Yeah, don't you just hate it when the facts get in the way of revisionist history?

Cheers,

http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com

Posted by: Doctor Bulldog at May 25, 2007 3:47 PM

D'Souza is such an embarrassment to his employer.

Posted by: StillBreathing at May 25, 2007 3:47 PM

D'Souza is a blemish on the human race...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at May 25, 2007 3:52 PM

LOL, Dinesh. Omitting the obvious Iran / Iraq war in the 80's.

Does Dinesh even know who the Sunnis and Shia are???

Posted by: awake at May 25, 2007 3:54 PM

Robert and Karen Rishwain are the reason for Dinesh D'Souza. They sponsor his fellowship at Hoover and leave tracks on Republican donorship to the Bush Cheney ticket along with some of the most worthy of Americans, including John M. Olin Foundation (If Winchester sounds familiar old John was the guy who built it until it was sold off after his death.)

That is what is troubling in this is some very good Americans have been scammed across the board in promoting a complete mental midget like Dinesh D'Souza. Apparently, Mr. Spencer no one has ever written what you did above in relating the numerous Sunni Shia clashes or Mr. D'Souza would have known it as the only information he knows is what others write.
Mr. D'Souza is a creature of no self generated thoughts. In personal diatribes against me, after he runs out of his barbie doll schism of "I am a New York Times best seller" he immediately degrades into attacking others and then calling them names.
He can not carry on a debate as he has no original thought and self destructs into a school girl type mentality of malevolence in three seconds.

That is the great sadness in Mr. and Mrs. Rishwain in promoting this huckster and the little secret that D'Souza like most authors book numbers are inflated in being purchased in volume by "groups" who run up sales.
I would be certain if someone were to sit down with the the Rishwains and point by point expose that their investment was being wasted and that there are a thousand other minds out there worthy of a fellowship they would fund that D'Souza would be gone in ten seconds.

The world is in dire need of challenging thinkers who can think out of the box for the epic times which we face. Unfortunately, there are too many faux frogs hopping about the pond saying the most ridiculous things.

I am almost come to believe Mr. Spencer that this last nonsense from D'Souza was deliberate to get a response from the "right wing" as you and Mr. Hanson have so ignored him that he is marginalized and no one will feed his ego any more.

Posted by: Lame Cherry at May 25, 2007 4:06 PM

D'Souza stumbles yet again ... right out of the starting gate.

Wait, he got up ... he's running the wrong way.

Posted by: LoneRanger at May 25, 2007 4:09 PM

Unfair dogpiling with facts on people who think they have good intentions! Penalty .

Posted by: KAOSKTRL at May 25, 2007 4:11 PM

HA!...pick me, pick me!!...Hahahahaha.

Posted by: exsgtbrown at May 25, 2007 4:17 PM

I admire Dinesh D'Souza. He shows that it's possible to substitute eloquence for knowledge, and do it with enough conviction that you get rich and famous. Sort of like Chance Gardener in Jerzy Kosinski's "Being There".

Posted by: jewdog at May 25, 2007 4:19 PM

I said all along the guy's on meds. He's too lazy to think.

Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at May 25, 2007 4:21 PM

My only question does D'Souza even read or research before he speaks or does he just pull this stuff out of thin air...

Lets not forget the "assassin movement" which the Fatimids started to wack sunnis leaders. In fact the Ottomans and Persians faught

(1) 1499-1508
(2) 1514-1516
(3) 1526-1555
(4) 1577-1590
(5) 1602-1612
(6) 1616-1618
(7) 1623-1638
(8) 1722-1727
(9) 1730-1736
(10) 1743-1747
(11) 1776-1779
(12) 1806-1812
(13) 1821-1822

This list only includes OTTOMAN (sunni) vs. PERSIAN (shia). I am sure there are more.

http://www.zum.de/whkmla/military/asmin/milxottomananatolia.html

also for more on warfare lists see: http://www.zum.de/whkmla/military/warindex.html

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 25, 2007 4:25 PM

"1980-1988: Saddam Hussein's Sunni-controlled Iraq fights a protracted war against the Iranian Shi'ite mullahocracy."

