This guy wrote a book about this. He also wrote an op-ed at WashPost recently which I find to be pretty funny. To my surprise, he works for Hoover Institute at Stanford like Rice before. No wonder this country is going down the drain. Book Review: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16840067/site/newsweek/ Washingtopost Op-ed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601624.html Bin Laden, The Left and Me By Dinesh D'Souza Sunday, January 28, 2007; Page B01 As a conservative author, I'm used to a little controversy. Even so, the reaction to my new book, "The Enemy at Home," has felt, well, a little hysterical. "Ratfink writes new book," James Wolcott, cultural critic for Vanity Fair, declares in his blog. He goes on to call my book a "sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie." In the pages of Esquire, Mark Warren charges that I "hate America" and have "taken to heart" Osama bin Laden's view of the United States. (Warren also challenged me to a fight and threatened to put me in the hospital.) In his New York Times review of my book last week, Alan Wolfe calls my work "a national disgrace . . . either self-delusional or dishonest." I am "a childish thinker" with "no sense of shame," he argues. "D'Souza writes like a lover spurned; despite all his efforts to reach out to Bin Laden, the man insists on joining forces with the Satanists." It goes on. The Washington Post's Warren Bass writes that I think Jerry Falwell was "on to something" when he blamed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on pagans, gays and the ACLU. Slate's Timothy Noah diagnoses me with "Mullah envy," while the Nation's Katha Pollitt calls me a "surrender monkey" and the headline to her article brands me "Ayatollah D'Souza." And in my recent appearance on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," I had to fend off the insistent host. "But you agree with the Islamic radicals, don't you?" Stephen Colbert asked again and again. Why the onslaught? Just this: In my book, published this month, I argue that the American left bears a measure of responsibility for the volcano of anger from the Muslim world that produced the 9/11 attacks. President Jimmy Carter's withdrawal of support for the shah of Iran, for example, helped Ayatollah Khomeini's regime come to power in Iran, thus giving radical Islamists control of a major state; and President Bill Clinton's failure to respond to Islamic attacks confirmed bin Laden's perceptions of U.S. weakness and emboldened him to strike on 9/11. I also argue that the policies that U.S. "progressives" promote around the world -- including abortion rights, contraception for teenagers and gay rights -- are viewed as an assault on traditional values by many cultures, and have contributed to the blowback of Islamic rage. The reaction I'm eliciting is not entirely new to me. As a college student in the early 1980s, I edited the politically incorrect Dartmouth Review and was frequently accosted by left-wing students and faculty. They called me names back then, too. And at the time I didn't care. I often informed them that taking on our iconoclastic paper was like wrestling a pig: Not only does it get everyone dirty but the pig likes it. One of my earlier books, "The End of Racism," explored why nonwhite immigrants to the United States (like me) tend to succeed academically and economically compared with African Americans who are born here. I received lots of abuse for playing down racism -- as a "person of color," no less -- and taking sides with the white man. Some of my fellow immigrants from India advised me to "decolonize" my mind. But the personal attacks have reached new heights with "The Enemy at Home." So much so, in fact, that I feel compelled to explain why I wrote this book, what it does and doesn't say and why I think it prompts people to threaten me with hospitalization. First, and I feel silly having to say it: I don't hate America. My last book was called "What's So Great About America," and there is no question mark in the title. If I hated this country, why would I have left my family and friends in India and moved to the United States, married an American and become a U.S. citizen? I came here because the United States gives me the freedom to make the life that I could not have made in India. And just last week a Midwestern chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution offered to award me its annual "Patriot of the Year" prize -- an honor that I presume is not typically bestowed upon people who hate America. If I am a patriot, however, I am a rational patriot. I don't believe in "my country right or wrong." Mine is not the patriotism of David Warren, who says he tasted the dust of 9/11 and places my criticism of the American left in the same category as those who say "Death to America." Rather, I uphold Edmund Burke's view: "To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely." Immediately following 9/11, there was a wondrous moment of national unity in which the American tribe came together. "Why do they hate us?" some wondered, but no one wanted to comprehend the enemy -- only to annihilate him. And I shared this view. But five years later, that unity has dissolved amid a