Thomas Wictor

I never watch MSNBC. Nor do I watch Fox News. In fact, I don’t watch TV at all. My TV set is a DVD player. The only time I see what’s on TV is when someone posts it online. That’s how I saw this absurd, utterly dishonest, wrongheaded, child’s version of reality as presented by Chris Matthews. He—like all the Jew-haters bombarding me with their sewage—doesn’t accept that lies repeated as facts are still lies.

First, the video, in which Matthews is interviewed by a computer graphic named Ronan Farrow.

I never thought I’d live to see the day when an American pundit repeated al Qaeda talking points word for word, but here we are. I’ll debunk the lies one by one.

1. The presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia led to al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda was formed on August 11, 1988. US troops didn’t enter Saudi Arabia until August of 1990, two years later. Matthews has become an al Qaeda propagandist. Besides, the US was asked by the Saudi government to please come help them out. If I began murdering people and blowing up buildings because I opposed what my government’s actions, Chris Matthews would not say, “Well, Thomas Wictor warned us what he’d do.” He’d call me a lunatic and a terrorist. And he’d be right.

2. We threw the Iraqis out of power in Baghdad.

Does Matthews think that non-Iraqis have been ruling the country since 2003?

3. We made sure that no Iraqis could ever get back into the military.

Again, does Matthews think that Swedes are in the Iraqi military? Do these guys look Swedish to you?

4. The de-Baathification process was a stupid, arbitrary choice made by Americans.

In reality the de-Baathification process was the price the Kurds and Shi’ites demanded for their cooperation.

Were we supposed to tell 66 percent of the population to go screw themselves? Also, the terrorists in Iraq were comprised of secular Ba’athists, religious Shi’ites under the control of Iran, Sunni tribal xenophobes, and Sunni Wahabbist jihadists. All four of those groups would’ve resorted to terrorism regardless.

The Ba’athists wanted to reinstate a secular dictatorship; the Shi’ites wanted to create an Iran-style religious dictatorship; the Sunni tribal xenophobes thought we were there to steal their women (seriously); and the Sunni Wahabbists wanted to midwife the Caliphate, the religious dictatorship known as the Islamic State. The only people who were reachable were the Sunni tribal xenophobes, who eventually created the Awakening Councils to fight all the others.

Chris Matthews’ rendering of events is reductionist, garbled, and a complete fabrication.

5. Fighting terrorism causes terrorism.

Why are we bombing the Islamic State? Because it’s wreaking havoc on the entire region. The Iraqi government asked us to bomb the terrorists. First came the terrorism, then came the American bombs. Belatedly.

Matthews is a typical bigot who infantilizes Muslims. In what passes for his mind, everything they do is in reaction to what we did to them first. I, on the other hand, credit Muslims with being adults who have their own agendas. The goal of the Islamic State is to take over the world and impose Wahabbist Islam on it through the use of horrific physical violence. This is their choice. Our choice is to kill them rather than to submit.

6. Dick Cheney intimidated the Saudis into accepting our troops on their soil.

Matthews lied about what actually happened. The reality is exactly the opposite of what Matthews claims.

People like Chris Matthews make me sick. When it’s convenient for whatever lying argument he’s making, he’ll say we’re slaves to the Saudis, but then he’ll turn around and say we push them around. Can’t have it both ways.

A rule of thumb: The world doesn’t operate the way anyone on TV says it does.

7. Dick Cheney drove the Sunnis into the arms of ISIS.

On July 13, 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the United Nations created the Iraqi Interim Governing Council, based on the religious and ethnic makeup of Iraq. It had thirteen Shi’ites, five Sunnis, five Kurds, one Turkmen, and one Assyrian. Three of the members were women. The Governing Council was replaced by the Iraqi Interim Government, headed by a Shi’ite, a Kurd, and a Sunni appointed by the Council. Under the Iraqi Interim Government, a new constitution was drafted and an election of a National Assembly was held. The National Assembly then created the Iraqi Transitional Government; after elections on May 20, 2006, the Transitional Government was replaced by the first permanent government.

The fate of post-Saddam Iraq has been in Iraqi hands since July 13, 2003.

8. Dick Cheney has a knee-jerk Dr. Strangelove(?) approach of always demanding more force.

For one thing, it’s a totally incoherent thing to say. Dr. Strangelove?

It makes no sense at all. For another thing, as Secretary of Defense from 1989 to 1993, Cheney instituted deep cuts in defense, downsized the military, and canceled several weapons programs. Matthews is describing the cartoon version of Cheney that exists only in the skulls of emotional, ignorant, superficial clowns.

9. It’s possible to de-escalate tensions with the Islamic State.

Really? How do you de-escalate tensions with entities that do this every single day?

Do people not understand that this is real? The Islamic State and their buddies are doing this to thousands of actual human beings. We haven’t seen such widespread savagery for centuries. Has ghastly barbarism become an abstract to fat, safe, fine-wine-drinking Chris Matthews?

The Islamic State deserves violent death. We need to escalate our own violence until these creatures are all dead or they give up. If that means we turn the Islamic State into the First World Ordnance Proving Ground, so be it.

Would you like me to link you to the photos of the beheaded children? They exist. The Islamic State is committing mass murder, mass rape, mass torture, and mass armed robbery. They’re like the Mexican narcoterrorists in their sadism and love of butchery.

How hard is it to see that they deserve to die? I’d give anything to shred these demons with an LAV-AD.

It’s armed with a GAU-12/U Equalizer 25mm Gatling cannon that fires 70 rounds per second.

Be honest: Wouldn’t it be really fun to unleash these on the Islamic State?

10. Our choices are either to not fight or to kill the entire Arab world.

The Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. It’s how teenagers argue. Not a single sane person has ever suggested that we need to kill the entire Arab world. This is just more Matthews dishonesty and drool-covered-lips blather.

11. The goal of bombing the Islamic State is to make them surrender.

No. The goal is to degrade their capabilities and to kill lots and lots of them so that Arab ground forces can finish them off. Again, another stupid straw man. We don’t want them to surrender; we want them to die.

12. Americans support going to war because our pride was hurt by the recent beheadings.

There isn’t even one person in this country who heard of or saw the murders of James Foley and Steven Sotloff and thought, “Damn! That’s embarrassing!” Chris Matthews reveals what a grunting pig he is by saying such a thing. He utterly lacks empathy, he’s incapable of having normal reactions or feeling normal emotions, and he has no moral compass.

13. The “neocons” want Americans afraid so they’ll accept a militarized society.

Who still says “neocons”? Besides, the National Defense Authorization Security Act of 1997 created the Law Enforcement Support Program, an office that distributes weapons and equipment from the Pentagon to local police departments. Who was president in 1997? Was he a “neocon”?

Today, all of these federal agencies have special weapons and tactics (SWAT) units.

The Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Bureau of Land Management, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Agency for International Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the General Services Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Small Business Administration, and the Social Security Administration.

Has a “neocon” been president since 2008?

“At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves.”

—George Orwell