Colonel Gaddafi was making something of a point when he kept referring to the Western coalition against him as crusaders. It harked back to President George Bush’s words five days after the outrage of September 11, 2001: ‘This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.’ He was immediately jumped on, not only by Muslims abroad but also by people at home to whom it was self-evident that crusades were bad things.
How quickly fashions in language change.
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