DSouza - The enemy at home : the cultural left and its responsibility for 9/11

Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step over the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Abraham Lincoln

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the result of a four-year study of America and the West as seen through Muslim eyes. Numerous people in America, Europe, and the Muslim world have helped me with this project, and their names appear throughout this book. If others are nameless, it is because they assisted me while asking me not to use their names. I want to thank my editor, Adam Bellow, with whom I have worked so productively in the past and who has, more than anyone else, steered this book from its earliest conception to the finished product. I am grateful to my employer, the Hoover Institution, and its director, John Raisian, for providing me with the institutional support to do my work. The Rishwains, Bob and Karen, are my sponsors and friends, and I am proud to identify myself as the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution. I appreciate the long relationship I have had with my agent, Rafe Sagalyn, who negotiates my contracts and also provides valuable suggestions and advice. My research assistants, Michael Hirshman and Pratik Chougule, have proved more mature than their years, and have contributed not only the standard tasks but also substantive criticism and advice. I also wish to thank the following people: C. I. Anderson, Peter Baumbusch, Rob Brendle, Ralph Crump, Kenneth Dahlberg, David Dominguez, Robert Fay-field, Martin Fenton, Foster Friess, Ted Haggard, Mike Hogan, James D. Jameson, John Mackey, Jai Nagarkatti, Harvey Popell, Sam Reeves, William Reiling, Bruce Schooley, Peter Selden, Bob Serenbetz, and Dean Spatz. Finally, I am ever-conscious of the support that I get from my wife, Dixie. She and my daughter, Danielle, are a constant source of love, encouragement, and inspiration.

INTRODUCTION

I N 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. The term cultural left does not refer to the Democratic Party. Nor does it refer to all liberals. It refers to the left wing of the Democratic Partyadmittedly the most energetic group among Democrats, and the main source of the partys ideas. The cultural left also includes a few Republicans, notably those who adopt a left-wing stance on foreign policy and social issues. Some leading figures in this group are Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, George Soros, Michael Moore, Bill Moyers, and Noam Chomsky. Moreover, the cultural left includes organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Watch, and moveon.org.

In faulting the cultural left, I am not making the absurd accusation that this group blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 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. The Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks were the product of this visceral ragesome of it based on legitimate concerns, some of it based on wrongful prejudice, but all of it fueled and encouraged by the cultural left. Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.

I realize that this is a strong charge, one that no one has made before. But it is a neglected aspect of the 9/11 debate, and it is critical to understanding the current controversy over the war against terrorism. Here in America, the political right routinely accuses the left of being weak in its response to Islamic terrorism. For example, conservatives often allege that the lefts desire to understand the roots of Islamic discontent dilutes American resolve in fighting the enemy. If this is true, then fortifying the lefts resolve becomes the obvious solution. My argument is quite different. It is that the left is the primary reason for Islamic anti-Americanism as well as the anti-Americanism of other traditional cultures around the world. I intend to show that the left has actively fostered the intense hatred of America that has led to murderous attacks such as 9/11. If I am right, then no war against terrorism can be effectively fought using the left-wing premises that are now accepted doctrine among mainstream liberals and Democrats.

The left is responsible for 9/11 in the following ways. First, the cultural left has fostered 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. Further, the cultural left has routinely affirmed the most vicious prejudices about American foreign policy held by radical factions in the Muslim world, and then it has emboldened those factions to attack the United States with the firm conviction that America deserves it and that they can do so with relative impunity. Absent these conditions, Osama bin Laden would never have launched the 9/11 attacks, nor would the United States today be the target of Islamic radicals throughout the world. Thus when leading figures on the left say, We made them do this to us, in a sense they are correct. They are not correct that America is to blame. But their statement is true in that their actions and their America are responsible for fostering Islamic anti-Americanism in general and 9/11 in particular.

We cannot understand any of this without rethinking 9/11. Only now, with some distance, are we in a position to understand 9/11 and its implications. So far, we have fundamentally misunderstood the enemy. Even more tragically, we have misunderstood ourselves. The mixed results in the war against terrorism, the stalemate in Iraq, the seemingly inexhaustible supply of suicide bombers bent on killing Americans, and the public anxiety about Americas Middle East policy are all the tragic consequence of these errors.