UPDATE: Rosie O'Donnell is out at The View. She won't be back.
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The question:
Did Rosie O'Donnell call our troops in Iraq terrorists?
O'Donnell is horrified at the suggestion. It caused her to go off on Elisabeth Hasselbeck for not being willing to assist in her CYA effort.
We all know about their feud and the implosion of The View.
But did O'Donnell call our troops terrorists?
Here's a portion of the transcript from the May 17 show:
O’DONNELL: …… I just want to say something. 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists?
HASSELBECK: Who are the terrorists?
O’DONNELL: 655,000 Iraqis — I’m saying you have to look, we invaded –
HASSELBECK: Wait, who are you calling terrorists now? Americans?
O’DONNELL: I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?
HASSELBECK: Are we killing their citizens or are their people also killing their citizens?
O’DONNELL: We’re invading a sovereign nation, occupying a country against the U.N.
On O'Donnell's blog, "Shelly" writes a post arguing that O'Donnell most definitely did not call the troops terrorists.
I don't know who Shelly is. I'm guessing it might be Bill Clinton using "Shelly" as his nom de plume.
Shelly's parsing of O'Donnell's words rises to the level of Bill's "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
Shelly writes:
Rosie does not mention the troops at all in that segment of the show. She poses a rhetorical question. “Who are the terrorists?” “I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?”In both of her rhetorical questions she refers to the “United States” and “us.” The policy of the United States or “our” policy in Iraq is not the responsibility of the soldiers who are ordered to execute the policy. It is obvious that state supported terrorism can only be implemented by those who have the responsibility of doing the fighting and dying. But, it is not the soldiers who are the terrorists in that hypothetical. And she was not calling the soldiers terrorists.
In other words, O'Donnell wouldn't spit on our troops, the baby killers, because they are merely fulfilling their duty by acting as terrorists in the name of the United States.
O'Donnell would jump at the chance of spitting on the U.S. policymakers, because they are the real terrorists.
Shelly argues that O'Donnell was saying that America engages in "state supported terrorism." She didn't actually accuse the troops of being terrorists.
O'Donnell agrees with Shelly's analysis, writing, "THANK GOD 4 SHELLY" at the end of the post.
In my opinion, Shelly's argument is very weak. It's semantics.
Look at the spirit of O'Donnell's comments. She clearly is equating U.S. policy with terrorism, terrorism of the sort we saw on September 11, 2001.
Are we to believe that O'Donnell considers our troops, the ones carrying out the supposed terrorist policies of the U.S., to be guiltless?
To believe that, we must accept that our troops are mindless beings, capable of behaving like terrorists without being burdened by any pangs of conscience.
Even if you're willing to swallow O'Donnell's defense, you have to admit that at the very least, she is insulting the troops.
Let's pose this question:
Does O'Donnell charge the U.S. government with using the U.S. military to carry out its policies of state-sponsored terrorism to kill 655,000 Iraqis?
Absolutely, unequivocally YES.
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