The Machiavellian agenda of Dinesh D’Souza’s new book.
By Niral Shah, Dartmouth College
Thursday January 25, 2007
Career provocateur Dinesh D’Souza has elicited a curious mixture of disgust and dismissal with his most recent polemic. In The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, D’Souza blames the left for 9/11 and alleges a secret liberal-Islamist alliance. D’Souza is sufficiently discredited by the glaring absurdity of his conclusions, but more intriguingly, his lazy explanations and self-contradictory logic suggest he doesn’t even believe these audacious claims himself. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation last week, perhaps feeling at ease in the company of a like-minded audience, D’Souza gave himself away. Conservatives “must be vindicated by the next election, and if we are, then I see a possibility of conservative dominance of American politics extending for a whole generation.” D’Souza is a devout believer in the conservative cause, and his bottom line is electoral victory, not truth or accuracy.
D’Souza attempts to invigorate the fragmenting conservative coalition of foreign policy and cultural conservatives. Scared by the prospect of conservatives abandoning the GOP over the disastrous Iraq War and the Party’s inability to enact the social conservative agenda, D’Souza tries to argue that these fights are inseparable. Islamic terrorists and the cultural left are one and the same, because they both hate George W. Bush and his policies. Yet, simultaneously, it is the decadence and depravity of these leftists that angers Muslims, and fuels Islamists to attack us. These are two inconsistent claims, but they serve the same political end, keeping the religious right votes behind the neo-cons agenda.
As a political hack, D’Souza is prone to repeating himself near verbatim, and his favorite quip regarding Vietnam is telling. “ America lost the Vietnam War…but I ask, did the left lose the Vietnam War?” In D’Souza’s mind, America withdrew prematurely and unnecessarily because the left movements of the 1960’s and 70’s managed to turn public opinion against the war, causing decades of meek foreign policy while launching their insidious cultural agenda. D’Souza’s hope is that, by conflating the culture war with the War on Terror and portraying the left as the real villain in both cases, he can convince the conservative movement, for the sake of God and Country, to stay united through one more election cycle.
Not all of The Enemy at Home is outlandishly partisan. Early chapters display a more detached and observant tone. The project began with the working title America Through Muslim Eyes. The earlier chapters include a decidedly non-conservative attempt to understand America’s ethnocentric view of the Muslim world, as well as overviews and critiques of the conservative and liberal understandings of terrorism that are far less partisan than one would expect. This political soul-searching is abandoned though, and just in time to spare his Coulter-based sense of history.
D’Souza blames President Carter’s liberal foreign policy for the Iranian revolution, and he blames the Clinton administration’s meek foreign policy for not projecting enough strength to deter terrorists. He seems to forget the intervening decade, in which President Reagan supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s mujahedin. When, at the Heritage event, Campus Progress asked D’Souza how Clinton’s intervention in Somalia fits into such a portrayal, D’Souza fell back on the tired talking points that Clinton himself ably refuted on Fox News. Reminded that Clinton kept forces in Mogadishu despite conservative opposition, D’Souza could explain himself only by insisting that Clinton used foreign policy to distract from domestic problems, and that the situation was “complicated.”
D’Souza’s indictment of the cultural left is confused. He overestimates the power and impact of radical gay activists on American culture, and seems to believe a direct link exists between 2 Live Crew lyrics, supposedly scandalous “Will & Grace” vignettes, and the violent destruction of the World Trade Center. D’Souza is sincerely appalled by American culture; he may be more of a crotchety old man and less of a cultural analyst than he perceives himself to be. Like the “traditional Muslims” he claims to understand, D’Souza believes liberalism unanchored from an external morality is liberalism run amok.
D’Souza, whose career so far has been focused on domestic matters and proclaiming the moral superiority of America, seems more concerned with a victory for the American right than he is with the fate of the Iraqi people. Comparing the violence of the invasion to conditions in Iraq under sanctions, D’Souza writes in his book “It seems obvious that America’s war in Iraq has ended up saving innumerable Iraqi lives that would otherwise have been lost.” He speaks of the 2008 elections and the legacy Bush will leave behind, while speaking dismissively of potential sectarian strife, setting a low bar for victory at “democracy, even if somewhat fragile.”
The stereotyped “leftist,” whom D’Souza analyzes with all the credibility and insight of a colonial explorer examining quaint savages, is not anti-American, but merely views defeat in war as an acceptable price to pay towards the end of defeating Bush. This “leftist,” a projection of D’Souza’s own callous political calculus, wishes to repeat his or her Vietnam-era triumph and banish conservatives from power.
Even D’Souza’s allegation that the left is more concerned with defeating Bush than with defeating bin Laden might be a genuinely held belief, but any semblance of honesty quickly disappears. With the addition of some hyperbole and a measure of logical fallacy, D’Souza arrives at his liberal-Islamist alliance. The leftist and Bin Laden both criticize the War on Terror, albeit for different reasons, and are therefore in de facto partnership, “moving like the two prongs of a scissor, independently towards the same end.” If D’Souza’s highly selective quoting of Bin Laden’s “Letter to America” as proof Islamists are incensed by American culture and not by American foreign policy is a stunning feat of dishonest scholarship, what follows is phenomenal. D’Souza reinterprets bin Laden’s 2004 statement, “Whichever state does not encroach upon our security thereby ensures its own,” to be a reference not to nations but blue states and red states He proceeds to channel Bin Laden’s voice for nearly a page, claiming to acknowledge that he (Bin Laden) had hit “blue states” last time, but “if you vote against Bush, I [Bin Laden] will not target your states next time.”