furious national debate over the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. I thought it was time to go back and reconsider 9/11; in so doing, I concluded that the prevailing conservative and liberal theories explaining Muslim rage were wrong. Contrary to the common liberal view, I don't believe that the 9/11 attacks were payback for U.S. foreign policy. Bin Laden isn't upset because there are U.S. troops in Mecca, as liberals are fond of saying. (There are no U.S. troops in Mecca.) He isn't upset because Washington is allied with despotic regimes in the region. Israel aside, what other regimes are there in the Middle East? It isn't all about Israel. (Why hasn't al-Qaeda launched a single attack against Israel?) The thrust of the radical Muslim critique of America is that Islam is under attack from the global forces of atheism and immorality -- and that the United States is leading that attack. Contrary to President Bush's view, they don't hate us for our freedom, either. Rather, they hate us for how we use our freedom. When Planned Parenthood International opens clinics in non-Western countries and dispenses contraceptives to unmarried girls, many see it as an assault on prevailing religious and traditional values. When human rights groups use their interpretation of international law to pressure non-Western countries to overturn laws against abortion or to liberalize laws regarding homosexuality, the traditional sensibilities of many of the world's people are violated. This argument has nothing to do with Falwell's suggestion that 9/11 was God's judgment on the ACLU and the feminists for their sins. I pose a simple question: Why did the terrorists do it? In a 2003 statement, bin Laden said that to him, the World Trade Center resembled the idols that the prophet Muhammad removed from Mecca. In other words, bin Laden believes that the United States represents the pagan depravity that Muslims have a duty to resist. The literature of radical Islam, such as the works of Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb, resonates with these themes. One radical sheik even told a European television station a few years ago that although Europe is more decadent than America, the United States is the more vital target because it is U.S. culture -- not Swedish culture or French culture -- that is spreading throughout the world. What would motivate Muslims in faraway countries to volunteer for martyrdom? The fact that Palestinians don't have a state? I don't think so. It's more likely that they would do it if they feared their values and way of life were threatened. Even as the cultural left accuses Bush of imperialism in invading Iraq, it deflects attention from its own cultural imperialism aimed at secularizing Muslim society and undermining its patriarchal and traditional values. The liberal "solution" to Islamic fundamentalism is itself a source of Islamic hostility to America. Contrary to the accusations of Alan Wolfe and others, I have no sympathy for bin Laden or the Islamic radicals. But I do respect the concerns of traditional Muslims, the majority in the Muslim world. In fact, the United States cannot defeat terrorism without driving a wedge between radical Islam and traditional Islam, because the latter has been the main recruiting pool for the former. All my arguments can be disputed, but they are neither extreme nor absurd. So why has "The Enemy at Home" been so intemperately excoriated? I can imagine only two reasons. The first is given by James Wolcott himself. I am not, as he says, an unqualified right-wing hack. Rather, I am a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, so Wolcott fears that I will be taken seriously. The second reason can be gleaned from the common theme in the reviews: that mine is a dangerous book. But if a book says things that are obviously untrue and can be disproved, then it is not dangerous -- it is merely fiction and should be ignored. A book is dangerous only if it exposes something in the culture that some people are eager to keep hidden. And what is that? It is that the far left seems to hate Bush nearly as much as it hates bin Laden. Bin Laden may want sharia, or Islamic law, in Baghdad, they reason, but Bush wants sharia in Boston. Indeed, leftists routinely portray Bush's war on terrorism as a battle of competing fundamentalisms, Islamic vs. Christian. It is Bush, more than bin Laden, they say, who threatens abortion rights and same-sex marriage and the entire social liberal agenda in the United States. So leftist activists such as Michael Moore and Howard Zinn and Cindy Sheehan seem willing to let the enemy win in Iraq so they can use that defeat in 2008 to rout Bush -- their enemy at home. When I began writing my new book, this concern was largely theoretical, because the left was outside the corridors of power. Now I fear that the extreme cultural left is whispering into the ears of the Democratic Congress. Cut off the funding. Block the increase in troops. Shut down Guantanamo Bay. Lose the war on terrorism -- and blame Bush. Pointing this out is what makes me dangerous. dineshjdsouza@aol.com Dinesh D'Souza, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, is author of "The Enemy at Home" (Doubleday).
