Dinesh D'Souza, former senior policy analyst during the Reagan administration, addressed terrorism and the war in Iraq in a lecture Wednesday titled "America and Its Enemies."
D'Souza is the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is a best-selling author whose articles and books are controversial among conservative and liberal audiences. His most recent book, "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11," was published in January.
D'Souza's lecture was sponsored by the Bowdoin College Republicans and the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs.
D'Souza began his lecture by addressing what he believed to be flaws in liberal and conservative thinking about the war in Iraq.
"To understand the situation in Iraq, we need to take a fresh look at 9/11," he said. "Our understandings of the enemy have been unmoved for five years."
Speaking about 9/11, D'Souza posed the question: "How did radical Islam get in a position to do what it did?" He attributed the attack to the Clinton administration's failure to act after the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. According to D'Souza, the success of those attacks led Osama bin Laden to "conceive of a grander strike" against the United States.
D'Souza said that Muslims are attracted to Islamic tyranny because there are no other types of government to choose from in the Middle East. He said that the United States was in Iraq "to put a new card on the table: Muslim democracy."
He said that the United States cannot lose the war in Iraq militarily.
"The only way to lose the war is to lose it in the American mind," he said.
According to D'Souza, the insurgents know that they cannot beat the U.S. army; they only have to "hang in long enough for weariness to weigh in."
He said that the insurgency in Iraq could only win by convincing Americans to leave?the same goal that, according to D'Souza, the political left has.
"The left is pushing for the same objective as bin Laden for its own reasons," he said.
D'Souza concluded his lecture by saying that the war in Iraq "is not a war we can afford to lose."
D'Souza's lecture has generated some controversy within campus political groups. Charlie Ticotsky '07, co-president of the Bowdoin College Democrats, sent the Orient a press release criticizing the College Republicans for inviting D'Souza to speak.
"D'Souza is an interesting choice for Maine Republicans," reads the release. "He is known for his obscene, intolerant, and racially charged assertions on race and foreign policy."
The release quotes Waterville City Councilor and Maine College Democrats' President Henry Beck.
"Speakers like D'Souza have a right to deliver these remarks, but at the end of the day, what are Maine Republicans trying to accomplish?" Beck asked.
The Orient attempted to contact the Bowdoin College Republicans but had not received a response at press time.
D'Souza said that Bowdoin students should thank the Bowdoin Republicans for bringing him to campus.
"Republicans are doing you a big favor?subjecting your entrenched flabby liberalism to a little bit of intellectual pressure," he said.