"What's So Great About Blaming The Democrats For September 11th?"

[Note: The post title is basically a spoiler happy alternate title for book D'Souza's book "The Enemy at Home." Which (gasp) he shamelessly plugs by reiterating! ]

This little blog post by Dinesh is a frantic, grasping attempt to try to justify his opinion that exposure to liberal Western media and values is what caused those terrorists to get so angry at us a few years back. He uses the book "Who Speaks for Islam?" to lend credence to this idea of his, although, the ultimate conclusion of the book is that our foreign policy and perceived disrespect of their religion is the key reason for anger, rather than perceived immorality. But the facts have never stopped Dinesh before....

In the seven years since 9/11, we have been subjected to all kinds of ignorant pontification--much of it from the left, but some also from the right--on "why they hate us."

Quoted for irony.

Esposito and Mogahed argue that traditional Muslims, who make up the bulk of Muslims in every Muslim country, strongly identify with the Western principles of rule of law, self-government, and religious toleration. In fact, their main critique of America is that, as they see it, America backs secular dictators in the Muslim world who deny to Muslims the rights that are taken for granted by Americans.

Yes. Their main critique of America has to do with foreign policy. You see that clearly in this book. You are acknowledging it in this very paragraph. And yet...

They reject the shamelessness and frequent depravity of American popular culture. They reject the type of feminism that relinquishes the home in favor of careers. They are resolutely anti-abortion. They consider homosexual marriage to be an abomination.

Oh noes! They are arch-conservative prudes on top of that! Obviously, this must mean one, and only one thing: they hate us for our freedoms!!!1!!1!

But when conservative and religious Europeans and Americans are polled, it turns out that the percentage of people who are fine with homosexuality is about the same as that of the traditional Muslims.

Yes. This is true. Dinesh will be engaging in "push under the rug" mode in three...two....

First, that the values of the cultural left are an important source in alienating Muslims worldwide. Second, that Muslims don't reject modernity or the West: rather, they embrace what may be termed "1950s America" while rejecting the libertine values of the 1960s. Third, America can build alliances with traditional Muslims by showing them the face of traditional America, so that they see that Hollywood values aren't necessarily American values. Finally, left-wing groups like International Planned Parenthod and Amnesty International should stop pushing feminism, gay marriage and libertine values in the Muslim world.

Holy f@#%$&*@$#burger! What a change! The entire article up to this point was basically "here are some facts and conclusions. Neat, I know. But, look away for a minute, because this is what is really going on". I sincerely do not know why Dinesh thinks that the "values of the cultural left", which are basically equal rights for gays, women, and people of all races and religions should be so offensive as to be the only reason that Muslims are pissed off. You'd think, you know, the violence thing would be a bigger factor. Especially when the book you are citing to support your own reaches that conclusion. I also cannot begin to fathom how we could abandon those values, I do not know why we would want to do so just to appease some people who are willing to kill us over being free and equal, and I cannot believe that Dinesh is making an appeal to "the good ol' days" as the assumed perspective of over one billion people (who are hopefully not as naive.)
And I seriously doubt that we are pushing for gay marriage in Islamic countries. "Feminism" maybe. Gay marriage...well...they have other problems to address before that (you know...like not executing people for being gay...).
Also: "Parenthod"?

Pundits like Chalmers Johnson love to say that American intervention in Iraq and
elsewhere has produced a "blowback" of terrorism from the House of Islam. Wrong!
It is in Iraq that America is allowing an elected Muslim government to rule
according to Muslim interests and Muslim values. Iraq is the only country in the
Middle East where the Muslim population actually chose its own rulers. Iraq is
not the problem. Rather, it is the values of the cultural left, and the cultural
imperialism that seeks to impose those values on reluctant Muslims, that is the
real source of Muslim rage, and the best recruiting tool of the radical Muslims

And now I can conclude, after months of reading Dinesh's articles and suspecting it all along, that Dinesh D'Souza is a certifiable moron. Either his head so far up his own ass that he is currently engaged in a boxing match with his own brain, or he is just functionally braindead, and merely types messages on his computer when a precisely applied electric shock causes him to spasm and slam his face on the keybard. He just doesn't have any idea how we noble Americans went about giving that democracy to those appreciative Iraqi Muslims, does he? Doesn't think that terrorists could possibly be perturbed by our toppling governments on false pretenses and insisting that we impose a new one on them? Everyone in Iraq and the entire world is hunky-dory because we gave them a nice, sparkly democratic government, built on the corpses of over 100,000 civilians. Hell of a world you live in, Dinesh.
Here's just one tiny bit of advice: it doesn't matter if you can decide who your leaders are, if there is nothing to lead or if the leadership is crappy. We are making strides, but their democracy is still fledgling, and I doubt that everyone is of the impression that it is the best thing since sliced bread yet. It is disgusting that you are trying to blame terrorism on short-skirts and gay rights. It is even more disgusting that you do so in such an underhanded, yet gleefully confident fashion.
The idea that anyone refers to you as an intellectual, a scholar, or as anything but the right-wing tabloid writer you really are amuses me greatly. I honestly hope that people will wake up and smell the bullshit real soon. Until then, I offer a toast to the arrival of your latest truckload of fail.