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Did the Russians kill General Patton? Bill O'Reilly explores the fascinating evidence

September 25, 2014
Wilson

Writer

If there is one person who could give Glenn a run for his money when it comes to a love of history, it might by Bill O'Reilly. In his new book Killing Patton, O'Reilly looks at the death of General George Patton and presents evidence that he wan't killed in an accidental car crash, but his death was orchestrated by Stalin and the Russians. He joined Glenn on TheBlaze TV Wednesday night to discuss the theory, and Glenn had a surprise piece of history to share with him before the segment ended.

Watch the interview below or scroll down to read the transcript of the segment.

Glenn: It’s always a special day when we have Mr. Bill O’Reilly on the program because of our love-hate relationship. I love him, he hates me.

Bill: That’s not true—propaganda.

Glenn: Bill, how are you, sir?

Bill: I’m the same, Beck.

Glenn: That’s sad.

Bill: I actually said very nice things about you today to a number of people, so don’t be spreading this propaganda that I don’t like you.

Glenn: No, I tell you, I said when I went on the radio today I absolutely love our relationship. You have always been the kindest to me, the most professional, and probably the biggest help next to Mr. Ailes of anybody in my career, and I appreciate it. So Bill, I want to tell you, you’re the author of a new book called Killing Patton. I want to get to it, but I also want to save some time because I have some things that even the great Bill O’Reilly does not have that I think you’ll be fascinated when it comes to Patton. We brought it in from the library. So your theory on Killing Patton is the Russians poisoned him.

Bill: Yeah, they killed him because he wanted to fight the Russians after World War II, after the collapse of the Third Reich. He believed that Stalin and the Russian hierarchy were going to try to take over the world and were not going to give up the occupied lands, and he was very vocal about it. And Stalin, weakened after the brutal fight with the Reich, didn’t want that to get out, so the Russians went after Patton, and they got him.

Glenn: Okay, so was this ever investigated at all?

Bill: Yes, it was investigated a couple of times, but after Patton was in that auto accident, the Army totally blew the investigation. Nobody can find the records. No autopsy after Patton was taken to the hospital partially paralyzed. He was talking to the nurses, drinking cognac. He goes to sleep, he winds up dead. Nobody knows why. They put his body in the ground. They couldn’t get it in the ground fast enough. So there’s a lot of suspicious stuff that we lay out in the book.

Glenn: I mean, Bill, I know, you’re going to run out of people, you know, that have been killed or dead here soon with the number of books you put out. It’s shameful, Bill.

Bill: One a year, Beck.

Glenn: Yeah, it’s shameful. But anyway, where did you get this? Who’s your co-author? What’s the researcher’s name?

Bill: Martin Dugard.

Glenn: Okay, and so did he bring this to you? How does this work with you on these killing things?

Bill: No, I select the topics, and I was always interested in this crazy theory that a four-star general is driving down a road in Germany. One day later he was supposed to go back to the United States to do a speaking tour where he was going to expose the Soviet Union and Stalin, and then all of a sudden an army truck smashes into his vehicle in broad daylight for no reason, and all the records disappear of the investigation of the accident. That piqued my interest. So once I got the history books underway, and I wanted to tell the story of the last six months of World War II in Europe, it all came together.

Glenn: So did you get any documentation in the book from the Soviet Union? Did you go through any of the…you know, like the VERONA files, did you look into it?

Bill: A good question, Beck, a very good question. We investigated the plant that they had to make the traceless poison which they used to assassinate a number of people.

Glenn: At this time that’s what they were doing?

Bill: That’s what they were doing. Soviet scientists had perfected this poison that was untraceable and that they had assassinated many people using it. So that’s the angle we took in there.

Glenn: Do you believe you have enough to be able to say…because that’s an important theory and really an important piece of history, and I’ll bet you that the Patton family would agree with this. Just like we did with, you know, Thomas Jefferson, just like we did with Abraham Lincoln, do you think you have enough information to say I think we should exhume the body and take a trace sample?

Bill We are calling for that. We are calling for the investigation into the death of General Patton to be reopened because it certainly…the Army bears a tremendous responsibility for losing virtually every single document associated with that death. So we think it should be reopened, and I lay out the evidence that we compile very vividly. And I could be wrong. I’m not saying 100% certainty, but there is enough evidence in there, compelling evidence, to reopen the investigation, absolutely.

Glenn: What would this have meant, Bill, if he would have lived? What do you think would have happened?

Bill: Well, if he would’ve lived, Patton might have run for president. He wasn’t that political. He wasn’t Eisenhower, but he was fed up. He was fed up with a lot of things. He didn’t feel World War II was fought the right way. He was at loggerheads with Truman. Truman didn’t like Patton at all. So absolutely Patton could’ve come back. He was a national hero. He could have toured the country, and I think he would’ve had enough juice to run for president, and so did a lot of people in Washington.

Glenn: Okay, can I show you some stuff I brought for you?

Bill: Sure.

Glenn: I’m actually coming up to New York. Maybe I’ll pop it on the plane and show it to you, bring it to you.

Bill: Yeah, bring this please.

Glenn: Okay, so here’s a couple of things. This is to the general that he wanted to have follow him into battle. He would be the guy who would sweep up in the campaign in Sicily. He says aside from my personal friendship in taking you through this thing, it is going to hang on a shoestring, and I’m going to have to go ashore in one of the leading waves. I have utter confidence in you and know that on the Flag Ship you’ll see this thing as pushed home in the last extremity that you will lead the last foreign body.

