Via Media Matters (via pontificator at Kos and Brad DeLong)
From the June 17 broadcast of The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly:
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.
[…]
They’re just people who are primitive.
I guess O’Reilly missed Shock and Awe and the siege of Fallujah just for starters.
Oh, wait. He wanted to bomb Fallujah more, too: “Problems continue for the U.S. Military in Fallujah. Why doesn’t the U.S. Military just go ahead and level it?”
Does this mean the “liberation” thing is no longer a justification for the invasion? What was that invasion called? Oh, right. Operation Iraqi Freedom. Well, screw that, the ungrateful, primitive bastards. Just bomb the living daylights out of ’em.