The D’Souza Follies
By Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine.com | January 30, 2007
Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, is not all bad. He is absolutely right that Osama bin Laden’s perception that Bill Clinton was weak in the 1990s led to the stepping-up of global jihad efforts. But the central point of the book is that “the cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11,†not only by fostering a view that America was weak, but by spreading around the world “a decadent American culture that angers and repulses traditional societies, especially those in the Islamic world that are being overwhelmed with this culture. In addition, the left is waging an aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family and to promote secular values in non-Western cultures. This campaign has provoked a violent reaction from Muslims who believe that their most cherished beliefs and institutions are under assault.†Therefore, “without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.â€
[Jihad is not about who we are or what we do but about who they are and what they want. Ted Belman]
In response, D’Souza calls for the American right to build a traditional values coalition with what he calls “traditional Muslims,†who abhor both bin Laden and Britney Spears. “Admittedly,†he acknowledges, “some on the right may feel uncomfortable about teaming up with Muslims. Yes, I would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Michael Moore than with the grand mufti of Egypt . But when it comes to core beliefs, I’d have to confess that I’m closer to the dignified fellow in the long robe and prayer beads than to the slovenly fellow with the baseball cap.†Which core beliefs? D’Souza doesn’t say, but the grand mufti of Egypt has declared sculpture un-Islamic, so perhaps he and D’Souza could get together for a fun evening of statue-smashing. Of course, that is one of the core beliefs of the mufti that no doubt D’Souza does not share. But this is just one example of D’Souza’s propensity to make statements without apparently having examined their implications. CONTINUE
[To suggest that fundamentalist Christians and Muslims share values because they are both religious is a calumny.]
d’souza is from the pat buchanan school of thought. A few years back buchanan wrote an article in which he stated that we should side with muslims over liberals and Hollywood, or something to that effect. They are both clueless twits.
If it weren’t for the title’s obvious blame-shifting ridiculousness, I’d probably actually give D’Souza’s book a look, since there are some ways that the “Religious Right” (which is not just Christian) can build bridges with Muslims through shared values such as their strong anti-abortion stance, aversion to alcohol abuse (at least on Earth), etc. This title rivals Jimmy Carter’s “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” for inflammatory value. (By the way, “Islamic Jihad Pimps Carter’s Book” according to littlegreenfootballs, whose link to Qudsnews checks out, an illustration of this article’s contention that “jihadists will ally with anyone foolish enough to enter into an alliance with them.”)