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Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Author Blames 9/11 On 'Cultural Left'
Paul Crespo
Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2007
"The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11" By Dinesh D'Souza, Random House, Inc., 352 pages, $26.95
When it comes to laying blame for Sept. 11 – the greatest attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor – one of America's foremost thinkers says it doesn't lay with the terrorists.
Instead, America's enemies are right beneath our noses. Dinesh D'Souza identifies them as our "cultural left."
D'Souza is the best-selling author of "Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus," and helped coin the term political correctness. His latest controversial work is appropriately called "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11" (Random House).
Although it has been officially embargoed before its release on Tuesday, January 16, it is already drawing some heavy gunfire from the left.
Their anger begins with D'Souza's own words: "In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11."
For sure, even some conservatives may do a double-take on that charge.
But before every liberal in America blows a collective gasket, the term "cultural left" to D'Souza doesn't refer to the Democratic Party, or to all liberals. Nor is he saying that anyone on the cultural left actually attacked us on 9/11. And the book avoids much of the strident rhetoric seen in other "liberal-bashing" books.
"I am saying that 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," explains D'Souza.
These are the true "root causes" liberals are always looking for, but seem to always miss or get wrong.
What he means by this is that the secular progressive left during the past few decades, with its focus on promoting and even glorifying (at home and abroad) what most of the world's more traditional societies see as depravity and atheism, has provoked a backlash among traditional, moderate Muslims who see their religious and moral values threatened by an aggressive, immoral, anti-religious crusade.
According to D'Souza, this backlash is being co-opted by the radicals and extremists who have turned it into a radical jihad against the West.
In a sense, he says, Muslims are right: The West (led by the American left) is waging a war against Islam, just as it is waging a war against traditional Christianity.
Muslims are not enraged by our political freedom or democracy, but by the left's abuse of that freedom, specifically the excessive sexualization of our society.
This decadence repulses most of the world's traditional and religious societies, just as it repulses and angers religious conservatives at home. D'Souza argues that American Christians and traditionalists have more in common with moderate traditional Muslims than they may realize. Ultimately, we should make common political cause with them to fight the cultural radicals, says D'Souza.
While D'Souza admits many Muslims irrationally hate Israel and some specific aspects of U.S. foreign policy, he argues that the growing anti-Americanism abroad is directed more at the global spread of our debased pop culture and the leftist political ideas that liberals so proudly defend. Family collapse, "gay marriage," licentiousness, pornography, abortion on demand, the war against religion in the public square – are all threats to traditional values in the West, as well as in the Muslim world.
Though many Muslims believe their fight is against "America" and the West, they are really fighting the secular left. Muslim extremists may never be convinced of that distinction, but D'Souza argues the majority of traditional, nonradical Muslims can be.
Yes, some debauchery exists in every culture, he says, but many see us proudly parade our perversions and then try to aggressively export them worldwide. Most are repulsed.
Radical Muslims are simply fighting back with violence. "Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened. I realize that this is a strong charge," D'Souza writes, "one that no one has made before."
D'Souza seems to downplay the violent, centuries-long jihadist tradition within Islam that began with Muhammad. Islam is not known for being a purely defensive religion, and by accepting many of the radicals' arguments, are we in fact justifying their actions and emboldening them further?
So far some in America's cultural left have gone into pre-emptive apoplectic rage based solely on the publisher's introduction letter.
For example, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair, who seems not to have read the book, admitted he took an "instant animus" against it. He says: "But this is a special book, deserving special mistreatment ... I prefer to do the irresponsible thing and declare war on Dinesh D'Souza and his stinking mackerel of a book starting now."
And so he does. Immersed in a cesspool of personal invective and unfounded hysterical accusations, Wolcott goes on to nitpick some relatively insignificant details in the book, apparently selected at random, while missing the totality of D'Souza's argument.
His response to D'Souza's comment that no one had made the charge before about the left's culpability for 9/11: "The reason it hasn't been made before," screams Wolcott, "is that it's a sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie, one that was waiting for the right brazen liar to come along to promote it."
