Bill
O'Reilly's Final Solution
June
23, 2004
By Thomas Wheeler
There
he goes again. Here's what Bill O'Reilly had to say on his
June 17 broadcast of The Radio Factor:
O'REILLY: Because look... when 2 percent of the population
feels that you're doing them a favor, just forget it, you're
not going to win. You're not going to win. And I don't have
any respect by and large for the Iraqi people at all. I
have no respect for them. I think that they're a prehistoric
group that is - yeah, there's excuses.
Sure, they're terrorized, they've never known freedom,
all of that. There's excuses. I understand. But I don't
have to respect them because you know when you have Americans
dying trying to you know institute some kind of democracy
there, and 2 percent of the people appreciate it, you know,
it's time to - time to wise up.
And this teaches us a big lesson, that we cannot intervene
in the Muslim world ever again. What we can do is bomb the
living daylights out of them, just like we did in the Balkans.
Just as we did in the Balkans. Bomb the living daylights
out of them. But no more ground troops, no more hearts and
minds, ain't going to work.
O'Reilly also declared the Iraqis are "just people who are
primitive."
The Fox News host has a history of making racist remarks
and advocating the mass murder of civilians. When four armed
US mercenaries were killed in Fallujah, O'Reilly commented,
"Problems continue for the U.S. Military in Fallujah. Why
doesn't the U.S. Military just go ahead and level it?" He
made it clear he doesn't "care about the people of Fallujah"
and that "we know what the final solution should be." Apparently,
the mass slaughter of hundreds of civilians in Fallujah by
the US military just didn't do it for O'Reilly.
O'Reilly's bloodlust also extended to Afghanistan. A few
days after 9/11 he declared "the U.S. should bomb the Afghan
infrastructure to rubble - the airport, the power plants,
their water facilities, and the roads" if the Afghan government
did not extradite Osama bin Laden. O'Reilly continued:
This is a very primitive country. And taking out
their ability to exist day to day will not be hard. Remember,
the people of any country are ultimately responsible for the
government they have. The Germans were responsible for Hitler.
The Afghans are responsible for the Taliban. We should not
target civilians. But if they don't rise up against this criminal
government, they starve, period.
The Geneva Convention states that destroying infrastructure
essential to the survival of civilian populations is a war
crime and the "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare
is prohibited." Besides being an obvious racist, O'Reilly
is an advocate of targeting and killing civilians (non-white
folks, of course) that clearly constitute war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
When the United States deliberately targeted and systematically
destroyed Iraq's water treatment facilities during the first
Gulf War in order to create "favorable conditions for disease
outbreaks, particularly in major urban areas" (according to
a 1991 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document) and followed
that with a deliberate policy of blocking humanitarian supplies
to deny necessary repairs, medicines and medical equipment,
Denis Halliday, former Deputy Under Secretary of the UN, declared
the policy as "genocidal." O'Reilly is openly advocating for
genocidal tactics to be used against civilians - proposals
that would kill millions of civilians if they were carried
out.
The virulent racism and fascist mindset of O'Reilly is also
pervasive within the US military. The racist contempt of the
Iraqis and blatant disregard for civilian lives by US troops
in that country is disturbingly common. One need only look
at the systematic torture at Abu Ghraib for confirmation,
not to mention US troops murdering Iraqis by deliberately
firing into crowds of unarmed protesters, dropping large bombs
in urban neighborhoods, slaughtering wedding parties, engaging
in collective punishment, house demolitions, kidnapping, torture,
and firing into vehicles filled with civilians at military
checkpoints. A number of American troops perceive
Iraqis as untermenschen - the Nazi expression for "sub-humans."
To those who object and protest such actions, O'Reilly suggests
you just "shut up" or you will be declared an "enemy of the
state." He made his feelings about dissent pretty clear shortly
before the war started. On February 26, 2003 he said:
Once the war against Saddam Hussein begins, we expect
every American to support our military, and if you can't do
that, just shut up. Americans, and indeed our foreign allies
who actively work against our military once the war is underway,
will be considered enemies of the state by me. Just fair warning
to you, Barbara Streisand and others who see the world as
you do. I don't want to demonize anyone, but anyone who hurts
this country in a time like this, well. Let's just say you
will be spotlighted.
You are either with us or against us. America �ber alles.
Sound familiar?
Thomas Wheeler is a contributing editor to Alternative
Press Review. He can be reached at [email protected].
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