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Bill O’Reilly Hates Our Troops

Bill O’Reilly, one of the most visible Fox News Channel contributors, apparently hates American troops. The Crooks and Liars website has posted a video that documents what my post here is about.

On one of his recent shows, Bill O’Reilly was interviewing General Wesley Clark about the recent allegations of a massacre of Iraqi civilians by American troops. I don’t intend to get into the details of what did or did not happen in Haditha here. That’s a story for another day.

Mr. O’Reilly tried to dismiss the significance of this alleged massacre by pointing out that American troops have behaved similarly in the past. His example? According to Mr. O’Reilly, in 1944 in the Belgian town of Malmedy, a group of German troops surrendered to a U.S. battalion. The Americans had the Germans lay down their arms and proceeded to line them up and execute them. If this happened in World War II, why are people getting so upset about a similar episode today? This isn’t news.

What’s the problem with this line of reasoning? Well, there’s a few problems, not the least of which is that Mr. O’Reilly got the whole story backward. It was the American troops that surrendered to the Nazis, and the Nazis proceeded to execute the Americans in cold blood.

So Mr. O’Reilly tried to take war crimes perpetrated by the Nazis and pin them on American troops. I’ve heard a lot of talk in the last five years about people “hating America” or “hating our military” or “not supporting the troops” as a result of disagreements about the foreign policy path chosen by this administration. But never have I heard anyone actually try to pin war crimes committed by foreign militaries on our own troops. If anyone is “hating America”, or “hating our military”, or “not supporting the troops”, it’s pretty obvious in this case it’s Mr. O’Reilly.

And slandering American soldiers who have been dead for over 60 years? How despicable is that? It’s one thing to slander someone when they’re still around to defend themselves and expose you for the dolt you are, but to slander dead heroes, men and women who gave their lives so you can sit on national television and call them war criminals? Despicable doesn’t even begin to describe that course of action.

So before being so quick to call into question the patriotism of those who disagree with our present course of action in Iraq, let’s be sure to isolate the people who really do hate our troops and hate our military. Sometimes they’re not so hard to find.