Count on Dinesh and the entire MSM to tell us this was NOT a war between Sunni and Shia for two reasons:

1. Saddam was a secularist
2. The Iraqi Shia fought the Iranians.

Does the Lebanese civil war of the 1980s count, given Lebanon's religious divisions and the newly minted Iranian government's influence in southern Lebanon? How much did the Sunni Yasser Arafat do to bring it on?

Posted by: PMK at May 25, 2007 4:38 PM

You would think Desouza has a computer and the internet. You would think he'd tap the keys for all of 30 seconds just to check his broad brush-stroke of a statement.

You would think.

Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at May 25, 2007 4:39 PM

What ever happened to the lawyerly prudence of "Never ask a question you don't know the answer to"? Does D'Souza really think he is so omniscient that if he doesn't know the answer to his question, it must be because there have not been two wars between Sunni and Shia?

He has truly gone off the deep end on this topic and is embarrasing himself each time he addresses it. This isn't even a matter of me only wanting to hear him re-affirm my own ideas, this is a matter of factual inaccuracies.

Posted by: venividivici at May 25, 2007 4:44 PM

Modern Chamberlains are everywhere, publishing books, making TV and radio appearances, giving the "people" what they think they want to hear....

Now I understand why God created me so damn stubborn.

Posted by: Foehammer at May 25, 2007 4:48 PM

More nuts of wisdom from his masterpiece on his blog site...

D'Souza says....

"Congressman John Murtha knows as much about the Shia and the Sunni as he does about Abelard and Hugh of Saint Victor. Which is to say, not a lot. So when he routinely charges that there's a religious war going on in Iraq, and the Shia and the Sunni have been fighting for centuries, a little checking is warranted."

Dear god he just Murtha look good....thanks D'Souza for highlighting the one thing Murtha does get right. As for "checking" I did and Murtha is right...there is religious war in Iraq. He did google search.

D'Souza says....

"In this fight the Shia are right and ought to win. With American help they can win."

In other words! Go Iran!

D'Souza says....

"The fight in Iraq will end, one way or another. Will it end with a reestablishment of Sunni rule, this time with Al Qaeda's help, and just as anti-American as Saddam ever was? Or will we see an enduring, popularly-supported, pro-American Shia government in Iraq?"

???

"Pro-American Shia government in Iraq"

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha....howler of the day!

You mean this cat (Picture from Atlas Shrugs)

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/images/ahmadinejacket_iraq_1.jpg

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 25, 2007 5:28 PM

Mr. D'Souza here is some good advice, keep your mouth shut as you will not let on at how stupid you really are!

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at May 25, 2007 5:34 PM

“Servants of Allaah! The animosity of the Shee’ah towards the people of the Sunnah is severe. This animosity has ever been ingrained in their souls since the time they took the belief of corrupt partisanship as a rule and path for their religion. It is no wonder because a snake gives birth to none other than a snake, and whoever reads the annals of history will find the murder and pillage that they committed on the people of the Sunnah, and will find their treaties with the enemies of Islaam far too notorious to be mentioned here.”
– from a sermon by Sheikh Saalih al-Wanyyaan delivered in the Saudi province of Qasim, circa 1987.

But what does Sheikh Saalih al-Wanyyaan know, or his listeners in Qasim, Saudi Arabia, about Sunni views of Shi'a "animosity....towards the people of the Sunnah....ever ingrained in their souls sinc eth etime they took the belief of corrupt partistanship as a rule and path for their religion"? What, that is, compared to what Dinesh D'Souza, who has been "studying" Islam for the past several years, knows all about it?

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 5:37 PM

From "Fitzgerald: A Florilegium of Quotes": ___________________________________________

#2. Gertrude Bell, 1920:

“In the light of the events of the last two months there's no getting out of the conclusion that we have made an immense failure here. The system must have been far more at fault than anything that I or anyone else suspected. It will have to be fundamentally changed and what that may mean exactly I don't know. I suppose we have underestimated the fact that this country is really an inchoate mass of tribes which can't as yet be reduced to any system. The Turks didn't govern and we have tried to govern - and failed. I personally thought we tried to govern too much, but I hoped that things would hold out till Sir Percy came back and that the transition from British to native rule might be made peacefully, in which case much of what we have done might have been made use of. Now I fear that that will be impossible.”

