Dinesh D'Souza Dispels Some Myths About Iraq

In an article at Townhall.com, author Dinesh D'Souza takes us through some well-rehearsed myths about Iraq in his article "What They Know That Isn't So." D’Souza is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Mr. D'Souza takes us through three myths that are commonly bandied about and tells us why they aren't true. First up:

They’re furious at us for stopping democracy in Iran. As the left-wing story goes, Mohammed Mossadegh was the elected prime minister of Iran in the early 1950s. The United States didn’t like the fact that he was anti-imperialist, so the CIA engineered a coup and installed the hated Shah of Iran. The people of Iran have still not forgiven us for this, and it is a continuing source of radical Muslim hatred against us.

The second myth is:

We provided weapons to both Saddam and Bin Laden. This leftist account says that America should not be too surprised at the weapons possessed by Saddam and Bin Laden, since we provided them to him. We may even have sold those weapons of mass destruction to Saddam. And certainly we provided ammunition and other material support to Bin Laden when he was fighting against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

And last but not least, we have:

In Iraq we’re getting into a religious war that’s lasted for centuries. This theory, espoused among others by John Murtha, holds that the Sunni and Shia are fighting in Iraq because these two groups have been fighting everywhere since the seventh century. So who wants to get into the middle of an ancient conflict that shows no signs of abating? This would seem to be an argument for America to get out of a religious quarrel that it has no way to settle, and that shows no sign of abating.

D'Souza takes each of these myths and explains why they just aren't so. And why are they so prevalent in the United States? Two possibilities exist:

So where do all these myths come from? The benign explanation is the Internet. People get information off websites which get it off other websites, so that idiocy gets passed around frequently enough to become accepted as truth.

But there is a second possibility. The myths are part of the propaganda produced by the cultural left which is rooting for Bush to lose the war in Iraq and the war on terror. If Iraq is lost, the chances are it will be lost not in Baghdad but in the American mind. Bin Laden and the insurgents are completely outmatched in force, but they can still win, courtesy of the lobbying efforts of the enemy at home.

I think it is probably a mix of those two possibilities, but the important thing is that we learn to stop and think and do a little research so that we aren't buying into every myth floating around out there.