Is 1204 a Paradigm Year for the West?

While I defend the idea of the Crusades as a necessary and just response to the Muslim enslaving of 2/3 of the Christian world, I don’t defend every aspect of the Crusades. Of course, I refer to the 4th Crusade in 1204 Anno Domine where Western knights raped the city and turned Hagia Sophia into a brothel.

The situation was unique, to be sure, and surely not all of the West is culpable, but there is a pattern set that the West would follow. Strategically, given the rising threat of Mohammedism, it didn’t make sense to weaken the main bulwark that stood against the Asiatic hordes. The rest is history, they say. Several observations:

• Why do many Catholics and Protestants have an irrational fear and hatred of the East? (yes, I realize that bad things have been done on both sides to both sides; I am speaking of something deeper).
• If Islamic terrorism truly is a threat to world peace (it is, but drop the “terrorism” from the label and it will be more accurate), why do Western governments fund terror cells from Chechnya to Bosnia with the sole purpose of destabilizing traditionally Orthodox countries?
• Why is NATO so intent on encircling and weakening Russia when Russia has shown itself the only country to adequately deal with Muslim terror?

Prof Srdja Trifkovic labeled the West as “theological revolutionaries” (referring to the insertion of the Filioque into the Creed). Perhaps this is apt. Revolutionaries are not necessarily interested in forming and maintaining long-term traditional and religious communities. Which means, I think, that the West is not acting inconsistently in sowing the seeds of its own destruction.