It might be fair to say that this is where D’Souza comes unhinged, proudly declaring a McCarthyite war on the cultural left at home (replete with leftist blacklist), and advocating an alliance between traditionalist, evangelical Americans and “traditional Muslims” abroad. Still, he seems to have some sense of purpose behind this. He has “proven” the left is not protesting for a more effective war, but rooting for defeat, removing their policy alternatives from the sphere of legitimate debate. He insists the war in Iraq will be won if the left is held at bay, but just in case, he has revised history in advance, ensuring blame be placed on the defeatist left instead of the Bush administration policy architects.
D’Souza sees no moral equivalency in his counter-proposal, that evangelical Americans align themselves with traditional Muslims. Whereas anti-war protests ally liberals with radical Muslims, giving credence to Islamist critiques of America and emboldening them to attack, D’Souza’s alliance would just be its mirror image. At the Heritage event D’Souza was unable to explain why such a strategy would not also be appeasement, or also risk “emboldening” the terrorists by giving credence to their cultural critique of America. Instead, D’Souza dissembled and avoided answering the question directly, re-explaining the de facto left-Bin Laden alliance and objective of the “traditional” alliance, despite two follow-up requests to address the question at hand and clarify himself (one by Campus Progress, one by the event moderator).
When asked if it is reasonable to expect American evangelicals, generally dismissive of such cultural relativism and often Islamophobic, to view Muslims as kindred, D’Souza answered that an abstract notion of religiosity and shared “core values” would bridge any differences of nationality. Only two minutes later, D’Souza dismissed the prospect of a pro-Iranian government in Shia-ruled Iraq, claiming that ethnic differences between Iranian and Iraqi Shia can not be surmounted by religious commonalities. He insists that Iraq can be peaceful because “[t]here are no meaningful theological distinctions between the Sunni and Shia,” ignoring the mutual antagonism and violence stemming, if not from centuries of conflict, then at least from Sunni Baathist rule of Iraq. Does D’Souza make no effort to be consistent because he doesn’t believe what he’s saying?
D’Souza’s likes to quip that “[insert conservative name here] has more in common with the average Muslim than he does with Michael Moore.” D’Souza doesn’t expect evangelicals to eagerly embrace their brethren from another doctrine upon hearing this. He expects them to perceive leftists as a larger threat than Islamists. His goal is not to win over Muslims, but to remove the left from the foreign policy debate. He reminds evangelicals, disillusioned by the Republicans’ failure to legislate their cultural agenda, that not only does this alien leftist directly threaten traditional values at home, but also threatens the entire American way of life by angering Islamists. If the culture war is lost, the terrorists will attack us even more, but if we become a more religious nation, without changing a thing about our foreign policy, the Islamists will no longer hate us. Mainstream and religious conservatives alike, D’Souza implores, stay united behind your party, fight for conservative social and foreign policy, to prevent this vicious cycle.
D’Souza’s political strategy won’t fail for its intellectual dishonesty or the sheer absurdity of its claims. D’Souza makes a confused and desperate plea for his flock to remain faithful as their church burns down, but the consequences of conservative policies can not be salvaged by re-framing and re-directing blame. The policies are the problem. D’Souza’s talking points and tactical provocations may sell his books, but they will not save the conservative movement.
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Comments
Not a bad review… but not a great one either. You’re missing a critical bit of context — D’Souza’s book has been roundly villified on the right, with a couple of rightwing bloggers even going so far as to label it outright “treasonous”. Nobody wants this turd baby.
— Joe - Jan 28, 03:20 PM - #Niral, you analysis is excellent … very accurate and incisive. Let me explain you that I come from the same region as D’Souza and I can perhaps get into his mind. His argument style is aggressive and design to stave off an attack than to dig into truth, as we saw him on the Coburn show. He deliberately misinterprets the objection of the opponent as extreme and thus puts the opponent to explain his exceptions while he shifts the subject.
Now the background of D’Souza. He is an opportunist or a chancer. He got into Dartmoth from Goa India. In India he learnt the skill of going with the flow and the power. The right wing has found him a convenient tool and he has presented himself in the service of the “devil” so to speak. I would advise you to view Alex Jones video on the Bohemian Grove, where people are inducted into such service, to get an idea of the characters who do such thing. The other such character, although not as obscene as D’Souza is that of Fareed Zakaria. They are both Uncle Toms, in service of the establishment. D’Souza is basically mercenary attack dog who can lie with conviction and get a bone.
One more point in this whole analysis: I am a scientist and I have looked deeply into the event of 911. Any researcher of this subject worth any repute would look carefully into the work of scholars for 911 truth on their master website, www.st911.org. It is now beyond doubt that 911 was a fake event. It was a magician’s illusion. Bombs, thermate, and controlled demolition brought the buildings down. This adds a second dimension to the whole motive theory. Alex Jones has done a superb analysis of this in this epic video, Terror Storm, available widely over the internet. Anyone rejecting the theses of 911 truth movement better have strong arguments to do that or live like an ostrich in denial with head buried in the sand.
Please visit my sites:
— Osama Bin Laden - Jan 28, 05:49 PM - #www.st911.org
www.nkusa.org
www.countercurrents.org
www.infowars.com
www.counterpunch.org
This analysis was incredibly helpful. Thanks for a clear voice that can be heard through the buzz around this clearly overhyped work.
— Elizabeth - Jan 31, 04:36 AM - #Hi Niral:
Excellent article. Your analysis of D’Souza is interesting and critical.
— Kshama Sinha - Jan 31, 07:54 PM - #Thank you!! I watched this man for two hours yesterday on CSPAN and was terribly confused. I ended up hoping that it was because he was talking in circles rather than early senility on my part. from a sixties lady revisiting the college campus. Good site! Was worried that students were absent on the big issues of our times – thankfully I was wrong!
— Judy Kempler - Feb 11, 02:41 PM - #