Said's rabid hatred of America
Reader comment on item: [Middle East Studies:] Wasted Money

Submitted by Antonio Chaves (United States), Jun 24, 2003 at 19:45

Some liberal friends of mine tried to introduce me to Said's "Orientalism." I gave up on this unreadable God-awful book after the first five pages, but to give Said the benefit of a doubt, I looked up some of his essays on the internet. Although his leftism did not surprise me, I was taken aback by his extreme statements with regards to the U.S. military intervention in the Balkans (Where he suggests that Bill Clinton is worse than Milosevic!).

I was puzzled that Said reacted with so much bile against a humanitarian use of force, with no gain for the U.S. interests (a "liberals" war). Now with the recent article by Kurtz jogging my memory on Said, the answer hit me like a diamond bullet: Said hates America so much, that he could not bear the sight of Arabs praising America for using force to defend those poor Muslims in Europe. His hatred of America is so perverse, that this rankled his sensibilites more than anything that could more easily be construed as American"imperialism."

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".