Regarding the Feb. 6 Bill O’Reilly column, “Fanatical faculty flood our colleges, assailing America”: O’Reilly blasted Professors Ward Churchill and Shahid Alam by taking their quotes out of context, which completely changed the nature of what they had to say.
Churchill, in his essay “Some People Push Back” did use a “little Eichmanns” reference (a Nazi who killed no one but kept the industrial infrastructure running smoothly) in regard to all the transnational corporate officials in the World Trade Center who worked for businesses that exploited Third World countries economically to benefit themselves and first world nations. Do I think they deserved to die? Of course not! Neither did Churchill. But he was making the point that those deaths are just as tragic as all the people – especially civilians -who have been killed in military attacks by our country that are seen by others much the same way we saw 9-11 (such as the sanctions on Iraq which resulted in the deaths of more than 500,000 children).
Using our own military’s logic, the CIA office and economic hub that was the WTC did constitute a viable military target. And that was the point, the WTC was viewed by many of the poor nations in the world as American economic dominance and exploitation of their resources. Churchill was not condoning the attack, just trying to explain the reasons behind it. In regard to Professor Alam, what he actually said was that the 9-11 perpetrators saw themselves as, not that they were, founding fathers of an Islamic insurgency against what they believe is American economic/religious imperialism.
By taking their words out of context, Mr. O’Reilly has done little but attack the character of two men he disagrees with. He should be ashamed of these lies he tries to portray as journalism.
Cameron Coale
Mukilteo
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