June 2, 2008, - 8:51 am
OUTRAGE: Summer “Reading”–Oprah Author’s Novel From 9/11 Terrorists’ Point of View; “No Villains”
By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Now that it’s June, it’s officially summer reading time. Those who have the luxury curl up by the beach engrossed in the latest faddish novel.
This summer, publisher W.W. Norton is pushing “The Garden of Last Days,” by Andre Dubus III, an Oprah Book Club fave. The book sympathizes with the 9/11 terrorists.
As I’ve written before, Dubus’ “House of Sand and Fog“–an Oprah selection–was a hideously anti-American tale, where the Americans are losers and evil-doers, and Iranian Muslim immigrants are the good, hard-working people, done wrong and caused to lose everything including their lives, thanks to these loser and evil Americans.
Do We Really Need to Sympathize with Those Who Did This?!
Well, with “The Garden of Last Days” is even more hideous. It tells the story of the 9/11 attacks and the Islamic hijackers last days from the point of view of the terrorists and the strippers some of them, um, patronized.
And it’s very sympathetic. The Wall Street Journal, which, sadly, is recommending this book for its summer reading list, calls it
a fact-based novel in which a terrorist behind the Setp. 11 attacks goes to Florida strip clubs, grappling with his mission and American temptations.
Being a hypocrite doesn’t make you anymore sympathetic or indicate any form of “grappling” or struggle with the mass murder of 3,000 Americans.
How many people truly think any of these 19 cold-hearted Muslims “grappled” with anything relating to the murder of thousands of Americans? You saw the video last will and testament of several of them, including Mohammed Atta. They were smiling and laughing. This was something they were focused on for well over a year and something they were quite proud of. They shouted Allahu Akbar [Allah is the Greatest, ie., greater than that of the Christians and Jews and all others]. They slit the throats of crew members on the flights.
And get this, Oprah author Dubus says he feels sympathy for the 9/11 hijackers:
The author’s sympathy for all of his characters draws in the reader. “I don’t know if I believe in villains,” Mr. Dubus says. “I believe in villainous behavior.”
Wow, this is the worst perversion of the Christian “hate the sin, love the sinner” tenet, I’ve heard yet. Trust me, if his kids or wife were on one of those planes on 9/11, he’d believe in villains.
Even more disgusting is the reaction of some booksellers pimping this piece of garbage:
“You’ll care about these people even as you’re horrified” by what they’re doing, says Mike Barnard, owner of Rakestraw Books, Danville Calif.
“Care” about the 9/11 Islamic mass murderers of innocent Americans?! Hmmm . . . did he care about Hitler and Himmler and Goebbels and Mengele? Good thing he and writer Dubus weren’t around in the late ’30s and early ’40s, so they could care about the people who turned up the Zyklon-B nozzle and cooked and otherwise exterminated 11 million, because looking at naked women somehow makes them sympathetic.
Dubus spent five years on the book, including “research” on the terrorists, Islam, and Saudi Arabia, according to the Journal.
“Research” . . . or indoctrination?
How many innocent trees gave their lives for this trash?
Nauseating to the nth.
**** UPDATE: Bill Warner writes that it appears much of the background material for this book was “lifted” from the work of investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, whom Bill helped in his investigation. Bill provides interesting stuff I wasn’t aware of, like that Atta killed his girlfriend’s cats, and that others were identified from that sleazy life, who Bill believes knew in advance of the 9/11 attacks:
HEY, this book is about Sarasota/Venice Fl and stolen from all the work of investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker! Mohamed Atta was back in the Sarasot/Venice area just prior to 9/11 as per Daniel Hopsicker’s work. Amanda Keller was identified as Atta’s one-time live-in American girlfriend in a story on September 27,2002 headlined “Atta, American Girlfriend in Wild Drug & Booze party in Key West.”
[From the summary of] The Garden of Last Days: A Novel [DS: With Bill’s comments in parentheses]:Set the weekend before 9/11, the stories of several disreputable characters converge at a Florida strip club (SARASOTA). There’s April, (AMANDA) exotic dancer and single mom; Bassam, a fanatical Muslim in town (VENICE) for flying lessons (sound familiar?);
The following hours are filled with a heart-stopping chain of events portending disaster, the incessant beat of the DJ’s selections as each stripper takes to the stage, the drunken shouts of customers paying for a show, the exchange of money for services, all under the guise of a good time. April is watched: by Louis, her lascivious boss; by Lonnie, a bouncer who views “Spring” as different from the others; by Bassam, a chain-smoking, intense young man from Saudi Arabia ( Egypt–Atta) who walks straight into the embrace of evil, unable to resist the seduction of this foreign country’s blatant disregard for modesty. As the hours pass, a diverse cast divulges their secrets, the individual histories that have led to this fateful night on the Gulf Coast” (Sarasota/Venice)I helped the original investigative reporter, Daniel Hopsicker dig up some of the background info on Amanda Keller, stipper and girl firend of Mohamed Atta while he lived in the Venice/Sarasota Fl area. The book story is stolen from Daniel Hopsicker’s invesitigative work on stripper Amanda Keller in Sarasota/Venice Fl and Mohamed Atta.
From Hopsicker’s article:
In Venice Florida (JUST SOUTH OF SARASOTA), Mohamed Atta lived for two months with an American stripper/lingerie model named Amanda Keller (both photos are her). Atta loved to party. He was out with Keller nearly every night they were together. He was a heavy drinker, snorted coke, was a stylish dresser and wore expensive jewelry. Keller dumped him after he embarrassed her at a night club by dancing, poorly, atop a speaker. Atta revenged himself later on Keller by returning to the apartment they’d shared and killing her cat and kittens, disemboweling and dismembering them in her apartment for her to find.
Being an Oprah choice the author is assured:
1. Great Wealth
2. Fame and power
3. As is evident so far, ‘a reputation as a compassionate wonderful liberal guy’
As I write this I remember this I think of the two firemen, neighbors of mine, killed that day trying to save lives.
poetcomic1 on June 2, 2008 at 9:49 am