Fox's Bill O'Reilly found himself being shot down for his "brilliant" idea that United States should hire a mercenary force of 25,000 to go in and defeat ISIS, which could have as many as 31,000 fighters, once again on this Tuesday's show.
As Media Matters Thomas Bishop discussed, O'Reilly was already called out for this nonsense on Monday's show by U.S. Naval War College Professor Tom Nichols, Ph.D., a national security expert, who called his idea "terrible" and "immoral" and pointed out that "it is a morally corrosive idea to try to outsource our national security."
This Tuesday, his cohort over at Faux "news" Charles Krauthammer took his turn telling him his plan was never going to work. From Fox's blog: ‘Off the Wall’: Krauthammer on O’Reilly’s Call for Mercenary Army to Fight ISIS:
Charles Krauthammer was on “The O’Reilly Factor” tonight where he challenged Bill’s call for a paid international mercenary army overseen by the United States to fight jihadists.
Krauthammer told O’Reilly, “With your idea you’ve gone from out of the box to off the wall.”
Krauthammer said that Americans have trouble bearing the losses of using our own infantry, and that O’Reilly’s idea does not solve the problem because the U.S. would still have Americans in command and Americans who could sign up for the army. If we lose them, we won’t suffer less, he argued.
O’Reilly countered that it’s not fair for the U.S. to have to fight the brunt of terror all over the world and said we need an alternative.
“The terrorists know there’s no will to fight them in the West […] this would change that mentality,” O’Reilly argued.
“Saying that something is needed is not an argument for why it’s gonna work,” Krauthammer remarked, arguing that the U.S. would inevitably suffer losses through this highly paid mercenary army.
He noted another problem, which is the people who would likely sign up for the mercenary army.
“The problem is do you really wanna be running around the world responsible for a band of desperados […] do you want to recruit from the same pool that ISIS is?”
O’Reilly said he has confidence that this could work, but he appreciates Krauthammer’s dissent.
It's a sad, sad day when your rhetoric is so over the top you're making Charles Krauthammer sound like the voice of reason.
O'Reilly opened up the show by attacking President Obama for taking too long to launch air strikes in Syria, because we all know things would have turned out much better there if he'd listened to Bill-O and decided to have the United States go it alone.
He followed that up with an interview with Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who of course thought that Bill-O's idea to use mercenaries to fight ISIS was just fantastic.
Charlie Pierce warned that Prince was back and took Bill-O to task as only he can in his post on O'Reilly from this Monday: Bill O'Reilly Is Not A Military -- Or Any Other Kind Of -- Genius.
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