HERMAN [Former FBI official]: Yes. And he considers himself a comrade, a warrior in the war against America, and that's what he stands for, and he feels that he's a soldier carrying out this message.
O'REILLY: A soldier who kills little children and women. There are no soldiers like that. ...
O'REILLY: While most Americans are united in their support of President Bush and the desire to bring Osama bin Laden and other terrorists to justice, there are some differing voices.
Joining us now from Washington is Sam Husseini, the former spokesman for the Arab Anti -- American Anti-Discrimination Committee, and from Urbana, Illinois, is Francis Boyle, an international law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
All right, Sam. You've been on the program before. I'm just going to give you a chance to tell us how you're feeling tonight about all of this.
SAM HUSSEINI, INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC ACCURACY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Sure. Well, the former group that I was with, the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee, and when I -- when I -- you know, Tuesday, I think, was hard for a hell of a lot of us.
And, you know, I remember I sold perfume door to door in the World Trade Center, the complex that they have -- that they had down there. And I went to school in Pittsburgh, and I was busy e-mailing friends in New York, trying to make sure that people were safe. And now I live in D.C. And those are the three places that got hit.
I think that -- I think that we have to look at what -- what -- where are we going with this? I mean, just a minute ago, Bill, you were saying that soldiers don't kill women and children.
O'REILLY: Correct.
HUSSEINI: But yet -- I mean, what sickened me was the act of what happened and that people would kill so many innocent people. But now I hear a drum beat of having our soldiers kill women and children.
O'REILLY: Well, wait a minute. Now...
HUSSEINI: I feel...
O'REILLY: ... that hasn't happened. That hasn't happened, and people...
HUSSEINI: Bill, I've heard – Bill --
O'REILLY: People overreact and -- you know, if there is bombing, of course, maybe other innocent people might get killed, and I don't believe we're going to -- we're going to have indiscriminate bombing. We might have targeted bombing at military places.
HUSSEINI: Well --
O'REILLY: But, look --
HUSSEINI: Bill – Bill --
O'REILLY: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
HUSSEINI: Please, Bill. Can I -- Bill, we have a history of this. I mean, Colin Powell advocated, apparently, during the build-up of the Gulf War flooding Baghdad and killing possibly four-million people. Papers are now coming out in a magazine called "The Progressive" that we intentionally took out their pharm -- their water and their electrical facilities and --
O'REILLY: I'm not getting your point here, Mr. Husseini. I'm not getting your point at all.
HUSSEINI: May -- please. Please, Bill.
O'REILLY: All right. I mean, if you're going to say -- if you're going to try to justify this kind of an atrocity with past atrocities...
HUSSEINI: Excuse me?
O'REILLY: ... I'm going to...
HUSSEINI: I'm just...
O'REILLY: I'm going to pull the plug on you.
HUSSEINI: Bill -- Bill, I'm doing the exact opposite. I'm saying that -- are you doing that? Are you saying that some atrocities are good and some are bad? I'm saying all atrocities are bad. I'm saying...
O'REILLY: All right, but I'm saying to you that...
HUSSEINI: ... I'm tired of coming on and condemning atrocities. I want the atrocities to stop.
O'REILLY: But they won't stop.
HUSSEINI: Will you join me in -- in stopping all the atrocities?
O'REILLY: Mr. -- now -- look, Mr. Husseini, let's be -- let's be unemotional here...
HUSSEINI: The last...
O'REILLY: ... and rational. We just heard the FBI...
HUSSEINI: Let's.
O'REILLY: ... agent who arrested the first World Trade Center bomber say you can't reason with them, you can't convince them, you can't do anything to stop them other than kill them or incarcerate them for life. That's...
HUSSEINI: But that's "them." Who -- we want to get the perpetrators. Of course, we want to get the perpetrators, the people who did this...
O'REILLY: And we want to get the people -- and we want to get the people who harboured them. Who harboured them.
HUSSEINI: Of course. Of course. There's no argument about that. But look at the last time we went through this. The last time our embassies, people took out our embassies in the, in East Africa. What did we do? We bombed the Sudan. What did we hit in the Sudan? We hit a pharmaceutical plant that was supplying the pharmacies for an impoverished African country and probably...
O'REILLY: Now, that was an -- that was a mistake. That was a mistake.
HUSSEINI: Well, are we going to do the same thing here?
O'REILLY: I hope not.
HUSSEINI: Are we just going to reflexively quote/unquote "retaliate" and kill innocent civilians...
O'REILLY: Here's what we're going to do, Mr. Husseini.
HUSSEINI: ... and not the perpetrators.
O'REILLY: All right, here's what we're going to do...
HUSSEINI: We have to look at the cycle of violence.
O'REILLY: Mr. Husseini. Mr. Husseini. Calm down. Calm down. All right?
HUSSEINI: Bill...
O'REILLY: Here's what we're going to do, and I'll let you react to it, then we'll get to Professor Boyle to get his reaction to it. What we're going to do is, we're going to take out this Osama bin Laden. Now, whether we go in with air power or whether we go in with a Delta force, he's a dead man walking. He's through. He should have been through long before this. He's been wanted for eight years.
Now, they're going to go in and they're going to get him. If the Taliban government of Afghanistan does not cooperate, then we will damage that government with air power, probably. All right? We will blast them, because...
HUSSEINI: Who will you kill in the process?
O'REILLY: Doesn't make any difference.
HUSSEINI: Bill...
O'REILLY: They -- it was an act of war.
HUSSEINI: No, no. It does make a difference. I don't want more civilians dead. We've had civilians dead in New York and now you're saying maybe it's OK to have civilians dead in Afghanistan.
O'REILLY: Mr. Husseini, this is war.
HUSSEINI: Stop it.
O'REILLY: This is war.
HUSSEINI: Let's just stop it.
O'REILLY: This is war.
HUSSEINI: Yeah, exactly. And in war you don't kill civilians. You don't kill women and children. Those are your words, Bill.
O'REILLY: Oh, stop it.
HUSSEINI: Let's stick to those words.
O'REILLY: All right, let's go to Professor Boyle, because this is ridiculous.
HUSSEINI: Bill...
O'REILLY: Mr. Husseini, I don't want to insult you, Mr. Husseini, but this is...
HUSSEINI: Bill, that's so sad...
O'REILLY: This is -- this is -- you are just made the most absurd statement in the world. That means we wouldn't have bombed the Nazis or the Japanese. We wouldn't have done any of that, because you don't want somebody who has declared war on us to be punished. Come on.
HUSSEINI: Whose declared war on us?
O'REILLY: The terrorists states have declared war, Mr. Husseini.
HUSSEINI: Get them. Get the terrorists.
O'REILLY: Cut his mike. All right, now, Mr. Boyle, Professor Boyle ...
[originally published at husseini.org on Sep. 13, 2006]