[Source: Lady Gertrude Bell, 1920, The Letters of Gertrude Bell.]

__________________________________________

#3. Gertrude Bell, 1920:

“We as outsiders can't differentiate between Sunni and Shi'ah, but leave it to them and they'll get over the difficulty by some kind of hanky panky, just as the Turks did, and for the present it's the only way of getting over it. I don't for a moment doubt that the final authority must be in the hands of the Sunnis, in spite of their numerical inferiority; otherwise you will have a mujtahid-run, theocratic state, which is the very devil.”

[Source: Lady Gertrude Bell, 1920, The Letters of Gertrude Bell.]
__________________________________________

#4. King Faisal of Iraq, 1933:

"Regrettably, I can say there is no Iraqi people yet, but only deluded human groups void of any national idea. Iraqis are not only disunited but evil-motivated, anarchy prone and always ready to prey on their government." – King Faisal I, writing in his memoirs shortly before he died in 1933.
________________________________________

#5. “There are only two political parties in Iraq: the Sunni party and the Shia party.” – Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi, Iraqi Prime Minister, 1929, 1930, 1946, 1950.
________________________________________

#6. In "The Chatham House Version" the scholar Elie Kedourie comments dryly on the description by the far-less-great scholar Majid Kadduri (in his own book, "Independent Iraq") of “the wise leadership of Faisal, who inspired public spirit in every department of government”:

“If this [Khadduri's description of Faisal] were in any way true, there would be no accounting for the degraded and murderous politics of Iraq from the end of the mandate to the end of the monarchy.” [i.e., from 1932 to 1958, when first Qassem, and then the Ba'athists, took over, and things became even more degraded and much, much more murderous].

“The fact is, of course, that this kind of language is most inappropriate to Iraq under the monarchy or afterwards.”
.........
“Lack of scruple greater or lesser, cupidity more or less unrestrained, ability to plot more or less consummate, bloodlust more or less obsessive: these rather are the terms which the historian must use who surveys this unfortunate polity [modern Iraq] and those into whose power it was delivered.”
______________________________________________

Do you think such material, had it been thoroughly read in its full context and digested, might have helped make American policymakers a bit more realistic and less messianic about Iraq? Do you think Richard Perle would not have so excitedly declared in 2003 that he wouldn't be surprised if a boulevard were named after George Bush in Baghdad? Or that Wolfowitz would estimate that the "cost" of the Iraq War might be "$20 billion," and therefore so much more of a bargain than the cost of the sanctions program -- when the cost now, at a minimum, has been estimated at between $1 and $2 trillion dollars, if the costs incurred for the treatment of the wounded, and the macroeconomic costs are factored in? (See the paper of Stiglitz and Bilmes, and if you wish, forget the macroeconomic costs and take the lower figure, and if you like, reduce even that to something we can all agree on as an absolute base -- say, $750 billion.) Or that Bernard Lewis would confidently predict that when the Americans overturned the regime the spectacle of rapture and gratitude in Baghdad "would make the liberation of Kabul seem like a funeral procession"?

They forgot all this, or didn't know it, with their narrow certainties and dependence on Bernard Lewis. A false choice was offered: on the one hand there was the usual crew of appeasers and hirelings and simply ignoramuses (and they were and are appeasers and hirelings and ignoramuses), people who cannot conceive of Islam being the problem. These were the espositos and william-polks and scowcrofts and the djerijians, who wanted nothing done to upset anyone. They are appeasers and idiots. On the other hand there was the belief of Harold Rhode, so uncritically worshipful of Bernard Lewis, and Douglas Feith -- so dependent on Harold Rhode. There was Cheney, who was so certain about so many things, and similarly thought Lewis the last word on everything to do with Islam and Iraq. There was not a hint of any consulting with the live J. B. Kelly, or the writings of the dead Kedourie, or for that matter with others, including Bat Ye'or. It was apparently a false polarity: either Lewis, or the likes of such apologists as Esposito, or just as bad, that fake "old Iraq" hand William Polk, with his predictable appeasements. No other conceivable alternatives.

