By the way, the use of the word "crusade" IS also subject to some contreversy, Tracy. Don't you remember how president Bush put his foot in his mouth at the beginnig of the operations in Irak ?
Besides, i don't want to give you any history lessons on the matter. But the situation related to what we call "The Crusades" is much more complex. Both the Greeks and the Roman colonized the syrio-palistinian corridor, during what we call the hellenistic period, during the life and after the death of Alexander (IVth century BCE), for the formers, during the first century BCE for the latters. "Christianity" was the word used from the beginnig of the fourth century on, to discribe our world, to which this region belonged, instead of what it became, "Europe", as history progressed... The djiad that succeded in spreading Islam was largely military in the region an everywhere. Parts of southern Europe were invaded, Sicily for instance, and Spain was occupied (at least partly) all the way through the XVth century of our era. We're talking about military confrotations over a very long strech of time, and the slow adjustments of two large cultural blocs in "sharing" a common world. This is why the word "crusade" eventualy came to have a more banal meaning.
However, yes, indeed, you're right: these WERE nontheless absolutly terrible events. But it doesn't have anything to do in magnitude and intensity with the unspeakable butchery WW2 was to humanity, including the systematic, industrial like, elimination of a whole People... Nothing... (I remind you that four fifth of the Jews in Europe disapeared from the face of the earth in a matter of a few years; Poland was bled of around 6 million of it's citizens; Russia of at least 21 million, and so on. Do you reallize, Tracy ?) "Nazi" should not be given an innocent use.