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O'Reilly Discusses 'Killing the Rising Sun' and Censored Japanese Atrocities

September 16, 2016
 Lori Hanes

Writer

Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, joined The Glenn Beck Program on Thursday to talk about his latest book in the Killing series, Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan. The sixth book in the massively popular series sold 103,000 copies its very first day of release.

Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these scintillating questions:

• Did Glenn take it easy on O'Reilly or make his life a living hell?

• Does O'Reilly have a brown, blue or black belt in karate?

• Did Glenn actually read Killing the Rising Sun?

• What horrific atrocities did the Japanese commit that compare to the Nazis and ISIS?

• Why was dropping the atomic bomb the compassionate way to end the war?

• Which living presidents would or would not have dropped the bomb, according to O'Reilly?

• Will O'Reilly's next book be Killing Harambe?

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Let's bring, the one, the only, the legend, the man, Mr. Bill O'Reilly.

BILL: Beck, is that ABBA singing your little theme song there? I thought they were retired.

GLENN: No.

PAT: First thing out of his mouth, right?

GLENN: I mean, right out of the chute.

BILL: I was getting on my dancing machine on here.

GLENN: Look what happens. Right out of the chute.

So, Bill, let me ask you this.

BILL: Sure.

GLENN: I have been threatened by Sean Hannity using his karate on me.

BILL: Yeah.

GLENN: Do you have a brown belt or a blue belt or a black belt?

BILL: Only in intellectual prowess.

GLENN: Okay. So there's no threats coming your way?

BILL: Never, Beck. You know, you're my pal. Why would I do that?

GLENN: Well, let's not exaggerate.

(laughter)

GLENN: So Bill is off killing someone else. A new book. This one is Killing the Rising Sun. He's run out of people to kill. Now he's killing an entire nation of people.

PAT: Wow. Wow.

GLENN: The hatred never stops with Bill O'Reilly.

BILL: Yeah, I know.

GLENN: The book is Killing of the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan.

So, Bill, what's in here that, you know, makes it worth reading?

BILL: Well, first of all, when the book was released on Tuesday, the first day out, it sold 103,000 copies.

GLENN: A lot of stupid people. Why -- what's in it?

BILL: You said a lot of stupid people?

GLENN: I mean, why -- I mean, what's in there?

BILL: Come on.

GLENN: I mean, you can get -- you know, I know the power of Bill O'Reilly. He hypnotizes you. He looks --

BILL: Look, this is the sixth book in the series. If they weren't any good, believe me, 100,000 people wouldn't be buying them the first day.

Your question about what you learn is a good one because history has been kind of trampled by boring people who just recite things that they've been told.

GLENN: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

BILL: This one puts you on Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Hiroshima. You, the reader, will experience what happened there. And that's the formula that makes the Killing book successful, is that it's just not a resuscitation of facts. It's drama and real people.

And our research centers around Marines and soldiers and Naval people who wrote letters, not pinheads and, you know, who did all this research about -- you know, talking to this one and that one. We got down with the folks.

And one of the compelling stories that I know you'll enjoy once you get around to having someone read the book to you --

GLENN: No.

BILL: -- is how a woman survived Hiroshima by being three minutes late to her job. And that's the kind of stuff we have.

GLENN: Well, I read that story because I did read the book.

BILL: Did you really?

GLENN: No, I'm lying completely.

BILL: Not completely.

GLENN: Right. But I thought I'd give it a shot here for a second.

No, Bill, here's the thing that I really like your perspective on. What is -- why do we not know who the Japanese really were?

BILL: Because it's not politically correct --

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: But when did that --

BILL: -- for the public school education system to actually tell the urchins the truth about their country.

GLENN: So, but when did that -- when did that happen? Because World War II, you were about 70.

BILL: Yeah.

GLENN: So what --

(chuckling)

-- when did -- did we know during World War II that they were slaughtering 20 million Chinese, that they were, you know, having games of butchery? Did we know those things at the time?

BILL: Yeah, it was reported in the Chinese atrocities in the '30s, the major newspapers in America did report that the Japanese went in and murdered people, raped women, you know, en masse. That was recorded.

But then when World War II started, unlike the European theater where there was a lot of American reporters, there were very few in the Pacific theater. It was, number one, too dangerous to drop them on the islands. And, number two, MacArthur who was in charge of the Pacific theater as you know, didn't want the American public to see what kind of horror was unfolding on these islands because there were no prisoners on either side. Nobody took prisoners.

So they did not want that reported. And therefore, there was a news blackout. And to this day, people really don't know what happened and how Japan was defeated, which is why I wrote the book.

