When anti-war liberals are pressed about whether they are anti-military, they normally claim to support the troops while disagreeing with the war the troops are under orders to take part in.
But, as he introduced Thursday's Last Word show, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell certainly sounded like he was attacking the U.S. military as he not only absurdly suggested that it was the U.S. military that "chose" to "stay encamped for nearly nine years" in Iraq, but he even recounted the number of Iraqi civilians killed by both the U.S. military and Iraqi insurgents combined.
O'Donnell began the Thursday, December 15, Last Word show on MSNBC:
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began at 5:34 a.m. local time on March 20, 2003, with the goal of finding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. After finding that Iraq had no such weapons, the United States military chose not to leave but to stay encamped for nearly nine years.
While losing 4,487 American lives and suffering an additional 32,226 Americans wounded in Iraq, the number of Iraqi civilians killed by the U.S. military and by the warring insurgent factions, estimates are at least 100,000, but the exact number is now impossible to know. Our history books will show today to be the last day of U.S. military involvement in Iraq. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke today in a fortified courtyard at Baghdad's airport as military helicopters hovered above him.
- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center