As we covered last week, Bill O’Reilly has repeatedly expressed a very specific rule for dissent during times of war: “You don’t criticize the Commander-in-Chief in the middle of a firefight. That could be construed as putting U.S. forces in jeopardy and undermining morale.” Uber-patriot O’Reilly is obviously concerned about not undermining the morale of the troops — or at least he used to be concerned, back before he was shamelessly crowbarring plugs for his latest “Killing [Random Famous Person]” book into a discussion about a very serious U.S. military engagement in the Middle East.
On Sunday’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, O’Reilly not only continued to push for the privatization of the U.S. armed forces by replacing the troops with an outsourced 25,000-man mercenary army, but he also stated point-blank that there aren’t any active-duty military commanders who are capable of defeating ISIS.
We don’t have any Pattons today. But I was with Henry Kissinger today and he told me that my idea of a worldwide anti-terror force paid for by coalition nations under [crosstalk] so let’s win the war, and that’s what George Patton would say.
First, when you’re discussing war and you say “I was with Henry Kissinger and he told me” — you’ve lost all credibility. Second, I wonder what Patton would say about a so-called history and military expert insisting that it was American soldiers, not Nazis, who were responsible for the Malmedy massacre during World War II. I also wonder what Patton would say about O’Reilly, who received a deferment from the Vietnam-era draft, criticizing the battlefield tenacity of the American military. Hell of a patriot, O’Reilly is. Support the troops — unless you have a book to sell.
Incidentally… CONTINUE READING
(ht Steve Duckett)