GLENN: Yeah. We've done an interview on the book before, and a much more serious one than this. But I can't take another 15 minutes of you being serious.

(chuckling)

But you and I did an interview. And I did an episode that's going to air soon on the show that I do called The Vault, where we're talking about World War II and the Japanese. And I don't know if you're aware of Unit 731. Bill, are you aware of that?

BILL: No, I am not.

GLENN: Okay. This is unbelievable. Unit 731, we're doing the same kinds of things that the nasty Nazi doctors were doing. They were -- they were doing live vivisections.

BILL: This is the Japanese?

GLENN: The Japanese were doing it.

BILL: Right. Right. Right.

GLENN: We excused all of them. And said, "Hey, in exchange for the research, we won't try you." I'm just puzzled by why we don't look at the communists and their atrocities. We don't look at the Japanese and their atrocities. But we focus all on the German and then we call our --

PAT: Us.

GLENN: Us saving the world from those nightmares, atrocities.

BILL: Look, the problem with the reportage after Japan was defeated is that there was censorship. There was censorship in the European theater. But the European theater was so in-your-face when they liberated the concentration camps and then Hitler was this evil icon -- they didn't have that in Japan. MacArthur was sympathetic to the Japanese people. He had a long history with his father of dealing with them.

So he didn't want to crush them like Patton did. He wanted to defeat them. And, by the way, MacArthur was against dropping the atom bomb because he wanted to invade and get the glory of the victory himself.

GLENN: And just to prove to you that I did read the book, you talk about him being in Manila at the time. You want to describe that?

BILL: Right. Well, MacArthur was not a battlefield commander, per se. He stayed behind the lines and was a glory hound. Not like -- it was totally the opposite for Patton, but MacArthur was a good tactician.

I mean, I think Nimitz was probably better. But the combination of the Army and Navy commanders, you know, put the Japanese on the defensive from the beginning.

However, the question is: Why were we leaning towards the Japanese? There's two reasons why the United States, Harry Truman, and MacArthur didn't punish them the way the Germans were punished.

Number one, the Japanese people pretty much cooperated. They didn't give us a hard time. They surrendered. And once it was over, it was over.

Number two, we did execute Tojo and a number of other war criminals, but there wasn't that hunt that there was for the SS. Because, again, they were so demonized -- the concentration camps were so overwhelmingly emotional, that the authorities had to do that. And Patton got in trouble because he didn't really want to go in and take apart the German society.

But in Japan, MacArthur got away with pretty much leaving the status quo. Hirohito actually kept his job as emperor. They didn't remove him. He didn't have any power, but they didn't want any trouble with the Japanese. They wanted them to fall into line.

GLENN: Yeah. And they actually thought -- because the peasants were so convinced that they were winning, that after that last bomb, they actually thought that there was a chance that the peasants would take over the military and continue the war. We didn't know until the very last minute.

BILL: Well, they weren't going to surrender. There's no doubt about that. The Japanese were not going to surrender. And if anybody thinks they were, then you're just a fool. Because even after Hiroshima, they didn't surrender. And they were arming children, women --

GLENN: Right. Yeah, last man --

BILL: Even though Tokyo was destroyed literally by conventional bombing, that still didn't break the Japanese spirit. There still wasn't a coup d'etat against Hirohito. There was an attempt, but it was fought back.

GLENN: Do you think this was -- do you think history is against America or against atomic weapons or both? Because the firebombing -- hang on just a second.

BILL: Go ahead.

GLENN: The firebombing in Tokyo --

PAT: Killed more people.

GLENN: Killed many more people.

BILL: Yeah.

GLENN: And a group of homeless the size of Chicago came out of that city. A hundred twenty-five miles was destroyed by firebombing, and yet you don't hear that.

BILL: No. Because the other bomb is such a specter.

GLENN: Right.

PAT: Uh-huh.

BILL: That people lock into that. And, by the way, when you're hearing North Korea testing and Iranian nukes, the nuclear weapons we have today are 100,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb.

So when you read Killing the Rising Sun and you're imagining the horror that took place there, I mean, it's unspeakable what would happen now if they ever drop these things.

But you basically have -- the reason why I wrote this book was because of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor, when he said after 9/11, justifying the attack, that America's chickens have come home to roost because we dropped the bombs on Japan.

That so offended me. I was so appalled, I said, "You know what, some day I'm going to write a book and correct the record on this." And that's how that book got on the board.

GLENN: I will tell you, Bill, it is a fantastic book. And what you've done with the presidents afterwards -- you've gone back to the living presidents. And Bill Clinton wouldn't participate and neither would Barack Obama. But the other ones would participate.

