Bill O’Reilly made an extraordinary statement last night in addressing the difficult fact that “we can’t kill all the Muslims.” This follows an equally bizarre statement from his interviewee Fox News contributor Col. Ralph Peters that there are no Christian or Jewish terrorists.
Here is what O’Reilly said:
Barack Obama wants to win hearts and minds in the Middle East, in the Muslim world, which is a good thing and you know that. As a soldier, we can’t kill all the Muslims. So we wanna win as many hearts and minds of good moderate Muslims as we can. So he goes out of his way, you’re absolutely right, Colonel, he goes out of his way, to avoid the “Muslim terrorist” label, which clearly applies to Hasan.
Putting aside O’Reilly’s incredible statement, Peters also added to the interview with the question of where all the Christian terrorists are? He apparently was not alive when Timothy McVeigh destroyed the Oklahoma City Federal Building or the recent shootings in churches by Christian gunmen.
It must be wonderfully liberating to be able to speak without an sense of the need for historical or factual accuracy.
John:
why is it people who have sh . . . for brains always worry about someone else’s spelling?
I suppose it is the same lack of imagination which causes people to assume people who curse have a lack of verbal ability, or people who are dis-organized aren’t too bright.
Mike:
I may not know as much about the “Constitution” as you know about the “constitution,” but at least I know how to spell it correctly.
“I do not have any problem (generally speaking) with sacrificing my civil liberties.”
John,
It is so sad that you don’t have a clue about what America and our constitution mean. No one who does would have written that drivel.
Bush was a complete nut on the right and Obama is just as bad to the left to bad we can’t find some leaders with the countries best interest at heart
John Puma,
I thought about that also and agree with you.
No christian terrorists?
Nobody made mention of Eric Rudolph, did they?
To Jill,
We have caused the deaths 2 million in Iraq since 1990 (4 presidents), with several million displaced. I don’t have injury numbers.
Call me old fashioned but that qualifies as already-committed genocide
John,
Or… we could just leave them alone. I mean, not to inject facts into a good rant, but aren’t we the ones that invaded other countries? So, doesn’t that make us the instigators? I mean of the war, which is a word that has a very specific meaning when it comes to the actions of a country.
John–
You said: “This enemy is like no other, and to find him or her, frankly, I do not have any problem (generally speaking) with sacrificing my civil liberties. We are at war. I do think it is wishful thinking to assume democracy can win over the hearts and minds of a people that want nothing to do with it (democracy).”
****************
One of things I value most about living in a democracy is that we have certain civil liberties that are supposed to be protected by law. You may be willing to sacrifice your civil liberties. I am not.
I remember the wise words of one of our Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.”
John,
I see democracy has failed to win over your heart and mind because you will sacrifice it in the US.
Thank goodness for Bill-O, without him I would have no idea what our capacity for genocide actually is. Can we take out all the Buddhists? How about the Laplanders? Personally, I have never liked those animal worship cults. Can we incinerate them too? It’s good to know that Bill-O is spending time thinking about these things. Maybe he can come up a way to totally decimate terminal stupidity. Glenn Beck, look out!
Extraordinary but unsurprising.
Is this why you stopped appearing on his show, Prof Turley?
Perhaps O’Reilly may have chosen his words better, yet I do not think that he meant all Muslims. Not one bit. And, he is correct. This enemy is like no other, and to find him or her, frankly, I do not have any problem (generally speaking) with sacrificing my civil liberties. We are at war. I do think it is wishful thinking to assume democracy can win over the hearts and minds of a people that want nothing to do with it (democracy). Moreover, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. For example, Menachem Begin, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was number one on Interpol’s most wanted list when he died in the early nineties.
Dave,
So insisting that words have definitions is semantics? Would you also accuse me of “relying on semantics” if I say that French Fries aren’t baked potatoes? Terrorism isn’t a catch all phrase meaning “immoral violent behavior.”
And anyone who denies the existence of Jewish terrorists has wilful blindness about exactly how the modern state of Israel was created … with active assistance from a terrorist group called the Stern Gang.
(One can also look at more modern episodes, if one is willing to endure the debris that will be thrown at you. Given the egregiously disproportionate numbers of civilians killed by the Israeli army, not calling it a terrorist organization is relying on semantics to hide some very ugly truths.)
Mike A.,
That’s what I got! Bill is grieving because it just wouldn’t fly to commit genocide.
Bob, esq wrote:
McVeigh was engaged in Christian terrorism?
I think the point is that McVeigh was a) engaged in terrorism and b) most definitely not a Muslim.
Remember the days before the authoritarians; when the Republican party could still look at itself in the mirror while retaining a semblance of integrity?
Buddha: “I’m sorry, but am I the only one that the term “Christian/Muslim terrorist” makes giggle? Oxymorons are supposed to elicit that response, no?”
I find the entire John Wayne/simplistic good/evil easy answer rap quite annoying. It’s the root cause of the authoritarian mindset: “Just point me in the general direction and tell me what to hate; I’ll follow you anywhere so long as you don’t make me think.”
I’m sorry, but am I the only one that the term “Christian/Muslim terrorist” makes giggle? Oxymorons are supposed to elicit that response, no?