O'Reilly has his own 'plans' for the region
While President Obama seeks to delegitimize the religious standing of a radical terrorist group, Fox News has been doing its damnedest to
do the opposite.
The president’s comments came less than a day after Bill O’Reilly adopted the exact opposite posture – the terrorists characterize their efforts as part of a holy war, and now, the Fox News host does, too.
“The holy war begins…. The holy war is here. And unfortunately it seems the President of United States will be the last one to acknowledge it…. President Obama needs to lead – needs to lead the world in this holy war.”
Monica Crowley, one of O’Reilly’s guests, cheered the host on. “I think your call tonight is a very important move,” Crowley said on the show. “I think it’s long overdue. I give you kudos. I also give you kudos for using the phrase ‘holy war.”
Calling it a "holy war" is of course exactly what ISIS has been angling for; as with Al Qaeda before them, they can gain followers and influence only through the claim that they are the true protectors of the Muslim faith, fighting valiantly against a western world intent on destroying that faith. Calling it a "holy war" is the best possible framing if your goal is to radicalize potential recruits—on both sides of the conflict, since O'Reilly's personal language is of course directed at mobilizing hard-right Christians into demanding more precipitous action. (O'Reilly's plan for "solving" terrorism is to form mercenary armies to fight on the west's behalf, because O'Reilly is a one-man factory of the worst possible ideas.)
This isn't the first time Fox News has gone to some effort to prop up the ISIS view of the world; they have taken to broadcasting ISIS-produced beheading videos, giving them far wider exposure in the west than ISIS could have hoped for on their own. This is a far cry from the days when broadcasters were explicitly told not to air terrorist-produced films, lest they contain "hidden messages" to terrorist cells abroad; Fox is keen now to broadcast the explicit messages produced by the terrorists, and to agree with ISIS that this is indeed a holy war between their version of Islam and the entire westernized world, i.e. good American Christians sitting at home on their couches watching Fox News.
No, Fox News is not "working with the terrorists" or any such thing. They are adopting the terrorist's framing not because they sympathize with the terrorist group, but because their goals happen to coincide. Both want an expanded American war in the Middle East. Both are seeking to get that war by broadcasting (the same) propaganda tapes and declaring that it is not a clash between a specific group of violent, thuggish warlords and the rest of the region, but a clash between two world religions themselves, a clash that can end with only one left standing.
That's what holy war means. I think we all understand at this point why far-right religious radicals would demand and embrace that framing, but if Bill O'Reilly and his Fox News guests insist on doing so it is through their own volition.