Deja vù All Over Gain: The Loss of the Eastern Roman Empire

Since the death of Muhammad in 632 AD the Muslim Turks have been gobbling up territory like the current ISIS conquest; much like the old video game of Pacman.  Muhammad was ruthless, killing all who opposed him. One of his first atrocities was the murder of the remaining Jews in Medina in 627, a few years before his death.  From there the Muslim Empire expanded throughout the Near East, as it was known then, all the way to Russia, North Africa, the Balkans and parts of Europe, including most of Spain, Sicily and Southern Italy.  In 1453 they conquered Constantinople, the seat of Christianity and capital of The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire). The Muslim Turk empire was known as the Ottoman Empire.

Where were the Europeans while the Turks conquered half of the world?  They were all sitting on their hands, thinking it did not concern them.  Sounds familiar today too.  The Europeans paid the price for their inaction:  They had to fight the Muslim Turks for the next thousand years.  Recall that Vienna was besieged by the Turks, not once but twice, in 1529 and in 1683.  Recall the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Muslim Ottoman Empire ruled half of the world until World War I.

The Ottoman Turks were defeated in World War I.  The West had their opportunity to get all the territories they lost to the Turks but they failed to do it.  The decisions made by the victorious allies at the end of World War I was nothing short of disastrous, if not laughable.  Not one decision made any sense.  Let's look at their decision to give the City of Smyrna to the Greeks.  A third grader could have told you that this was a very bad idea.  The Greeks and the Turks hate each other with such a passion that no good was going to come out of it.  Indeed, this was what happened.  The Greeks, trying to regain territories lost to the Turks in the past invaded the interior of Turkey but were defeated by the Turks.  Two fine books recount this story very well in fine detail.  Paradise Lost, Smyrna 1922 and The Great Fire.  The Greeks, in turn, were stabbed in the back by their European friends such as Italy who gave the Turks weapons.   France and Britain both refused to help the Greeks.  Had the Europeans cooperated in this matter, the world map would look very different today.

Talking about bad decisions by the victories allies after World War I, consider what they did in redrawing the map of the Middle East.  Can you say, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, just to name a few.  We are still paying the price of these bone-headed decisions made after World War I. This map looks like it was drawn by elementary school children, without regard for any facts, such as ethnic identities for the Kurds, Shiites or Sunni Muslims.  We're now paying a heavy price for these mistakes.  What is even more worrisome is that we have not learned from our mistakes.  The Europeans are still clueless about their threat.  I suppose that they will not wake up until the hordes are at their doors.