There is a good deal that Bernard Lewis is able to forget, or didn't know. Look at his enthusiasm for the Oslo Accords, and his grotesque minimizing of the menace of Islam and the mistreatment of the dhimmis, quite unlike his two coevals S. D. Goitein and Gustave von Grunebaum on the mistreatment of non-Muslims under Islam. What did he think would almost certainly happen once the despotism of the Sunni Saddam Hussein was removed?

And wouldn't a knowledge of Islam have told these analysts something about the prospects for real "democracy" as opposed to the vote-counting that the Shi'a were happy to participate in, in which they voted for whomever their leaders told them to vote lemming-like for? In other words, isn't a knowledge both of Islam and of the history of Iraq essential, so as not to engage in the kind of folly that is being engaged in?

The Americans, had they informed themselves, would then most likely either have

1) left Saddam Hussein in place, if indeed there was no real reason to suspect his possession, or his being able to acquire, weapons of mass destruction; or,

2) removed him, if there was indeed sufficient reason to believe that he either had or was attempting to acquire, or could soon start acquiring or making, such weapons, and then left Iraq. We still do not know whether or not Saddam was doing that, but those of us who were long willing to believe that the government was reasonable in fearing the existence of WMDs or of the ability of the regime to acquire them -- I was one of them -- are looking more abashed every day.

What are the most important things to study to figure out what makes sense for the wellbeing of Infidels at this moment in Iraq, given the instruments of Jihad as we can now identify them, and the behavior, ignorant and often pusillanimous, of much of the Western world?

It is history. The history of Islam, both doctrine and practice. The history of Iraq, especially of Iraq since 1920.

Not "psychoanalysis." Not the "generally applicable rules of counter-insurgency" such as "insurgencies tend, on average, to last 10 years." Islam. Iraq. History.

[Posted by Hugh at March 26, 2007 11:22 AM]

Please note #5:

“There are only two political parties in Iraq: the Sunni party and the Shia party.”
– Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi, Iraqi Prime Minister, 1929, 1930, 1946, 1950.

But what does Tawfig Al-Suwaidi, Iraqi Prime Minister in 1929, 1930, 1946, 1950 know about Sunni-Shi'a rivalries in modern Iraq, compared to what Dinesh D'Souza knows, studying the matter over the past few years in his Palo Alto office, in his San Diego mansion?

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 5:42 PM

From a news report about the killing of an important Shia leader in Kashmir in 2005:

"Many suspected of killing Shia leader
Tribune News Service

SRINAGAR, Nov 6 — Who killed senior Shia leader Aga Syed Mehdi, near here, on Friday?

A Defence Ministry spokesman claimed here on Saturday that foreign militants belonging to Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad had blasted the IED at Magam, killing Aga Syed Mehdi and five others.

“As per reports , this was the work Sipaha-e-Sahaba, a radical anti-Shia faction in Pakistan, actively supported by the Pakistani regime. The Sipaha-e-Sahaba believes in the elimination of Shias. Detailed planning for this operation was done across the Line of Control, involving activists of Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Pakistani officials,” he said.

The All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has alleged that the “government-controlled media” tried to implicate Sipaha-e-Sahaba, an organisation which did not exist in Kashmir. “Further , the reference of inter-group clashes in Pakistan indicated that India has been trying to dub the ongoing struggle as a terrorist and communal onslaught,” an APHC spokesman said.

The Lashkar-e-Karbala, a lesser known outfit, and Hizbul Momineen were, according to a local news agency, the first to claim the responsibility of the attack. However, according to another local news agency, Hizbul Momineen chief, presently in Pakistan, has denied the involvement of his group in the killing. He had also denied having links with Lashkar-e-Karbala.

Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen , a radical militant outfit, has hailed the killing of the Shia leader. “His actions took him to bizarre end,” a spokesman of the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen said here.

The police is yet to get any clues about those responsible for the killing. Aga’s killing, according to the police, cannot be directly linked to the attempt of the militants to create sectarian trouble in the valley.

Two attempts were made on the life of another senior Shia and Congress leader, Maulvi Abbas Ansari, who was a minister till last year in the Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference Government. The police here believe that such attacks were only targeted at the mainstream political leaders and not on the leaders of a particular sect."

