Bin Laden at times whined about the American failure to sign the Kyoto treaty on global climate, white racism, the bombing of Hiroshima, even improper campaign donations. If we took these terrorist rants as seriously as D'Souza does, then al-Qaida might seem to be a radical leftist organization furious at the supposed sins of a conservative United States.
Third, why should we think Islamic objections to our culture could justify the violence of the extremists? Jihadists may not like Western drug use, homosexuality, rap music or abortion any more than we do female circumcision, polygamy, sharia law and gender apartheid, which are as common in the Middle East as our purported offenses are in the West. But would anyone thereby justify Americans suicide-bombing Muslim civilians?
Fourth, in terms of giving possible offense to Muslims, others (such as the Indians, Russians and Chinese) have violently surpassed anything blamed on the United States. But bin Laden rammed planes into our towers, apparently because he bet (wrongly) that America was least likely to strike back. And wounding the United States — the most powerful symbol of a free, prosperous West — would offer the best propaganda coup for galvanizing other Muslims.
Fifth, and most regrettable, is D'Souza's belief that ideology trumps Americans' shared history and values. But despite the differences between red- and blue-state America, we find more in common with each other than with conservative Muslims in a gender-segregated Saudi Arabia or a religiously intolerant Iran.
An Alabama hunter and a Harvard professor, for all their likely political disagreements, share a commitment to the Constitution, freedom of the individual, the equality of women and tolerance of different religions. Head-to-toe burqas and honor killings for most of us are more offensive than rap music or "Brokeback Mountain."
Why do our provocateurs serially fault their own country in a time of war?
Such perversity earns instant attention. Consider the understandable uproar over Sen. John Kerry's recent characterization of America as a "pariah."
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.
But worst of all, too many Americans embrace only their fantasy of a perfect United States, rather than the good America we actually have.