Which People and Governments Are Helping Terrorists?

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 25, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Our top story tonight: We asked two journalists to put together a list of people and governments they believe are aiding worldwide terror. Joining us now from Washington, Stephen Hayes from The Weekly Standard. Here in the studio, Robert Pollock, who writes editorials for The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Pollock, we'll begin with you. Dick Durbin (search ) tops your list. Now didn't he just make a mistake and apologize for it?

ROBERT POLLOCK, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: OK, that's fair enough. He apologized for it. But look, this guy, he compared U.S. detention practices at Guantanamo Bay to the Soviets and to the Nazis.

And don't think that that's not heard around the world. And don't think that that doesn't fed into — look, every time I have an argument with a foreigner about this kind of stuff, they always point to Americans. They say I heard it from Dick Durbin, I heard it from Ted Kennedy, I read it in The Washington Post. What's said here matters a lot overseas. And we cannot be too sensitive to that.

O'REILLY: Now Mr. Hayes, you have Michael Moore at the top of your list. Isn't that an obvious target? And hasn't Mr. Moore peaked? I mean, you don't hear much about him anymore — pardon the pun. And you know, isn't this too easy?

STEPHEN HAYES, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Yes, in a sense, it is too easy. But I would actually take what Robert said and take it a step further.

I mean, if you look at the kinds of people who embraced Michael Moore (search ), remember when his film premiered, you had Democratic senators streaming to the theater to be seen with him at the premiere.

Now there are plenty — certainly most Democrats, most liberals are against the terrorists, do not advocate what the terrorists are doing, do not support them in any way. That's clear.

What bothers me about Michael Moore, and why I think he's still relevant is because you don't see these Democrats denouncing what Michael Moore is saying, comparing the insurgents in Iraq to the minutemen in the U.S. revolution. It's preposterous. But you don't see Democrats speaking out forcefully against Michael Moore and his ilk. I think they should.

O'REILLY: All right. But I don't think it's even a Democratic problem. I think it's — as Mr. Pollack pointed out, that movie played all over the world and just justified people's positions that we're the bad guy, we're worse than Usama bin Laden. And many people believe that.

Now you have the BBC (search ), Mr. Pollock, on your list. I've been hammering the BBC over its coverage. I can't quite figure this organization out.

POLLOCK: Well, to be fair enough, I have to give the BBC a little credit for inspiring lots of editorials when I worked overseas. Because I'd wake up, and listen to their broadcast, and write the opposite.

But look, this is an organization, which as you pointed out before, can't even bring itself to use the word "terrorist" when it's talking about things.

The other reason the BBC deserves to be on the list is because it's heard everywhere. This is the Western media that, you know, Usama, if he's still alive, is probably listening to in his cave.

O'REILLY: Right.

POLLOCK: ...and saying, look, they've got no will in the West. They can't even call us terrorists.

O'REILLY: So you believe that the soft coverage the BBC puts out worldwide on the radio particularly, because they have that bong sound...

POLLOCK: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: ...you know, and everybody listens to them around the world, emboldens the terrorists?

POLLOCK: It absolutely emboldens.

O'REILLY: You really think so?

POLLOCK: Of course, of course. Look, if they're listening to a broadcast that can't even use that word, can't even call them by their proper name, it's too politically correct to do that, they see that as weakness. Absolutely.

O'REILLY: Right. And they despise weakness. And well, I don't know. You have Al-Jazeera (search ) on your list, Mr. Hayes. Now that again is an obvious target, but haven't they been discredited even in the Arab world now with their propaganda machine?

HAYES: Yes, I think to a certain extent they have been, but that doesn't keep people from watching them. You know, you can make sort of the big picture argument about Al-Jazeera, that they enable people who incite terrorists. Certainly some of the guests they have on their shows incite terrorists.

And you can also make a fairly specific case. There was one Al-Jazeera journalist who was arrested and is being prosecuted in Spain, who's charged with actually shuttling money to terrorists in Afghanistan, to terrorists in Spain, to actually being a courier for A Qaeda.

So there's both the broad and the specific, but I think the fact remains that what Al-Jazeera does certainly gives aid and comfort to the terrorists.

O'REILLY: Yes, I agree. I think Al-Jazeera is pretty much an arm of the terrorists, particularly al Qaeda.

You have the United Nations (search ) here, Mr. Pollock. Now again, isn't that overstating it? And there are some in the United Nations that deplore terrorism, are there not?

POLLOCK: Well, of course there are. But look, unfortunately, this is an organization that people still look to as a body that's capable of providing a collective security in the world.

But almost four years after 9/11, we have an organization that still seems to focus on Israel and the United States as the main causes of trouble in the world and pays scant attention to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. Their priorities are way out of whack. And the fact that they're still out of whack this far after 9/11 says something very bad about...

O'REILLY: You know, I've never heard the United Nations really take any stance against worldwide terror at all. Did I miss it?

I mean, I don't know of any resolution or any debate or let's condemn Al Qaeda or let's, you know, get some action against these terrorists. I don't know any of that.

POLLOCK: Right. Their great step forward on this score was in the reform blueprint proposed by Kofi Annan (search ), where he actually put forward a fairly neutral definition of terrorism as killing civilians, Israelis included. So that was their great leap forward.

O'REILLY: But they really haven't taken any concrete action at the United Nations to fight terrorism. I hadn't seen anything.

POLLOCK: No.

O'REILLY: Other than putting barriers around the United Nations so they wouldn't blow that up.

Cynthia McKinney and Jim McDermott, Mr. Hayes, are members of Congress. McKinney is from Georgia, right?

HAYES: Right.

O'REILLY: And McDermott is from Washington state. Now these are pretty — these aren't people with not very much influence. They're kind of little fish in the big House of Representative pond. Why did you have them on your list?

HAYES: Well, I think if you look at what they've done, both currently and in the past, they have been among the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration in what I think is a tremendously disingenuous and flat dishonest way on a couple of different occasions.

If you go back to Jim McDermott, he went to Baghdad (search ) with two other representatives right as the U.S. Congress was debating the war in Iraq. And he appeared on ABC News. And he said we should give the government of Iraq the benefit of the doubt. And at the same time told the world, told ABC News, and told the world, that President Bush would lie and lie repeatedly to take us to war.

Cynthia McKinney is a bit of a different problem. She held a hearing just last week that hinted strongly that the Bush administration may have colluded in 9/11 or at least knew about it.

O'REILLY: Yes, she's a nut. They voted her out. I mean, that's how much of a nut she is.

HAYES: They voted her out but she's back.

O'REILLY: Was she re-elected? Was she re-elected again?

HAYES: She's back. She is back.

O'REILLY: I don't even know that. She snuck back into the House of Representatives?

HAYES: Yes.

O'REILLY: Shameful.

France, real quick. France enabled terrorism in your opinion, Mr. Hayes?

HAYES: Well, I think certainly you can look back at the kinds of things that France was doing with respect to Iraq before the war. And I think France to this day has not stepped up and been an able partner in fighting the terrorists.

O'REILLY: France, Mr. Pollock, enabling terrorism?

POLLOCK: I'd have to think so again because they have a bully pulpit like all major European nations. And they failed to use it consistently for the right side.

O'REILLY: OK. Very interesting, gentlemen. We appreciate it.

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