Free The Enemy At Home by Dinesh D'Souza

sites, as well as the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. Backed by the Saudi people, they announce their willingness to use their newfound power to wage more effective jihad against the United States. Would the United States be willing to live with this outcome? Of course not. Nor should it. So for the United States to let the Saudi people decide on their rulers is to risk an outcome that could be, from the American point of view, catastrophic. For this reason, I think it is highly doubtful that either President Bush or his conservative supporters would hazard a Saudi election that might bring Islamic radicals and Al Qaeda supporters to power. Contrary to President Bush’s naïve assertion, America’s ideals and its interests are not identical.
    It’s time for Bush and the conservatives to rethink 9/11.

TWO
    Reluctant Warriors
    9/11 and the Liberal Paradox
    L ET US TURN now to the liberal and left-wing understanding of 9/11. If the Bush administration’s conservatism is characterized by a relentless “war against terrorism,” the left’s position is characterized by an equally determined “war against the war against terrorism.” The goal of left-wing agitation is to convince the Democratic Party as a whole to oppose the war. It is also to sway public opinion against the Bush administration so that the conduct of the war itself becomes untenable. The left has made substantial progress on both fronts.
    Unified liberal opposition to the war against terrorism has emerged gradually since 9/11, gaining momentum with each passing year. A few days after 9/11, Congress voted pretty much unanimously to give President Bush the authority to use military force to respond to the terrorist attack. Only a minority of liberals—and very few Democrats in Congress—opposed the American invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban. Many more liberals opposed the invasion of Iraq, although a few supported it. Democrats in the House and Senate were divided over the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution. Most Democrats voted against it, but the margins were fairly close. Over time, however, the current of liberal opposition has grown stronger and more confident. Now there is a virtual liberal consensus, encompassing most congressional Democrats and the Democratic leadership, against Bush’s war on terrorism. Explaining this process in a recent interview, liberal senator Barbara Boxer explained, “We were so hit by 9/11…that we didn’t get our legs back. It took a while. But now the Democratic Party is back.” 1
    As we have seen, conservatives frequently characterize liberal opposition to American foreign policy, and in particular to the war against terrorism, as uninformed, weak, and anti-American. I believe it is none of those things. From the last chapter it should be clear that conservatives are not particularly knowledgeable about the nature, the goals, or the strategy of the enemy. Liberals are at least as well informed as conservatives on these subjects. The charge of timidity or weakness is equally misplaced. It assumes that liberals and leftists want to fight this war but simply lack the courage. This assumption is wrong. Liberals and leftists have loudly insisted that they are against the main thrust of Bush’s war. Most liberals agree with John Kerry’s position, articulated during the 2004 presidential campaign, that the Iraq war is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Conservatives can hardly be surprised that liberals are timid about fighting a war that most of them don’t want to fight in the first place.
    Indeed liberal resolve is largely invested in opposing the war. Conservatives who persist in thinking that liberals are weaklings who lack political backbone should consider the tenacity that liberals show in fighting conservatism. Look at the implacable determination that liberals showed in keeping Robert Bork off the Supreme Court. Try outlawing abortion and see if the liberals react weakly or timidly!