Yet Wolcott in no way refutes the arguments D'Souza uses to buttress his case. Instead, he repeats the old, worn-out charges that America asked for 9/11 because of our militarism, support for Israel, imperialism, etc.
Another attack on the book came from liberal scribe Mark Warren, who viciously lambasted it in a "letter" to the author published in Esquire magazine.
He accuses D'Souza of "tortured logic" in an "utterly incoherent book" and goes so far as to challenge D'Souza: "Defend your ideas with your blood. To be clear: Let's fight."
Warren writes: "We knew how much [Islamic fundamentalists] hated America. We just didn't have a full grasp, until now, of how much you and your crazy cohort hate America. Because you have taken to heart the ‘Islamic critique of Western moral depravity,' as you call it, and have come down on their side of things.
"You actually seek to blame your free-speaking moral inferiors here in America for giving bin Laden no choice but to kill us. And in nothing short of derangement, you imagine a ‘de facto alliance' between the American ‘cultural left' and Islamic fundamentalism."
D'Souza's argument may be new to many Americans, even conservatives, because few have bothered to look closely enough at the Muslim world to see what many traditional Muslims dislike about the United States, and then connect that to the internal "culture war" going on in America.
Because D'Souza, a conservative Christian, grew up in India surrounded by traditional Muslims and Hindus, but also is well versed in the political and cultural clashes in America, he was well suited to do just that.
D'Souza makes a compelling case that deserves careful reading. Along the way he methodically dispels several myths, including the liberal idea that Muslims are reacting to our "imperialist" foreign policy and the conservative view that America is a highly religious country.
By looking for common cause with traditional Islam against the radical Muslims, D'Souza may make some Christians queasy. But his point is that not doing so will only increase the jihad against us.
"The Enemy at Home" is a well-written, iconoclastic, thought-provoking book. Anyone who wants a different take on the war on terror and the overlooked motivations of the jihadists who want to kill us (along with their strange fellow travelers on the far left) should read this book.
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Author Blames 9/11 On 'Cultural Left'
Paul Crespo
Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2007
"The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11" By Dinesh D'Souza, Random House, Inc., 352 pages, $26.95
When it comes to laying blame for Sept. 11 – the greatest attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor – one of America's foremost thinkers says it doesn't lay with the terrorists.
Instead, America's enemies are right beneath our noses. Dinesh D'Souza identifies them as our "cultural left."
D'Souza is the best-selling author of "Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus," and helped coin the term political correctness. His latest controversial work is appropriately called "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11" (Random House).
Although it has been officially embargoed before its release on Tuesday, January 16, it is already drawing some heavy gunfire from the left.
Their anger begins with D'Souza's own words: "In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11."
For sure, even some conservatives may do a double-take on that charge.
But before every liberal in America blows a collective gasket, the term "cultural left" to D'Souza doesn't refer to the Democratic Party, or to all liberals. Nor is he saying that anyone on the cultural left actually attacked us on 9/11. And the book avoids much of the strident rhetoric seen in other "liberal-bashing" books.
"I am saying that 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," explains D'Souza.
These are the true "root causes" liberals are always looking for, but seem to always miss or get wrong.
What he means by this is that the secular progressive left during the past few decades, with its focus on promoting and even glorifying (at home and abroad) what most of the world's more traditional societies see as depravity and atheism, has provoked a backlash among traditional, moderate Muslims who see their religious and moral values threatened by an aggressive, immoral, anti-religious crusade.
According to D'Souza, this backlash is being co-opted by the radicals and extremists who have turned it into a radical jihad against the West.
In a sense, he says, Muslims are right: The West (led by the American left) is waging a war against Islam, just as it is waging a war against traditional Christianity.
Muslims are not enraged by our political freedom or democracy, but by the left's abuse of that freedom, specifically the excessive sexualization of our society.
This decadence repulses most of the world's traditional and religious societies, just as it repulses and angers religious conservatives at home. D'Souza argues that American Christians and traditionalists have more in common with moderate traditional Muslims than they may realize. Ultimately, we should make common political cause with them to fight the cultural radicals, says D'Souza.