Now, this is he’s asking his friend to be the general behind him and stay on the flagship, but here’s the interesting part, and I thought of you this morning as we talked. He said we have to face the fact we may be repulsed, and I may not come back alive. This is not the first time that he actually hints at I’m not coming back from this. I think he knew one way or another, and I think it was more than just war. He knew he was not coming back alive.

Bill: Well, we document in the book that he told his daughters that. The last time he met with his daughters, he stunned them by saying, you know, I think this is the last time you’re going to see me. And there were two blatant assassination attempts on Patton. Now, you expect that in war, but one of them was from a British Spitfire, and nobody ever figured out why the British plane was firing at Patton’s plane. We have that one in the book as well.

Glenn: Why do you call that one an assassination attempt? Because you know friendly fire happens all the time.

Bill: Look, there’s no record of that British plane landing anywhere or doing anything, and it attacks Patton’s plane. It was only because of the skill of Patton’s pilot that he survived. It wasn’t like a German plane attacking them. It was a British plane. Now, the British lent some of their planes to Polish pilots and to Russian pilots, but there’s no—and we document this very thoroughly in Killing Patton—no record of that plane. So Patton knew there were guys out to get him. There’s no question.

Glenn: And is your theory that this was a British plane taken by the Communists?

Bill: We don’t know. We just don’t know.

Glenn: Did Patton ever talk about that?

Bill: Oh yeah, Patton, he knew he almost lost his life. In fact, he tried to take a picture of the plane attacking his plane, but his hand was shaking so much that he couldn’t get the lens cap open. Again, that’s what the micro-detail that we have in Killing Patton. It’s just…he knew that he was in danger.

Glenn: But here is what you don’t have. You don’t have the buttons off of his uniform right here. I have them.

Bill: You’re right, Beck. I don’t have those.

Glenn: These are the buttons off of his uniform here. This is a letter, a Christmas letter to his mother where he says hey mom, we went out, and we looked at the tanks this morning, and it’s crazy, the six inches of mud, we couldn’t get anything out.

And this flag here, Bill, this is the flag that flew at his funeral, and it was also the flag, and it’s kind of in question on was this with him during the campaign or was this just at his funeral? And historians have come down to they didn’t make this flag in three days, because, like you said, he died, they threw his body in the ground so fast, they didn’t make another flag, so this was the one that was with him.

Bill: There was very little ceremony.

Glenn: And that’s unusual, isn’t it, Bill?

Bill: Well, here’s another interesting wrinkle. There was very little press around where he was because all the press was in Berlin, because Berlin had been divided into four sectors, all kinds of trouble there. Patton was in Western Germany and about to come back to the USA. There were only a few reporters nosing around, all right? So there wasn’t a lot of press, and everybody accepted the official Washington version, Army version, you know, he died in an automobile accident.

And believe me, when you see this evidence, anybody reading this book, and I’m not a conspiratorialist, you know that. I wrote Killing Kennedy, where I debunked all the conspiracies. So this evidence and the book that we put together, I think every American who cares about their country and World War II should take a look.

Glenn: Okay, so Bill, let me change the subject here with you. We just have a couple of minutes left. How much trouble do you think we are in with ISIS?

Bill: Not with ISIS in particular. I think we’ll be able to degrade and put them on the run, but worldwide terrorism, the jihad isn’t going to stop if you nail the ISIS leadership. They’ll get Baghdadi, and they’ll get the guy who cut the throats of the three, two Americans and the Brit. They’ll get him, but that’s not the point. The point is we’re fighting a worldwide war on terror just us, just the United States. We’re funding everything.

Glenn: But, you know, you laid out, I think, a very good solution basically of a private army, and I wondered if it was even constitutional. I looked it up, and we talked about it after you left. And I think it is actually constitutional.

Bill: It’s absolutely constitutional, and that is the solution for the ground situation, all right? And it doesn’t diminish the United States Armed Forces. It stays the same, all right? But to put together a 25,000 man elite mercenary force paid for by the so-called 50 nations that President Obama tells us are united against the Islamic Jihad, all right? They can easily fund that and to have it under the NATO and American command with oversight from Congress. That means you have a force that can go in rapid deployment anywhere in the world and kill these bastards, all right? Right now we don’t have that, and they know it, so they can get away with murder, literally everywhere, and we don’t do anything about it.

Glenn: And quite honestly, the guy to fight this is Patton. Patton would’ve actually put these people…because the only thing they respect is power.

Bill: That’s right. But we don’t have a general like Patton because our political system won’t tolerate that, and so we don’t have those people. Can you imagine how livid Patton would be seeing Americans beheaded on camera? Can you imagine that? He’d waltz into Syria with the Third Army, and I mean, those guys, they’d be done in a month and a half.

Glenn: Let me tell you something, you don’t need Patton. I know, my grandfather was not a, you know, was not a general. My grandfather would be livid that we are behaving the way we do right now, and quite honestly, it’s an insult to all of the people in the military the way we have hamstrung them and tied their hands.

Bill: And putting the whole world in danger because these people, these jihadists, whether it’s ISIS or Al Qaeda, whatever stupid group you want to mint, if they can weaponize a nuke, which Iran is absolutely trying to do, you’re going to see cities go, and the world better wise up and wise up quick.

Glenn: Let me just make a real quick prediction so you know that I said it. We are going to cause the fall for Assad. Assad will fall. It will only make things much, much worse, and I’m telling you that ISIS is a problem here in the United States. I think we’re headed for something really nasty. Bill, thanks a lot. God bless you.

Bill: Thanks for having me in, Beck.

Glenn: You bet. Name of the book is Killing Patton, available everywhere, Bill O’Reilly. Back in a minute.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.