But what do the members of Sipaha-e-Sahaba, the Sunni terrorist group that targets Shi'a, in Kashmir and in Pakistan, know about Sunni-Shi'a relations, compared to what Dinesh D'Souza knows, back in sunny California?

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 5:47 PM

From a Jan. 10, 2000 posting at a Sunni website devoted to "Shi'a treachery toward Islamic governments":

"The stance of most Shi'ites, scholars and laymen alike, towards the Islamic governments throughout history has been, if the government was powerful and well-established, to honour its leaders in consonance with their tenet of taqiyah, for the purpose of material gain. If, however, the government is weak, or is under attack by enemies, they side with its enemies against it. This is precisely what they did during the last days of the Umayyad dynasty when the Abbasids
revolted, under the instigation ?f the Shi'ites of that era. ln a later time, they took the same criminal stand against the Abbasids who were
threatened by the raids of Hulago and his pagan Mongol followers against the Caliphate of Islam and its glorious capital of science and civilization . An example of this is seen in the behavior of the Shi'ite philosopher and scholar An-Naseer At-Toosi. He composed poetry in
praise of Al-Musta'sim, the Abbasid Caliph, then in 65 A.H. executed a complete turn about, instigating revolution against his patron, thereby hastening the catastrophe which befell Islam in Baghdad, where he headed the butcher Hulago's blood-letting procession. In fact he per-sonally supervised the slaughter of Muslims, sparing none, not even women, children, or the aged. This same At-Toosi also approved of
wholesale dumping of valuable texts of Islamic literature in the Tigris River; its waters ran black for days from the ink of the innumerable
manuscripts. Thus vanished a great treasure of the Islamic heritage consisting of works in history, literature, language and poetry, not to
mention those in the Islamic religious sciences, which had been passed down from the pious of the first generation of Muslims, and which
could be found in abundance until that time when they were destroyed in a cultural holocaust the like of which had never been seen before."

But who knows better what many Sunnis think of the "treacherous" Shia -- this anonymous Sunni, or Dinesh D'Souza, who has been intimately familiar with internal Islamic disputes since his childhood and youth in India, which gave him a peculiar insight into the world of Islam that almost no one else in the West possesses?

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 5:54 PM

From the Letters of Gertrude Bell:

Baghdad, March 14, 1920

"It's a problem here how to get into touch with the Shiahs, not the tribal people in the country; we're on intimate terms with all of them, but the grimly devout citizens of the holy towns and more especially the leaders of religious opinion, the Mujtahids, who can loose and bind with a word by authority which rests on an intimate acquaintance with accumulated knowledge entirely irrelevant to human affairs and worthless in any branch of human activity. There they sit in an atmosphere which reeks of antiquity and is so thick with the dust of ages that you can't see through it —— nor can they. And for the most part they are very hostile to us, a feeling we can't alter...There's a group of these worthies in Kadhimain, the holy city, 8 miles from Baghdad, bitterly pan—Islamic, anti—British...Chief among them are a family called Sadr, possibly more distinguished for religious learning than any other family in the whole Shiah world....I went yesterday [to visit them] accompanied by an advanced Shiah of Baghdad whom I knew well."

But who understood better why the Shiah tribes would never willingly acquiesce in being ruled by a Sunni monarch and a Sunni elite in Baghdad, that ill-informed Gertrude Bell, with her years of experience working and living in the Middle East, and her several books, or Dinesh D'Souza, who has for several years -- his usual modus operandi in mastering a subject and then polishing it off in book form -- been "studying Islam"?

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 6:00 PM

From a recent speech by Mubarak of Egypt about Shia disloyalty to Sunni Arab states:

"There are Shias in all these countries (of the region), significant percentages, and Shias are mostly always loyal to Iran and not the countries where they live," Mubarak said in an interview aired on...the Dubai-based Al Arabiya news channel."

But what does Mubarak know about Sunni attitudes toward Shi'a, compared to what Dinesh D'Souza, "with four bestsellers on the New York Times Best Seller List," knows about Sunni attitudes toward Shi'a?