While D'Souza admits many Muslims irrationally hate Israel and some specific aspects of U.S. foreign policy, he argues that the growing anti-Americanism abroad is directed more at the global spread of our debased pop culture and the leftist political ideas that liberals so proudly defend. Family collapse, "gay marriage," licentiousness, pornography, abortion on demand, the war against religion in the public square – are all threats to traditional values in the West, as well as in the Muslim world.
Though many Muslims believe their fight is against "America" and the West, they are really fighting the secular left. Muslim extremists may never be convinced of that distinction, but D'Souza argues the majority of traditional, nonradical Muslims can be.
Yes, some debauchery exists in every culture, he says, but many see us proudly parade our perversions and then try to aggressively export them worldwide. Most are repulsed.
Radical Muslims are simply fighting back with violence. "Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened. I realize that this is a strong charge," D'Souza writes, "one that no one has made before."
D'Souza seems to downplay the violent, centuries-long jihadist tradition within Islam that began with Muhammad. Islam is not known for being a purely defensive religion, and by accepting many of the radicals' arguments, are we in fact justifying their actions and emboldening them further?
So far some in America's cultural left have gone into pre-emptive apoplectic rage based solely on the publisher's introduction letter.
For example, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair, who seems not to have read the book, admitted he took an "instant animus" against it. He says: "But this is a special book, deserving special mistreatment ... I prefer to do the irresponsible thing and declare war on Dinesh D'Souza and his stinking mackerel of a book starting now."
And so he does. Immersed in a cesspool of personal invective and unfounded hysterical accusations, Wolcott goes on to nitpick some relatively insignificant details in the book, apparently selected at random, while missing the totality of D'Souza's argument.
His response to D'Souza's comment that no one had made the charge before about the left's culpability for 9/11: "The reason it hasn't been made before," screams Wolcott, "is that it's a sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie, one that was waiting for the right brazen liar to come along to promote it."
Yet Wolcott in no way refutes the arguments D'Souza uses to buttress his case. Instead, he repeats the old, worn-out charges that America asked for 9/11 because of our militarism, support for Israel, imperialism, etc.
Another attack on the book came from liberal scribe Mark Warren, who viciously lambasted it in a "letter" to the author published in Esquire magazine.
He accuses D'Souza of "tortured logic" in an "utterly incoherent book" and goes so far as to challenge D'Souza: "Defend your ideas with your blood. To be clear: Let's fight."
Warren writes: "We knew how much [Islamic fundamentalists] hated America. We just didn't have a full grasp, until now, of how much you and your crazy cohort hate America. Because you have taken to heart the ‘Islamic critique of Western moral depravity,' as you call it, and have come down on their side of things.
"You actually seek to blame your free-speaking moral inferiors here in America for giving bin Laden no choice but to kill us. And in nothing short of derangement, you imagine a ‘de facto alliance' between the American ‘cultural left' and Islamic fundamentalism."
D'Souza's argument may be new to many Americans, even conservatives, because few have bothered to look closely enough at the Muslim world to see what many traditional Muslims dislike about the United States, and then connect that to the internal "culture war" going on in America.
Because D'Souza, a conservative Christian, grew up in India surrounded by traditional Muslims and Hindus, but also is well versed in the political and cultural clashes in America, he was well suited to do just that.
D'Souza makes a compelling case that deserves careful reading. Along the way he methodically dispels several myths, including the liberal idea that Muslims are reacting to our "imperialist" foreign policy and the conservative view that America is a highly religious country.
By looking for common cause with traditional Islam against the radical Muslims, D'Souza may make some Christians queasy. But his point is that not doing so will only increase the jihad against us.
"The Enemy at Home" is a well-written, iconoclastic, thought-provoking book. Anyone who wants a different take on the war on terror and the overlooked motivations of the jihadists who want to kill us (along with their strange fellow travelers on the far left) should read this book.
