Posted on 06/04/2008 10:01:11 AM PDT by beejaa
At the risk of scorching my flame-retardant suit, I am posting a book summary. I am doing so because considerable hostility is directed towards Muslims on this site, and author Dinish D’Souza may serve to mollify your views a bit.
The book is “The Enemy at Home”. The is from the book jacket:
“ Whenever Muslims charge that the war on terror is really a war against Islam, Americans hasten to assure them they are wrong. Yet as Dinesh D’Souza argues…there really is a war against Islam. Only this war is not being waged by Christian conservatives bent on a moral crusade to impose democracy abroad, but by the American cultural left which for years has been vigorously exporting its domestic war against religion and traditional morality to the rest of the world.”
(Think of Hollywood movies, radical feminist policies in the U.N. and so on.)
“D’Souza makes the startling assertion “that the cultural left is responsible for 9/11” for two reasons: “by fostering a decadent and depraved American culture that angers and repulses other societies – especially traditional and religious ones – and by promoting at home and abroad an anti-American attitude that blames America for all the problems of the world.
“Islamic anti-Americanism is not merely a reaction to U.S. foreign policy, but is also rooted in a revulsion against what Muslims perceive to be the atheism and moral depravity of American popular culture.”
My note - Americans who have not been abroad do not understand how dominant American culture can be in other countries, and how these cultural imports can disturb traditional inhabitants. For example, according to the second Noble Truth of the Buddha, desire leads to suffering. When the Buddhist nation of Nepal decides to import MTV in an effort to modernize, what effect will this have on children raised to be Buddhist? How will it in turn affect their children? What will be the overall effect on the culture?
The book jacket continues: “Muslims and other traditional people around the world allege that secular American values are being imposed on their societies and that these values undermine religious belief, weaken the traditional family, and corrupt the innocence of children. But it is not “America” that is doing this to them, it is the American cultural left. What traditional societies consider repulsive and immoral, the cultural left considers progressive and liberating.
“Taking issue with those on the right who speak of a “clash of civilizations,” D’Souza argues that the war on terror is really a war for the hearts and minds of traditional Muslims – and traditional people everywhere. The only way to win the struggle with radical Islam is to convince traditional Muslims that America is on their side.”
This is from page 287 of the book: “Here is the message that conservatives should convey to traditional Muslims around the world: “We know that America has some serious cultural problems. We consider these our problems, and we are taking responsibility for addressing them. Our biggest task is not one of nation building abroad but of nation building in America. Leave this project to us. Do not support the radical Muslims who attack America. This is an intolerable strategy that gives Islam a bad name, and we will resist it with all our power. It is also unnecessary because you have allies in America who are doing what we can to make our country better. There are healthy and wholesome aspects of American culture that enrich our lives, and we would be happy to export these to you, if indeed you want them. At the same time, we are determined to reverse the tide of liberal immorality in the United States, and we pledge to do what we can to stop the export of cultural depravity to your society. When we are unable to do this, we will speak out and clarify that this part of America makes us ashamed. In this way you will see that we, like you, are working not merely toward the free society but also the decent society.” On this basis the right can establish its own truce with traditional Islam…”
My asbestos suit is firmly in place.
Dinesh Dsouza has admitted taht he knows nothing of Islam and did not do any independant research into it. He is a universalist fool.
Can't argue with him here.
Does their repulsion of our pop decadent culture give them the right to kill us? With his regard to traditional and religious Americans, Islamistswould kill them too, maybe just not first. But then again...
Dear Editor:
I fought in Afghanistan as a Special Forces Team Commander. I am also what you would perceive as a “wacky-right-wing-conservative-religious-Christian-person”
So here are the differences between myself and the Taliban.