BILL: Right.

GLENN: And you asked them, "Would you have done it?" And you don't believe that Bill Clinton answered that because he doesn't want to have to answer to the left. Doesn't want controversy now.

BILL: Right. You know, I asked five living presidents to give me a personal letter whether they would have supported Truman and dropped the bomb. The two Bushes and Jimmy Carter did. And they all said they would have dropped the atom bomb. Obama did not. Just speculation, just on my part, just speculation, I just don't think he would have dropped it.

GLENN: No.

PAT: I don't either.

GLENN: I don't either.

JEFFY: No way.

PAT: Do you think Bill Clinton would have?

BILL: Yes. But I didn't -- you absolutely hit it. Clinton didn't want to, you know, raise any controversy on the left by saying that. And so he passed.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: You know, it is -- and you point this out in the book -- it was the compassionate thing to do. Millions would have died on both sides. Millions.

BILL: Yes. No doubt.

PAT: Didn't they estimate 4 million Japanese -- four million Japanese were saved by a non-invasion?

BILL: Yeah. Because they were -- you have to understand the mindset. It was a lot like the Nazi mindset.

GLENN: More like ISIS, I think.

BILL: Well, it's the same thing. I always say ISIS is the Hitler-lite. I mean, that's what they are. There's no difference between the Third Reich and the SS and all that and ISIS. There's no difference.

But the mindset is, look, we're willing to give our life for the emperor, Hirohito, living god. And wait until you see this guy. When you read the book, what Hirohito is really like -- and this is the living god? I mean, it's worse than Henry VIII, founding a religion in England. I mean, come on.

GLENN: No. It's pretty nuts.

STU: Bill, you bring up the Nazi side of this. And, you know, Hitler thought, as we're losing -- as we're retreating, I want the bridges blown up. I want all of our infrastructure destroyed so the enemy doesn't get a hold of it.

And there were people there, like Albert Speer, who said, "Hey, wait a minute I'm not going to do that," and defied his orders at the last minute, even with all that dedication. Were there people like that on the Japanese side?

BILL: Not that we know of. Because it was -- the Japanese secret police were more effective than the Gestapo. And if there were any dissenters, they were beheaded immediately.

GLENN: It was bad.

BILL: You know, that society was so tight and so closed.

But one of the interesting parts about Killing the Rising Sun is the reason that FDR fast-tracked the atom bomb research in New Mexico was because Hitler was doing it. And they feared -- they being the American authorities, they feared the Third Reich would get this bomb. And, of course, if they had gotten it, they would have used it. And that's why Hitler was allowed to hang on by his generals. Because his generals knew that they had these super weapons in development. And that would turn the thing around, which is why they fought harder than they might have.

But the Japanese were a different story. The Japanese were so fanatical and so crazy that they were going to die for the emperor because that's their code, Bushido, you know, you have to die for the emperor. And they were. And that includes little kids, women, everybody.

GLENN: Bill, always good to have you on. And, well, no, it's not. But this time, it was good to have you on. And I appreciate it.

BILL: You know, I really appreciate you having me on your fine program, and I want you to do me one favor. Will you do one favor?

GLENN: Thanks, brother. I'll try.

BILL: All right. Say hello to ABBA for me. I really am a big fan.

GLENN: All right. Bill O'Reilly.

STU: So you actually did read the book this time?

GLENN: Not one word of it. Not one word. And I didn't want to break my record of Bill O'Reilly books at this point.

PAT: It sounds great. It sounds great.

GLENN: Oh, it is. It is. I've read enough of it. And he was on with me. We're doing a deal on The Vault, where he's a guest on The Vault. And we're talking about this. And I have artifacts that he had never seen. We took him out. We have 8,000 artifacts, historic artifacts in The Vault. And next week is the premiere episode. Next Wednesday on TheBlaze TV.

And in an upcoming episode, we talk about this. And when you hear who the Japanese were -- you've never heard these stories before.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: You've never heard them before. And there's -- if you knew them, there would be no -- not a second of thought about, should we have dropped the bomb? And one reason -- he wrote this book. The other reason why -- it's the same reason I'm doing, like, The Vault and His Story. I'm doing these two shows because your kids are going to go into class, and they're going to have to -- they'll be asked this question. The only thing on Common Core is about the United States dropping the bomb. That's all they included in the Common Core tests for World War II.

PAT: And no context.

GLENN: No context at all.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Your kids have to have context. And they will not find it in schoolbooks. So Bill O'Reilly's book and also The Vault that's on Wednesdays on TheBlaze TV.

