I saw Bernard Lewis on CSPAN/BookTV this weekend (yes, I'm an occasional viewer) taking viewer questions and discussing his recent book "What Went Wrong"

I read the book and am a pretty big fan of Dr. Lewis'  (although I didn't really feel like the book *gripped* me & informed me in the same way as Clash of Civilizations.) 

Bernard recently wrote an article for the New Yorker which has been getting a lot of well-deserved linkage from the Blogosphere.   I HIGHLY recommend a careful read of the entire article.   In many ways, I found the article much more informative than What Went Wrong.   In his interview on BookTV, Dr. Lewis mentioned that he was expanding this article into a full length book which should be worth looking forward to!

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Found an older Bernard Lewis article that I figured was worth saving in my blog.  Bernard is basically arguing that much of our soft pedalling in the past directly led to some of the Islamofascist aggression we see today:

...This was his belief and the source of his resolve. The same message appears in several other statements--that Americans had become soft and pampered, unable or unwilling to stand up and fight. It was a lesson bin Laden extracted from our responses to previous attacks: He expected more of the same. There would be fierce words and perhaps the U.S. would launch a missile or two to some remote places, but there would be little else in terms of retaliation.

...The leaders of al Qaeda launched their war against the U.S. in the belief that they were attacking a soft and demoralized enemy. They thought they could proceed with impunity. It would be wise not to let that misapprehension creep back.

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