Friday, May 20, 2005

Faster, O'Reilly! Kill! Kill!

DoG’s personal favorite Bill O’Reilly advocates taking on the tactics of the terrorists in order to stop liberal journalists once and for all:

O'REILLY: No, no. I want you to read it. Go to LATimes.com. I want everybody in the country to read this editorial 'cause it just -- I mean, you'll be sitting there pounding the table like I did. How can they -- how can they think this way? How can anyone think this way? You know, "Shutting down Guantànamo and giving suspected terrorists legal protections would help restore our reputation abroad." No, it wouldn't. I mean that's like saying, well, if we're nicer to the people who want to KILL US, then the other people who want to KILL US will like us more. Does that make any sense to you? Do you think Osama [bin Laden] is gonna be more favorably disposed to the U.S. if we give the Guantànamo people lawyers?

E.D. HILL (co-host): No, of course not.

O'REILLY: I mean, but this is what they're saying. It is just -- you just sit there, you go, "They'll never get it until they grab Michael Kinsley out of his little house and they cut his head off." And maybe when the blade sinks in, he'll go, "Perhaps O'Reilly was right."
If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em, eh Bill? Anyway, to the substance of what he’s saying – holy shit, could he be any stupider? First of all, we’re a nation founded on the rule of law. Mass murderers, even as horrific as Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh get to have lawyers. Shouldn’t everyone who wants to kill anyone still be protected under the Constitution and the rule of law? And that’s not even mentioning that because of the absence of law and civil rights, the majority of these prisoners aren’t guilty of any crime at all, and didn’t actually want to kill us until after we wrongfully imprisoned and tortured them.

Secondly, I’m sure Bill blew a gasket because Newsweek didn’t source its story well enough in reporting on the Koran Flush – why, Bill? Because your logic suggests that when they get word that our interrogators do harsh and cruel things to them it gets them riled up, right? So to take it another step, wouldn’t it prevent unnecessary death if we would stop doing harsh and cruel things? If we’re going to win this war, there’s that whole "hearts and minds" thing they keep talking about.

Think before you speak, Bill. Please!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

uumm...did you read the editorial? Bill is absolutely right. The US does not need to apologize for a few immature prison guards and interrogators, who are in fact being punished. You’re saying that the US’s child who pushes down another child in the schoolyard is as evil as the one who goes in shooting his classmates. If everything is that black and white to you, you should see a doctor…they call that “splitting”, it’s a sign of borderline personality disorder

lifeintheG said...

Hey there, Luther. Thanks for dropping by! Here at DoG, we welcome other points of view.

Anyway. I’m afraid you’ve bought into the White House phony storyline. "a few immature prison guards and interrogators," That’s where you’re wrong. It is this government’s policy to torture people. Did you not read the memo that Gonzales wrote calling the Geneva Conventions quaint and that the only torture that should be considered illegal is if it causes someone to die? (Even though over 100 prisoners have in fact died in our custody) Aside from that, we have evidence of ongoing torture from the Pentagon’s own internal investigation, as well as any number of NGOs such as Amnesty International and the Red Cross. For you to even imagine that it is a "few bad apples" is unfortunately the most misguided thing in this post, next to Bill O’Reilly threatening to behead journalists.

Read my post here, and click the links as well to see how it’s not just a few bad apples.

But the other part you have: You’re saying that the US’s child who pushes down another child in the schoolyard is as evil as the one who goes in shooting his classmates.

My post didn’t place any judgment of evil on the United States. I only said that everyone deserves the protections afforded by the constitution such as due process. I also happen to think torture is wrong, and I happen to think that torturing Muslims makes them want to kill us. You can disagree with that – but I promise you, they don’t "hate us for our freedom." They hate us for our policies. And it’s not un-American to suggest that we examine which policies of ours they don’t like and see if they have reasonable complaints or not. Right off the bat, two of our policies worth examining – 1)torture. 2)propping up dictators in the region who give us cheap oil, but oppress their citizens (read – Saudi Arabia).

And finally – one of the biggest problems with Bill’s statement is the assumption that just because a person is in Guantanamo Bay means that he’s guilty, when it’s been shown time and time again, that around 80% of the prisoners down there were innocent people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s why they end up getting released and then file complaints like this one. If this guy who was sent to Syria for a year of torture was a terrorist, why did they let him go? If he wasn’t a terrorist, then why was he tortured?

Again – great to hear from you!