Nice post, Dale. Smearing this once great culture sounds like guilt-easing, blame-the-victim rationalization. So when the West falls, shall we take turns pi$$ing on Aquinas?
To be fair, the Fourth Crusade was no "money-grub from the start". If there was a money grub in there, it was the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo, not the Crusaders who could not pay him for transport to the Holy Land. He was the guy who turned the Crusaders against Constantinople.
Plus, I don't think Alexius was that innocent nor Bohemond a full-on backstabber. Bohemond refused to hand over Antioch because he percieved a betrayal when Alexius failed to relieve the siege that held them in Antioch. (Bohemond led the successful attempt to break the siege...a military marvel in its own right.) Alexius failed to come because a Crusade deserter (Stephen of Blois, I think) told him the city had fallen. So, the yokels only gave as good as they got (or what they thought they got).
And, to the Venetians' credit, they were part of the force that fell defending Constantinople in 1453. Emperor Constantine's army did not fight alone.
History defies easy categories. 
How could you possibly defend a people who had ferns in their pubs?
Commenting by HaloScan