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 6:08 PM

From a recent article by an Iraqi on the Gulf War of 1991:

"Conspiratorial and metaphysical reasoning is all that is proffered in the lone document of official explanation [by Saddam Hussein's regime] of the events of 1991: The root of the "conspiracy of March, 1991," according to the editorialist was laid at the hands of "a certain sect [i.e. the Shi'a] who has historically been under the influence of the Persians. . . They have been taught to hate the Arab nation." As for the Iraqis in Nasiriya, Semmawa, and Ammara, known for their secularism, they are merely dismissed as "the marsh Arabs so accustomed to breeding water buffaloes to the extent that they have become indistinguishable from them." The ‘erudite editorialist' went on to state that: When they migrated to big cities like Baghdad, they made their living through begging, prostitution, and robbery, not out of need but owing to their intrinsic degraded nature. Moreover, "these are not Arabs; they were brought with their water buffaloes from India by Mohammad al-Qassem [the Abbassid leader who conquered India in the ninth century]."

But what does the Sunni writer of that official Iraqi government document, who describes the Shi'a of Iraq as having"historically been under the influence of the Persians. . . They have been taught to hate the Arab nation" know about Sunni views of the Shia, compared to what Dinesh D'Souza knows with such scholarly certainty, because for at least a year or two or three he has been "studying Islam" and knows all that one need know?

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 6:17 PM

Add one more to Robert's list above from Dinesh's native India itself - Aurangzeb's invasions of Bijapur (1657) and Golconda, and his ultimate annexations of these 2 Shia Sultanates to the Moghul empire. While there were Shia-Sunni wars between Shia Bijapur, Golconda & Berar vs Sunni Ahmadnagar and Bidar, one could make an argument that these were more empire building conquests rather than Shia-Sunni jihads; however, Aurangzeb was known to hate Shia, and his enemity with these 2 Sultanates came out of that.

Of course, one can't expect DD to know that, can one?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 25, 2007 6:18 PM

Dear D'Souza,

Ain't History a bitch?

She bites you with facts when you try to feed her with b.s.

Not many creature, other than dung beetles, appreciate that menu.

Maybe it needs to be your new academic heraldic crest:

A Gilt Beetle Rolling a Ball of Elephant Dung.

Posted by: profitsbeard at May 25, 2007 6:27 PM

“I am almost come to believe.”

Has Cherry been infested by something alien?

Posted by: Mert at May 25, 2007 6:33 PM

Slightly off-topic but there is a good interactive web page on the Iraq conflict with figures of the war dead here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/guides/456900/456995/html/default.stm

Click on the tabs above.

Posted by: UK Infidel Lover at May 25, 2007 6:59 PM

Mert-

The Lame one sounds like a committee lately.

Posted by: profitsbeard at May 25, 2007 8:31 PM

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20070305,00.html

Posted by: Dsinc at May 25, 2007 8:32 PM

One more example of Sunni-Shi'a violence:

The attempt by the hyper-Sunni Taliban to wipe out the Hazaras, the Shi'a tribe of Mongol descent? That Sunni on Shi'a violence is hardly a matter of hermetic texts; it is discussed at length in that best-seller, Rory Stewart's account of his walk from Herat to Kabul in 2002, "The Places In Between."

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 9:20 PM

D'Souza on May 22nd posted...

"One of the regular responders on this blog, whom I would not describe as one of my biggest fans, has expressed more than a little irritation that I often refer to my book The Enemy at Home in my posts. "Buy my book.....buy my book...buy my book."

So enough about my book. Let's talk about my CDs. All my seven books are available in audio format, which is really good for people who have time to listen in their cars. I really like audio books. I use the audio format mainly to listen to classics, such as Milton's Paradise Lost. Currently I'm listening to a series of lectures fby Professor Daniel Robinson on the great ideas of Western civilization.

Some of my audio books, such as What's So Great About America, are read by me. Others, including The Enemy at Home, are read by professional readers.

"Buy my book....Buy my book...Buy my book"? No. Also buy my CDs. And if you'd like me to lecture at your business or university, there are more details on my website which you can link to here."

http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/05/22/enough-about-my-book/

Mr. Spencer when will post such self-absorbed advertisement on this blog?

