Apparently, Dinesh D'Souza, who has been embarrassing himself with wanna-be-academic bomb throwing books for years, has finally thoroughly discredited himself. A fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute, D'Souza in his latest work The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, claims that bin Laden and al-Qaeda don't hate the U.S. because of its policies in the Mideast and the Muslim world but rather because of the "decadence" of America's "cultural left."
Read the WPost review calling the polemic the "worst nonfiction book about terrorism from a major publishing house since 9/11," and this excerpt summarizing D'Souza below:
Here's the main argument, such as it is. Why has al-Qaeda targeted America? "Not because of U.S. troops in Mecca," D'Souza writes.Not even because of Israel. . . . The suicide bombers of radical Islam are not blowing themselves up because they are distressed over the Gulf War of 1991 or because they are in solidarity with the Palestinians." Rather, "what bin Laden objected to was America staying in the Middle East, importing with it the immoral ingredients of American values and culture." That makes the left "responsible for 9/11" because it "has fostered a decadent American culture that angers and repulses traditional societies" and has waged "an aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family and to promote secular values in non-Western cultures." In sum, "the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world."
Comments
So, according to D'Souza, bin Laden and the American religious right are natural allies, which is something I've been saying for a long time.
Posted by: John McKay | January 14, 2007 1:34 PM
I love the Bill Clinton blame game.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | January 14, 2007 4:28 PM
Ahhh, batterer's logic. You know honey, I wouldn't have to hit you if you'd just learn to act right.
Posted by: Boo | January 14, 2007 5:03 PM
How dare America suggest that women not have to cover themselves in public, get an education, hold positions of authority, or gods forbid, speak. Things were so much less decadent when they were always barefoot and pregnant.
Posted by: MarkP | January 14, 2007 11:19 PM
Actually, if the WaPo review characterizes the book well, D'Souza is nearly dead on target.
Take, "the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause" and then compare it to the list of institutions named in Justice Powell's memo. Memory says they're very close.
Of course, that means what D'Souza is good at has nothing to do with academia. There are some good thinkers at the Hoover Institute. Too bad they associate themselves with some of brainless drivel that's been oozing out of it lately. It encourages one to make ethical judgements about the ones who supposedly have a soul.
Posted by: SkookumPlanet | January 15, 2007 7:27 PM