Our Provocateurs--Dinesh D’Souza Takes Place among the Serial Blame Artists [Victor Davis Hanson]

VDH Private Papers ^ | February 13, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Nicholas Conradin]

After 9/11, many leftists cited American faults that supposedly accounted for Osama bin Laden's savage attack.

--snip--

But there were also those on the right who argued that the jihadists' furor was payback for our own sins.

--snip--

Evocation of 9/11 can also energize an otherwise moribund political agenda. And blaming us rather than jihadists offers the easy — but false — option of winning the war by just making changes at home, rather than doing the hard work of defeating Islamists abroad.

--snip--

[steve-b]

Dinesh's argument is that if a woman dresses sufficiently provocatively, she considerably increases the likelihood that she will be attacked.

There is a kernel of truth in his comments about historical leftist foreign policy weaknesses* (equivalent to pointing out that a woman who carries a gun and is willing to use it is unlikely to be raped no matter what she wears).

That said, his cultural arguments are simply blame-America drivel, no more worthy of respect than those of Noam Chomsky.

*In fairness, conservatives have sometimes been guilty as well -- e.g. Reagan's retreat after the Marine barracks bombing -- and an intellecutally honest commentator would have noted that fact.

[steve-b]

Why can't we do both? Blame those responsible for failing to adequately respond to Muslim attacks against us as well as carry the fight forward, now that we are in it. t seems to me that VDH has set up a false choice.

The proper military and political strategies to counter the threat aren't the issues on which VDH is taking issue with D'Sousa. The argument is over D'Sousa's rather facile and self-serving* attack on American culture.

The former is, of course, the more important issue generally, but it isn't the one that happens to be the focus of VDH's essay.

*Odd, isn't it, that you didn't see Michael Moore asserting that Muslims were offended by Hollywood decadence, or Pat Robertson suggesting that they were ticked off by Christian evangelism efforts? By an amazing coincidence, they and others figured out that it was the fault of a faction of Americans they already didn't like. They must have been psychic or something....