Goofy Book Of The Week: Dinesh D'Souza's THE ENEMY AT HOME

At first glance, Dinesh D'Souza's new nonfictiction work may fool a few casual book previewers as a serious work on terrorism, but a closer examination quickly reveals only a work that a few social social conservatives are likely to embrace that acts as more of an indictment of American popular culture than anything.

While D'Souza does point out that generally Europeans are offended by the "Red state" culture of the U.S. that embraces reactionary and often racist values, D'Souza is quick to claim that Muslim cultures and terrorists in particular are somehow moltivated to react against what they view as a "decadent depraced culture" of the U.S. However, D'Souza seems to miss the point that Al Qaeda and Bin Laden both cited Israel and the U.S. support for Israel as a key moltivation for both attacks on the World Trade Center buildings. In fact, the night before the second and far more devastating attacks on the World Trade Center buildings of 9/11, several of the 9/11 hijackers including terrorist cell leader, Mohamed Atta, spent hundreds of dollars at a strip club stuffing dollar bills in dancer's g-strings. There was no sense of Muslim religious indignation keeping these terrorists from watching strippers or hanging around in an alcohol establishment, all things that would offend normal Muslim morality standards.

Further, it seems highly unlikely that Britney Spears latest antics or some pornographic website will moltivate any terrorist to react against the U.S., although D'Souza's wacky thesis seems to implicate American popular culture as the main moltivating culprit creating a Muslim terrorsim backlash against the "decadent depraved" Western values of the U.S. In fact . many foreign cultures such as China, with very conservative social values have a huge interest in Western culture such as Britney Spears. China's largest newspaper, Xinhua, hardly can go for more than a day or two withour some new huge Britney Spears feature. Many Muslim societies have open air markets with both legal and counterfeited Cds and DVDs of Western films and music, and buyers cannot seem to get enough. North Korea's wacky leader, Kim Jong-Il is also a huge fan of Western films and even put up the production money on another nation for a movie that he wanted made, which to say the least was very bad.

D'Souza's book simply represents the latest attempt by social conservatives to ramp up fears of terrorism and force some brakes on American culture. The book is not a serious study of terorism, nor expands an understanding of how to combat it. A few televangelists and conservative clergy members will embrace this new book and even quote from it. But it will have a zero impact on serious foreign policy discussions.

Here's to you, author Dinesh D'Souza, this week's proud recepitant of our "Goofy Book Of The Week " honors. Congratulations. You can find new D'Souza's book or not at your local booksellers.