As for the female Muslim journalist (Amina Ismail), asking Obama White House Press Secretary Carney about an Afghanistan incident involving civilian tragedies and basically whether America herself isn't guilty of terrorism, O'Reilly is correct in labeling the incident as one of collateral damage, but I don't like the nature of discussion, where he was dismissive, i.e., "these things happen when you're in a war". American leadership knows that it won't win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people through such tragic, counterproductive mistakes. Carney response was, unsurprisingly, evasive and, in my opinion, amateurish. I would have said, "No, our intent was not to spread fear among the Afghan people; it was a tragic error. Sometimes mistakes are made in war, including friendly fire, where troops are killed or maimed mistakenly by people on the same side. What we need to do is to learn from our mistakes and eliminate or at least minimize the chance of repeating them in the future." Of course, the young journalist would not be satisfied with the response, because bombs are bombs, and the intent is largely lost on the victims and survivors. The effect on civilian population is similar: there but for the grace of God...; am I next?
What I do fault the Administration and the Democratic Party for was running on political rhetoric that our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was "breeding new generations of terrorists" And then, once Obama is in power, he has largely extended Bush's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan; in fact, he has more than doubled American casualties in Afghanistan, and he has radically expanded drone strikes, including in other countries (e.g., Yemen and Somalia) which have not attacked us. Obama is micromanaging kill lists. There are often civilian casualties.
"But here is something even provocative, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw apparently putting some of the motivation for the Boston bombings on his own country."
BROKAW: I think we also have to examine the use of drones. That the United States is involved in and there are a lot of civilians who are innocently killed in a drone attack in Pakistan and Afghanistan and in Iraq. And I can tell you having spent a lot of time over there, young people will come up to me on the streets and say we love America, but if you harm one hair on the head of my sister, I will fight you forever. And there is this enormous rage against what they see in that part of the world as a presumption of the United States.The excerpt came from last week's Meet the Press. Here is preceding context before O'Reilly's excerpt:
But there are a couple of things to remember here, David, I think for all of us. With the death of Osama bin Laden, Islamic rage did not go away. In fact, in some ways it’s more dangerous. This is a perfect example. You can’t get intel on the lone operator. So, there’s a lot that we still need to know about what motivated them obviously. He’s a Chechen, but their beef is with Russia, not with us. But he’s also a Muslim. And the fact is that that Islamic rage is still out there.....We have to work a lot harder as a motivation here. What prompts a young man to come to this country and still feel alienated from it, to go back to Russia and do whatever he did and I don’t think we’ve examined that enough? I mean, there was 24/7 coverage on television, a lot of newspaper print and so on, but we have got to look at the roots of all of this because it exist across the whole subcontinent, and the-- and the Islamic world around the world.Brokaw openly admits that he doesn't know what motivated the late Tamarlan Tsarnaev (his obvious reference, not Dzhokhar. given the reference to the 2011 trip to Russia. I do think the initial post-USSR Chechen independence movement was led by a secular leader but it has transitioned to a more radical Islamic nature. I think O'Reilly is confusing motive with justification; police and prosecution might look for a motive for murder; that doesn't exonerate the murder. The fact is, many Muslims around the world don't agree with American military and foreign policy. And drone strikes have sometimes resulted in the deaths or injuries of innocent people, not terrorists. Is it fair to regard incidental loss of lives as intentional? Of course not. Brokaw isn't looking to defend radicalized Islam but to describe or explain it. There's no doubt that the death of innocent victims will be used for propaganda and recruitment purposes by radical groups. They may also plant false rumors.
Let me get this straight, Tom. We shouldn't use drones to attack al Qaeda leadership or Taliban terrorists hiding in the mountains of Pakistan? We shouldn't do that?So how exactly would you fight the war against terrorism, Tom? Do you want to invade Pakistan? Is that what you want to do? Or do you want to sit back and let terrorists hatch their plots and watch Americans die at home and on the battlefield?I'm nor Brokaw. But we have the rule of law: bombing another country is an act of war. We have not declared war on Pakistan. So, no, we should not be bombing Pakistan before first honoring our constitutional requirements. The war against terrorism is an international effort; we are not the world's policeman; we don't have an infinite budget. We need to be prudent and accept our limitations.
Now, it is worth noting that during World War II, USA did target civilians in Japan and Germany. It did what it had to do to win the war to deal with Tojo and the Nazis but now we have cadre of Americans who for some reason don't feel that the USA has a right to defend itself. Every decent person laments civilian casualties anywhere. But again, in war, they happen.That's a false choice. Tell me, Bill: does the Boston incident give us the right to fly drones over Chechnya, an annexed part of Russia? You're a simple man, Bill; surely you can answer that question. Of course, the US has a right to defend itself. But there is a difference between frittering away national resources on an open-ended, unbounded war overseas and focusing on the mainland--and there can be unintended consequences to our meddling and/or aggressive actions overseas.
It's very easy for O'Reilly to dismiss civilian casualties as inevitable. Personally, I strongly disagree with the firebombing of Dresden and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (I am aware of the rationalizations. The reason O'Reilly is bringing them into the conversation is because he thinks that he has Brokaw caught (Brokaw has famously called the generation which fought WWII as the "greatest generation"). I have not heard or read Brokaw's account of these events which cost the lives of literally thousands of civilians, but he could consistently agree with the overall goal while at the same time disagreeing with certain specifics.
Will a scaled-back American footprint overseas eliminate threats to domestic security? First of all, a balanced review of terrorism shows a wide variety of political (left and right-wing) and religion-affiliated groups, many of which have been domestic. Second, it is true a dominant source since 1977 has been Islamic extremism. There are no guarantees, and it could be that that Islamic extremists are motivated by differing motives, including domestic policies..