Oh wait this is a serious blog looking for real answers to real problems dealing with Islamic Jihad...my fault carry on.

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 25, 2007 9:25 PM

One more:

According to the histories of Iran, in 1722 the Sunni Aghans invaded Shi'a Iran; more than 70 years of unsettlement and strife between the Sunni Afghan overlords and their Shi'a Iranian subjects continued, until in 1795 the Shi'ite Qajars reestablished a Shi'ite theocracy. until the Shi'ite Qajars regained control in 1795 and re-established a Shi'ite theocracy. Or would Dinesh D'Souza argue, as he does in the case of Iraq, that Sunni-Shi'a battles are only "political" and not "religious" in nature -- a distinction that makes no sense in Islam, where there is no diviision between "religion" and "politics."

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 9:27 PM

"I use the audio format mainly to listen to classics, such as Milton's Paradise Lost."
-- from Dinesh D'Souza, tirelessly flogging his own wares, this time CDs, on his website

"Milton's Paradise Lost."

Jimmy Carter, when running for office, talking of visiting such places as "Paris, France."

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 9:30 PM

correction from above...

"Mr. Spencer when YOU will post such A self-absorbed advertisement on this blog?"

Jeeze always thinking faster then my fingers can type...

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 25, 2007 9:32 PM

Hugh

"The Enemy at Home, are read by professional readers."

:)

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 25, 2007 9:33 PM

Go to the DD'S website. Read the coney-barker's pitch, the mountebank selling his snake-oil:

"Buy my book....Buy my book...Buy my book"? No. Also buy my CDs. And if you'd like me to lecture at your business or university, there are more details on my website which you can link to here."

He's not the only one. There are many others, raking it in on the lecture circuit, flogging their wares, even getting armies of the hopeful young to organize for what those young think is a greater cause, but somehow always comes down to promoting a particular "expert" on Islam.

Whole lot of self-promoting going on. But nothing quite so blatant as that by Dinesh D'Souza.

Good taste might once have kept such people down, or at least properly mocked. But now....?

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 10:08 PM

Hugh:
Whole lot of self-promoting going on. But nothing quite so blatant as that by Dinesh D'Souza.

I would not care Hugh if DD was saying the truth and it was educating the ignorant masses as the real story on Islam. But since DD is promoting his false thesis on Islam I do care. It does not fool the bright but there will be some suckers who are deceived and subscribe to DD's thesis.

It is bad news. It is just another distraction for some, in the West.

Posted by: UK Infidel Lover at May 25, 2007 10:17 PM

Hugh-

Does D'Souza have any pop-up books?

E.G.: Page 26-27 unfolds to reveal the "Upright Moderate Muslim, Riding a Pink Unicorn- on His Way to Reform the Koran- Traipsing Across a Crescent Field of Blooming Idiots-"?

(I'm sure his 8-tracks are ripping good fun, too.)

Posted by: profitsbeard at May 25, 2007 10:25 PM

Is Dinesh a Harvard Man or a Yale Man? If neither, is he like Condi a Stanford Man?

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at May 25, 2007 10:31 PM

The racket itself, and the need to please with ready soundbites, instant "expert" analysis, and the steady churning out of commentary that often does not accompany, but rather prevents, periods of uninterrupted far-from-the-madding-crowd study, is a problem.

What are the requirements, what tests are given, for journalists of the pundit-pontificating variety? What minimum standards of general or specific knowledge must be met? Who gave a test to Tom Friedman? To Nicholas Kristof? To so many others, including those whom one may more or less agree with on the matter of Islam, but at the same time one can find unseemly the extent of their hectic entrepreneurial activity, and the organizing of a production-line where others, "mere" researchers or "mere" writers, do most of the real work (but have that "mere" to contend with), while public and final credit is so often taken by the head. This head, this organizer, is no different from many other such organizers in industry, and he can call the shots not because of his greater intellectual abilities, but rather, because of his greater flair for self-promotion and fundraising. Such practices offend. Their practitioners don't get cold eyes cast on them nearly enough.