PAT: And get this one. Because Bill is running out of dead people to kill. So...

GLENN: Oh, no. His next thing -- I don't know. Who is he going to be killing next? What country? What continent?

JEFFY: Milky Way.

PAT: He's killed all the people, now he's killing entire countries. It will have to be the planet.

GLENN: The death ray -- the death star of books.

STU: I believe he's going to be killing Harambe. That is the next book.

JEFFY: Oh, nice.

GLENN: All of a sudden we're all going to say, "I feel like there were millions of voices that just cried out." Yeah, Bill O'Reilly just published another book.

Featured Image:

WITCH HUNT: The left has TERRIFYING plans for Trump supporters if Biden wins

Imagine sometime next year, getting called before HUWAC – the House Un-Woke Activities Committee.

"Are you or have you ever been a member of the un-woke?"

Something like that is not as far-fetched as you might think.

Last week, Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, now a UC Berkeley professor, tweeted this:

Since the 1970s, there have been dozens of "Truth Commissions" around the world like the kind Robert Reich wants in America. Most of these have been set up in Africa and Latin America. Usually it happens in countries after a civil war, or where there's been a regime change – a dictator is finally overthrown, and a commission is set up to address atrocities that happened under the dictator. Or, as in the commissions in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, atrocities under communism. Or, in the most famous example, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation commission addressed the decades of apartheid that ravaged that nation.

These commissions usually conclude with an official final report. These commissions and reports have served as a means of governments trying to close a dark chapter of their country's history, or provide emotional catharsis, as a way to generally move on. Sometimes it kind of works for people, most of the time it leaves people clamoring for more justice.

Here's how one professor described truth commissions in an article in The Conversation last year. He wrote:

The goal of a truth commission… is to hold public hearings to establish the scale and impact of a past injustice, typically involving wide-scale human rights abuses, and make it part of the permanent, unassailable public record. Truth commissions also officially recognize victims and perpetrators in an effort to move beyond the painful past… Some have been used cynically as tools for governments to legitimize themselves by pretending they have dealt with painful history when they have only kicked the can down the road.

See, this is the problem with a lot of "Truth" commissions – they are inherently political. Even if you trust your government and give them all the benefit of the doubt in the world that their Truth commission is trying to do the right thing, it is ALWAYS going to be political. Because these truth commissions are never set up by those who have LOST power in government. They're always established by those who have WON power.

The Deputy Executive Director of the International Center for Transitional Justice says one of the main points in these Truth commissions is that "the victims become protagonists."

A Department of Anti-racism is entirely within the realm of possibility.

So, who are the victims in Robert Reich's America? People like him, members of the far-Left who had to endure the atrocities of four years of a president with different political ideas. What an injustice. I mean, the left's suffering during the Trump administration is almost on the level of apartheid or genocide – so we totally need a Truth commission.

There have been lots of calls for the U.S. to have its own Truth and Reconciliation commission, especially around racial injustice.

This past June, Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California introduced legislation to establish the " United States Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation."

Ibram X. Kendi – the high priest of anti-racism, and author of Target's current favorite book " Antiracist Baby" – proposes a Constitutional anti-racism amendment. This amendment would:

establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for pre-clearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won't yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.

If you think that is far-fetched, you haven't been paying attention to the Left's growing radicalism. In a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration, a Department of Anti-racism is entirely within the realm of possibility. And of course, such a DOA would never stop at policing government.

We're in a dangerous, precarious moment in our history. Given the events of 2020, should Democrats gain the White House, the Senate, and the House, how many commissions will be in our future? They will suddenly have plenty of political capital to drag the nation through years of commission hearings.

And the Left's form of justice is never satisfied. You think it will stop at a T&R commission on race? MSNBC's Chris Hayes tweeted this month about the need for a commission to deal with Americans who are skeptical about wearing masks:

Or what about a Truth commission on religion? I mean, look at those reckless churches spreading Covid this year. Or this would be a big one – a T&R commission on climate change deniers.

The Left is highly selective when it comes to truth. That's why they are the very last group you want in charge of anything with "Truth and Reconciliation" in the title.

This is one of the most incredibly frustrating things about the Left in America today. The Left insists there is no such thing as absolute truth, while simultaneously insisting there are certain approved truths that are undeniable.

So, you can't question "Science" – even though that's pretty much what every great scientist in history did.

You can't question racism as the explanation for all of existence – because, well, just because.