Mr. Dinesh D'Souza, please meet Mr. Alex Jones. I urge you both to rent one of those spiffy rooms with the padded walls for a length of eternity and please never come out. Thank you.
I agree with him in this sense...i do think that a large part of the cause for Islamic terrorism directed against the West comes from a sense that their culture is being threatened by ours. Not merely because of missiles and bombs. When they speak of America as the Great Satan, they generally aren't talking about our military might but our culture.
Hmm.. The Europeans are even more liberal than us but they didn't get attacked. (Spain and UK were attacked but that has more to do with Afghan War and Iraq War)
I know what you are saying and I have a pretty good feeling how you feel about things, but what you said could easily be taken out of context.
I disagree - "immorality" is a stated pretext but the violence is born more out of a sense of powerlessness than any actual thing or things we are doing that is/are "immoral". Anyway, I find D'Souza to be pretty d'spicable to line up with Bin Laden and condemn america for its licentiousness, while claiming that he's actually not, plus his logic on the Iraq war is so full of holes that it basically reveals what he's always been: an Ann Coulter knock-off.
I agree somewhat, as well. (Besides the fact that he's discounting the foreign policy blunders outright.) But I don't think it has anything to do with what we are doing between our own borders. No one could get any resentment for gays or abortions in the US. But when US-based groups (Christian or Secular) go to Muslim countries and offer their people something opposed to Islam, it does bring resentment. I'm not saying that it's wrong to do that, or that the response is justified, but it shouldn't be discounted out-of-hand.
you dont think it has more to do with the fact that america and the west in general has imposed itself upon the muslim world for all these years. bin laden claimed that he attacked america because of our support for israel, presence of american troops in saudi arabia (we did leave there so that was a victory for him), and our support for the saudi royal family. it has nothing to do with hating our freedom, as bush tried to tell us. if they hated freedom than they would have flown planes into buildings in amsterdam.
i don't think it's a matter of being liberal. I think it's a matter of the concern that our culture is perceived as "aggressive." As forcing itself on people.
Why don't we trust what bin Laden said? He said it was because troops in Saudi Arabia and also US's support of Israel. I am not saying the cultural concerns never played any role but I think these two played a much bigger role.
People write books like this all the time because the 30% of people who strongly believe this stuff will buy it if it matches their convictions. This particular 30% group happens to be really gullible on this topic, which means big $$$ for the author. To be fair, Michael Moore does it too, but I think he actually believes everything he says. (and for the record, I agree with some but definetly not all of it, nor his methods of conveying his opinion).
Well, frankly speaking, I do find way more factual errors from the White House than bin Laden's video tapes. That's sad but true.
For what it's worth, Bush's reasoning for the 9/11 attacks aren't any better. Bin Laden is lying, and Bush is just wrong.
But the White House delivers its factual errors through guys wearing thousand dollar suits while Bin laden uses an Egyptian Quasimodo with 5 dollar glasses. Both are lying by the way, and yes it is sad the amount of factual erorrs that this admin has come up with.
i agree. and by the way, the author above says Bush is wrong to assert that it's because they hate our freedoms.
there was nothing that pissed me off more than hearing them say that. Except for the people who believed it.
again...the author above is saying that he agrees with you...they don't just hate our freedoms, as bush said. but investigating further...we don't have troops in Saudi...and for all the talk about Israel, Bin Laden never talked about that until it became politically expedient for him to do so. Al Qaeda was not concerned with the Palestinians or their cause. Remember that many Palestinians are Christians. I don't see Al Qaeda active in Israel. We don't see them targetting there in great force. Certainly nothing to the scope of 9/11.