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 10:31 PM

Where he went to school hardly matters. It is what he made, or didn't, make of it. He's listening, he tells us with great earnestness, to some tapes right now. The Teaching Company, I presume. Lifetime Learning. Or something. Nothing wrong with that. But if he then assumes that having listened to 20 hours of "Master Teachers" on some subject that that about wraps it up, surely he has another think coming.

Posted by: Hugh at May 25, 2007 10:36 PM

Harvard University Monday (Dec. 12) announced the creation of a University-wide program on Islamic studies, made possible by a $20 million gift from Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud.
…
"We are very grateful to Prince Alwaleed for his generous gift to Harvard," said President Lawrence H. Summers. "This program will enable us to recruit additional faculty of the highest caliber, adding to our strong team of professors who are focusing on this important area of scholarship."

...of the highest caliber.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/12.15/03-islam.html

Posted by: pez at May 25, 2007 10:47 PM

"Mr. D'Souza"

The greeting is much too kind. The only thing disturbing about this is that people with influence take him seriously. It is time for a house cleaning. Scratch that. It is time to raze the house. The house is beyond repair, infested with the most vile of creatures, rotten to core.

Posted by: Sheik er' Bouti at May 25, 2007 11:00 PM

1980-1988. Who was President? The strange coincidence that wasn’t.

Posted by: pez at May 25, 2007 11:47 PM

That D'Souza, who comes from India, is not aware of the rift between Shias and Sunnis despite the almost daily occurrence of violence between the two groups within the Indian subcontinent just goes to show how totally unread and clueless he is. In the past two decades (and long before the Iraq war) it is estimated that more than 4,000 people have been killed in Pakistan alone due to the clashes between these two communities.

Posted by: Razdan at May 26, 2007 12:24 AM

pez quoted a news release:

Harvard University Monday (Dec. 12) announced the creation of a University-wide program on Islamic studies, made possible by a $20 million gift from Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud.

Truly disgusting. As Hugh puts it, due to a accident of geology, the Saudi royal family is literally rolling in unearned money. Their viewpoint on Islam is bought and paid for. Where will the anti-jihadists get their $20 million? Unfortunately, we don't have oil fields in our back yards. What are the chances that a serious examination of the violent sections of the Qur'an will take place at Harvard? How long would a scholar last at Harvard if s/he were to criticize those violent sections of the Qur'an or the ahadith? This is so wrong. This is the opposite of free speech. This is foreign-sponsored censorship within our halls of higher education.

Posted by: special_guest at May 26, 2007 1:56 AM

special_guest

We need solar powered cars that can do 0-90 in 5 seconds on a wet day in Seattle, and feature prominently in NASCAR. The day that happens, petroleum will be as valuable to the OIC as jute is to Bangladesh. Other alternatives along the way - be it bio-diesel, coal, whatever, might dampen the effect, but that's what we need, and fast.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 26, 2007 2:13 AM

This destroys any credibility that Mr. D'Souza ever had.

Posted by: unicorns62000 at May 26, 2007 5:02 AM

How does Mr. D'Souza account for the Shia attempt to take over the Kabbah during the Haj in the 1970's. Weren't they put down with force by the Saudi Sunni's.

How old is he?, didn't this incident occur during his life?

Posted by: Ozi_bloke at May 26, 2007 5:22 AM

Robert, you are my hero.

"Pick me! My hand is up!"

LOL!

Posted by: Matt A. Moros at May 26, 2007 9:34 AM

Dinesh must be some kind of very protected affirmative action hire. Because he is never called to account for his stupid untrue statements. Never held to account for misrepresenting what his intellectual opponent says. He’s held to account at Jihad Watch but certainly not at Stanford’s Hoover Institution

I think he’s on meds. He cannot possibly be such a sleepwalker.
There are lots of vile duplicitous white professors. Well, here’s an Indian one

Posted by: dennisw at May 26, 2007 11:06 AM

This D'Souza person seems to be even better sport than Dean Esmay.

Posted by: payingattention at May 26, 2007 3:51 PM

jewdog:
Shame on you comparing Donut with Chance Gardener, one of my all time favourite characters. Donut is more like The Monster From The Deep which sporadically surfaces to spout out venom.

Posted by: meekee at May 26, 2007 8:23 PM