Prominent author David Horowitz called Democratic attacks on the Iraq War “wretched” in a speech to approximately 50 students in St. Mary’s Hall last night.

Horowitz said the American left is sabotaging the war on terrorism and working towards the destruction of the country.

“The left doesn’t care about dictators,” he said. “The left cares about destroying America. The left hates America.”

Horowitz said Democrats such as filmmaker Michael Moore consider America “the Great Satan and the root of evil in the world.” Moore, he continued, has committed treason against America.

“Treason is when your country is at war and you want the other side to win,” he said. “Michael Moore is rooting for the enemy.”

Horowitz defended the war in Iraq, saying that President Bush has helped to liberate millions of people.

“It is a war in which it is difficult to understand how anybody who is decent, who believes in human rights, who believes in women’s rights, who believes in equality and freedom, could not support it,” he said. “How can you not support this war?”

Horowitz also said that America is safer because the president made the decision to go to war.

“If you ask yourself whether you are safer with George Bush, consider that on Sept. 12 nobody would have been willing to bet that we would be safe in this country for the next three years,” he said. “The only reason we haven’t been attacked is [because] George Bush and Dick Cheney have taken the war to the enemy camp.”

Horowitz spoke against Democratic opposition to the war. Criticism of foreign policy is sometimes legitimate, he said, but sentiments expressed by the American left have gone beyond criticism.

“To attack the commander-in-chief as a liar and a fraud, as leaders of the Democratic Party did, is not criticism,” he said. “That is undermining and sabotaging the war on terrorism.”

Horowitz attributed the Democratic Party’s opposition to the war to remarks by individual Democrats.

“I think the Democratic Party would have stayed with the war if it weren’t for Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Ted Kennedy,” he said. “The really terrible decision was made by Al Gore and Jimmy Carter to make the war a partisan issue.”

Horowitz said the Democratic Party reversed its position on the war because of these individuals.

“Shame on the whole Democratic Party for attacking a war it had signed on to,” he said.

Horowitz spoke against Sen. John Kerry specifically.

“This is a man who supported the war and spoke on the Senate floor in support of toppling Saddam Hussein,” he said. “Then he reversed himself 180 degrees for his own political ambitions.”

Horowitz said that in matters of war and peace Kerry will “stick his finger in the air and go whichever way the political wind blows.”

Horowitz also said that Kerry would not have handled the war on terror better than Bush.

“John Kerry [does] not have another plan,” he said. “There is no other plan. You either take the dictator down or you appease him. The Democratic Party is a party of appeasement.”

Csaba Rusznak (SFS ’07) said Horowitz’s speech contributed to “the intellectual life of the campus.”

“I enjoyed the fact that he was a passionate speaker,” Rusznak said. “I think you could tell that he believed what he was saying.”

Horowitz spoke on campus to promote his new book, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left.

“I have written Unholy Alliance so that people can be informed about who this left is,” he said.

The speech was co-sponsored by the College Republicans, the Lecture Fund and the Edmund Burke Society.