Agreed.
The scale and nature of the Islamic incursions on Europe are staggering. Whole cities, falling prey to Saracen pirates, were burned, their populations put to the sword and enslaved. This had been going on for centuries before the First Crusade was called, and not in the far-flung Levant. These attacks were taking place in Greece, Italy, and southern France. Iberia (Spain and Portugal) had fallen long before. Malta and Sicily were Muslim. (Fun fact: Maltese is a Semitic language, derived from the language of its conquerors.)
Somehow popular imagination has made the Arabs out to be the innocent victims of oppression.
See the Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven for an atrociously inaccurate presentation of the Crusades. The innocent Muslim caravans are mercilessly slaughtered by the bloodthirsty Templars. Meanwhile, Saladin, who in history was as conniving and bloody as they come, is a wise and gracious hero who, apparently, can do no wrong.
I do not justify the crusades as a religious venture (there's a lot wrong there) and I do not intend to erase the actual horrors that crusaders committed (there were plenty of those) but as a matter of defence and self-preservation, the Crusade was an effective means of taking the war to the enemy.