You can't question third-party "Fact-checkers" – because the powers that be, mainly Big Tech right now, have decided they are the Truth referees and you have to trust what they say because they're using certified external fact-checkers. They just forgot to tell you that they actually fund these third-party fact-checkers. It's like if McDonald's told you to trust third-party health inspectors that they were paying for.

The Left thinks it has a monopoly on Truth. They're the enlightened ones, because they've had the correct instruction, they're privy to the actual facts. It's psychotic arrogance. If you don't buy what they're selling, even if you're just skeptical of it, it's because you either don't have the facts, you willingly deny the facts, or you're simply incapable of grasping the truth because you're blinded by your raging racism problem. It's most likely the racism problem.

The Left never learns from its own preaching. For the past 60-plus years they've decried the House Un-American Activities Committee for trying to root out communists, getting people canceled, ruining Hollywood careers, etcetera. But a HUAC-type committee is precisely what Robert Reich is describing and many on the Left want. It's not enough for Trump to be voted out of office. Americans who helped put him there must be punished. They don't want reconciliation, they want retribution. Because the Left doesn't simply loathe Donald Trump, the Left loathes YOU.

Glenn Beck: President Trump’s final debate performance was  'BRILLIANT' — here's why

President Donald Trump's performance at last night's final presidential debate was "brilliant" and "the best he's ever done," Glenn Beck said on the radio program Friday.

Glenn described the moments he thought President Trump came across as "sincere," "kind," and "well-informed," as well as Joe Biden's biggest downfalls for of the night — from his big statement on wanting to eliminate the oil industry to his unsurprising gaffes as the debate neared the end. But, the question remains: was Trump's "brilliant performance" enough to win the election?

Watch the video be low to get Glenn's take on the final debate before the November 3 election:


Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

Former never-Trumper James Lindsay on why he just CAN'T vote for Joe Biden

This is a moment "Cynical Theories" author James Lindsay probably hoped would never come. The liberal mathematician and host of the "New Discourses Podcast" recently came out as "unhappily" voting Republican, including for President Donald Trump, because the Democratic Party is now being controlled by a far-left movement that seeks to destroy our country and the U.S. Constitution.

He joined Glenn Beck on the radio program Thursday to explain why this election isn't "Trump versus Biden." It's Trump versus a "movement that wants to tear apart American society at its very foundation." Lindsay warned that if it isn't stopped, the left can toss out our rights by rewriting the Constitution — or abolishing it altogether.

"A lot of people don't understand what's happening with the election we have right now," he said. "They think it's a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And at the surface level, of course, it is. We're voting for each candidate to be duly put into the office of president. But that's not what we really have going on. We have, in Donald Trump, a man who's going to govern as we've all seen — the way he feels like he's going to govern. And we have in Joe Biden, a man captured by a movement that wants to tear apart the American society at its very foundation."

Lindsay noted the popular leftist narratives that call to "abolish anything they don't like," which now includes the U.S. Constitution. He added that "this is the movement that is controlling the Democratic Party."

"It is my belief, that there has been a largely effective kind of silent coup of the Democratic Party, that's turned it completely under the control of this movement. And that's what we're going to be electing with Joe Biden. So I can't do it," he said.

Watch the video below for more details:

WATCH: Rudy Giuliani says he has PROOF Joe Biden was business partners with Chinese Communists

Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. CT, Glenn Beck goes straight to the source of the biggest story in the country with Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who takes us directly into Hunter Biden's alleged laptop.

Despite Big Tech's attempts to squash this story, there should be a mad scramble in the media to get to the bottom of major corruption allegations, but they're willfully ignoring it. However, this is not just a story about Hunter Biden. This is all about Joe Biden. It's a story Glenn has been investigating for over a year that traces back to Ukraine and China. It goes directly to the root of corruption within our political system: How politicians use their family members to enrich the entire clan and sell out their country. While the media looks the other way, Glenn asks Mayor Giuliani to show us the evidence. Giuliani details the chain of possession of the laptop and reveals news that he only had possession of the laptop days before the New York Post story broke. He says, "I reported this the day after I saw it."

He also drops a major bombshell on the show and says Big Tech doesn't want you to see evidence that "establishes with texts, documents, contracts" that "Joe Biden was a 10% partner with a Chinese communist … and there are witnesses that will come forward and testify to it."

Big Tech censorship is out of control. So to watch tonight's explosive episode of Glenn TV, you must be a BlazeTV subscriber. Because Big Tech is doing whatever it can to limit free speech, we're offering our most important discount on BlazeTV ever. Use promo code GLENN to get $30 off a one-year subscription, so you'll have 24/7 access to news and entertainment completely free of biased "fact-checks" and censorship.

Watch a preview of the show below:

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.