Earth To Laura Bush and FOX News! Brian Kilmeade Says He Doesn't Care About the Welfare Of Detainees Or Whether The Koran Was Desecrated.
Reported by Ellen - May 21, 2005
In yesterday's Friends Insider, the puerile blog of Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts of FOX & Friends, Kilmeade made it clear he was just fine with any Koran desecration that might have gone on, that Newsweek's real goof was in doing the story in the first place.
Kilmeade said:
As for Newsweek, I am not interested in examining unnamed sources and the origin of prisoner abuse allegations at Gitmo or anywhere else. Please realize that I personally don't care about the welfare of these terrorist (sic) and neither, I suggest, do most Americans.I go to bed wondering why Saddam is in an air-conditioned cell and why any Al Qaeda guy even has a Koran. Any Muslim should realize that it's these terrorists who are flushing their religion down the toilet, not our interrogators. If our investigators say they have to fake an execution or take away their bible to keep us terror attack free, then I say go ahead.
I guess Laura Bush (along with FOX News) missed Kilmeade in her assessment of US attitudes, reported glowingly on FOXNews.com the same day as Kilmeade's blog. Without any reference to Kilmeade's statement proving otherwise, FOX reported that Laura Bush said, "I think it's really important for America to be able to get over to people in the Middle East what we are really like, and that freedom of religion and respect for other people's religion is a very, very important part of our country, in the history of our country."
In that same article about Laura Bush, the unnamed reporter (probably Molly Henneberg, who prepared the accompanying video story) said as a certainty that the Newsweek story of US interrogators flushing the Koran down the toilet "spurred violent riots in Afghanistan and the Middle East."
No thought from the "real journalism, fair and balanced" network that it might be attitudes such as Kilmeade's - published on the FOX News website for all to see - that might inflame anti-Americanism, too.
As far as Kilmeade's concerned, asking our troops not to abuse prisoners is being perfectionistic. He wrote, "How would you react knowing that your captured insurgent knows where the next attack is coming, but refuses to talk? What if that attack would kill your best friend? Would you perhaps get a little ... umm ... emotional to get his attention? Me too and that's why I am so hesitant to blame our men and women. I know who the good guys are I and often wonder how many others in this country are actually pulling for a U.S. win in the War on Terror. Are we asking all those in Afghanistan, Iraq and Gitmo to be something we all are not: perfect?"
Apparently, it's just Newsweek that has to be perfect.
Kilmeade's blog entry concludes with a reminder to "think about" his book about sports, "The Games Do Count" for Father's Day. That sums it up neatly: Sports count, selling books counts, inhumane treatment of prisoners doesn't.
