningless in the great scheme of the conflict.
Second, while this image has nothing to do with the Crusades, it’s past time for the west to stop apologizing for its ancient, limited counteroffensive into the Holy Land. Muslim jihadists seized Jerusalem from Christian hands, and then they waged centuries of holy war to expand Islam’s borders. Is it remotely shocking or offensive that Christian kingdoms wouldn’t consent to Muslim conquest? Muslim might does not make right, and we should be thankful that Christians fought the long war against jihad. We owe the Christian knights of Western Europe a great debt. It’s time we recognized them as heroes.