The Taliban allowed no freedom of expression, no rights for women, no freedom of religion and destroyed anything and everyone that did not abide by their version of Islam. They destroyed the famous Buddhist statues of Bamiyan because the felt they were un-Islamic graven images. The wiped out entire peoples and villages (such as the Hazara) because they were not Islamic enough. They would think nothing of executing an entire village if one family converted to Christianity. They cut the ears, eyes, tongues and noses off people for “infractions against Islam.” They turned schools into horse stables. They planted bombs and mines in children’s play fields. They torched newly built girls schools. They stoned women to death who had been raped for “adultery.” They allowed the training of terrorist groups to export their version of Islam to the world. They looked at the world as two spheres – One that has been conquered by Islam and one that will be conquered by Islam through war. They would think nothing of raping your wife and children and making you a slave or corpse. It is what you and your family, or any non-Islamic person, deserves for being an infidel. They would not allow women (and girls) to go to school, have a job or even leave their home (unless accompanied by a male relative). The Taliban ruled by fear and intimidation. They remind me of the Nazis and Communists.
What do the so called religious conservatives in this country want? Here is the super secret list: Economic Opportunity and Personal Liberty.
Things like: Taxes we can afford; A reverence for the US Constitution as the Founding Fathers wrote it; An appreciation for the values and traditions that made this country the finest in the history of the world; A respect for all opinion, not just what is the PC flavor of the month; An understanding that people should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character;” And respect for life (no matter how vulnerable or powerless).
The differences are slight, but there they are. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.
De Oppresso Libre,
2banana
This book has been thoroughly trashed for a good solid year on just about every conservative website around. It’s crap.
Ya think? Gee, I can't imagine why that would be the case.
Daria... I won't be soothed.
Thank you very much for your response. You have first-hand experience of the horrors inflicted by the Taliban, unlike most of us who type on computers from the comfort of our homes.
D’Souza does differentiate between traditional Muslims and the radicals who blow things up. He maintains that the majority of Muslims do not favor those tactics, although you may see things differently. He believes that the terror threat may be lessened if traditional Muslims understand that many Americans also do not support liberal secular decadence, but are in fact trying to stem the tide of decadence at home.
Thanks.
It depends on the definition of American culture.
Is America a Christian nation?
"Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity."
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0003.html
D'Souza need to read one of the many FR threads on Sperry's article on Norquist and the American Muslims, which is just an extension of Gaffney's attacks on Norquist.
The fact of the matter is that there are many, many on the right who want to turn the war on terror into the war on Islam.
And they love Tancredo for saying that the US should nuke Mecca.
Corrected by insertion of functiong neurons and a bit of testosterone. (The same procedure was attempted on Dinesh D'Appeaser himself, but his body rejected the foreign substances.)
Traditional Islam means treating your own mother like a slave and sexually using little boys.
Why is he pretending that Islam has a Christian morality? Weird.
Secularists are undermining the "religious belief" that mass murder is rewarded in the afterlife.
The only possible objection that can be raised to this is that the secularists need to get off their asses and undermine it faster and more thoroughly.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I learned all about islam from being in Beirut in 83 and gulf war 1.
The book jacket continues: “Muslims and other traditional people around the world allege that secular American values are being imposed on their societies and that these values undermine religious belief, weaken the traditional family, and corrupt the innocence of children.
Imposed? IMPOSED!?
We "impose" very little on ANY country.
If a country wishes to emulate bad judgment, who is the USA to tell them they can't?
It sounds to me like some countries wish to purge themselves of bad decisions by their citizens by blaming the USA.
If we wanted to "impose", we would probably do so through the use of force.
Thanks for your service, and a lot of love from an American family of six.
:)
If their culture is so weak that it cannot compete with ours, despite the home-field advantage of the former, then it should wither and die as the natural order of things dictates.
What would really help is for large groups of traditional Muslims to stand united, publicly condemn radical Islamofacism and assist in the removal of such radicals from Earthly existence.
This might begin to convince me that traditional Muslims are sincere.
Gee. It looks like MTV will turn them into violent Maoists, who will try to destroy Buddhism and execute anyone who disagrees with their radical politics. Good thing I stopped watching Beavis and Butthead.
Doggone right! Saying or thinking anything different is just a way to ty to explain away what they did, and are trying to do. The muslims that are fighting us are pure evil, islam is pure evil. “For even satan dressed himself as an angel of light”
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