Cutting Through The Fog

Bill O'Reilly's December 5th Talking Points

It is excellent news that Iran has stopped trying to develop a nuclear weapon a few years back. I agree completely that the US can not handle another war at this point, and invading Iran is out of the question. That's pretty much where my agreement ends. It seems that Mr. O'Reilly believes that anyone who disagrees with the President is un-American and that those people are all happy that this intel is contradicting what President Bush has been saying about the imminent threat Iran poses. I suppose the "loony left" should've been hoping that Iran was just days away from a nuclear weapon so George W. Bush could be vindicated and he'd have an excuse to start another war. Perhaps it could be that the left-leaning people of the United States are happy that this tense situation is cooling a bit and we can worry a bit less about President Bush invading Iran (as he has been making preludes towards for years). Maybe the left is happy that their viewpoint on the Iran situation was correct and this is more proof that Bush has been leading the country in the wrong direction. I do not for a second believe the majority of left-leaning Americans are going "nah nah-nah nah nah" at George W. Bush or other Republicans. Rather, the democrats in congress and presidential candidates are using this as another reason why we need change. After all, doesn't the statement go: "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me?" Or I could quote the George W. Bush version: "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." The point is that we cannot be making pre-emptive strikes on countries based on faulty intelligence. And who knows, the intelligence we just got about Iran not having a nuclear weapons program may be wrong. But we need to be very sure about our intel before making decisions that have such far-reaching effects on the region.

O'Reilly mentions Jane Fonda's statement about the Vietnam War following our withdrawal. While the United States may not have been directly responsible for the slaughter of millions of people after the US withdrawal, it is pretty clear to see that we didn't help the situation by being there in the first place. I also don't think Jane Fonda's statements match the majority of left-leaning people. Jane Fonda was on the extreme side of the spectrum, just as Ann Coulter is for Republicans. You should take their opinions with a grain of salt.

With regard to Joe Biden's comment, I think perhaps he overstepped his bounds by saying the President knowingly disregarded intelligence, but I don't think he is going too far by saying he misrepresented intelligence. And ultimately President Bush is responsible for his actions regardless as to whether he based them on faulty intelligence. George W. Bush has a poor history of jumping at intelligence as fact rather than being able to evaluate reliability of intelligence and what sorts of actions should be taken from intelligence. This is none clearer than his mistake to invade Iraq based on WMDs. War is not something you do based on rumors. War should be undertaken based on fact and action, not pre-emptive based on intelligence, faulty or not. I think that Joe Biden is fully justified in showing his displeasure with how the Bush Administration has handled the entire Iran affair.

Now Mr. O'Reilly claims that this new intel about Iran is actually a bad thing because "it will be more difficult to hold Iran and other nations accountable for their murderous activities in the future." I think this is absolutely ludicrous. If intelligence is good enough it shouldn't be a problem and I think this event will hold the intelligence community to higher standards in the future. No longer will we be allowed to take unilateral action without some very solid intelligence to back it up. None of this "I think there is a 95% chance that Iraq has WMDs" or the sort. And hopefully the United States will feel that the intelligence they gather must be good enough to convice the United Nations of its veracity before taking action. So in my mind, if this new intelligence puts the United States under a microscope and forces us to provide more evidence to the court of world opinion, it is a good thing. As for claims that Iran is killing American military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan by providing weapons, I don't find that reason to take military action against Iran. After all, wasn't it Ronald Reagan's administration that was selling arms to Iraq to use against Iran? One is okay while the other is not?

The finale is that "Islamic terrorism is a real threat. Those who reject that truism put us all in danger." Here is where Bill O'Reilly takes one of his classic illogical leaps. He basically is saying that because we found intel that contradicts what George W. Bush has been saying about Iran, that people will stop considering Iran as much of a threat, let our guard down, and allow Islamic terrorism to thrive in the world. Mr. O'Reilly loses his logic when he suggests that we will let our guard down. The war on terrorism is still going on. We must be ever vigilant to uncover and prevent terrorism where possible. The fact that Iran does not pose a nuclear threat does not change any of that. Our targets in the war on terrorism are not countries (except in the diplomacy of helping them fight terror within), it is on terrorist organizations spread across the globe. I've noticed a trend in Republican thought that correlates a country gaining a nuclear weapon with terrorists gaining a nuclear weapon. I do not see that correlation. I believe that we should attempt to limit and stop the creation of nuclear weapons in general, but a terrorist group has as good a chance of obtaining a nuclear weapon from Russia or another country as it does getting one from Iran. Any government is going to protect such powerful weapons. Why? Because, like the United States philosophy, who knows what someone else is going to do with it? Iran does not want someone using their own weapon to blow up Tehran. And believe me, Iran has their own enemies in the Middle East. That area has not been the paragon of peace over the last century.

And that's "The CounterPoints Memo."