In response to Mumbai terrorism, Quinn suggested attacks regardless of whether "a lot of peaceful Muslims" are hit
On The War Room, Jim Quinn said: "We either wipe this scourge from the face of the Earth -- 'Well, you just can't say that, because there's a lot of peaceful Muslims out there.' Well, there was a lot of Germans that weren't Nazis either, but we still bombed Dresden. We either wipe this scourge from the face of the Earth, or we will be doomed to live under it."
On the December 1 broadcast of The War Room with Quinn & Rose, while reading from a blog post by London Spectator columnist Melanie Phillips that discussed the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, co-host Jim Quinn said: "We either wipe this scourge from the face of the Earth -- 'Well, you just can't say that, because there's a lot of peaceful Muslims out there.' Well, there was a lot of Germans that weren't Nazis either, but we still bombed Dresden. We either wipe this scourge from the face of the Earth, or we will be doomed to live under it."
Quinn continued: "We have the technology. Do we have the spine? Don't answer that if you have trouble sleeping, OK?"
As Media Matters for America documented, Quinn said on October 29: "There's only one way to settle the Palestine -- the Palestine issue," and that "is to level it and then salt the earth so that nothing grows for a thousand years, because that's how the Muslims would have treated each other, and did."
Talkers Magazine lists Quinn & Rose among its "Heavy Hundred," which it describes as the "100 most important radio talk show hosts in America." According to the show's website, it airs on 18 radio stations and XM Satellite Radio.
From the December 1 broadcast of Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn & Rose:
QUINN: Now this from the London Spectator. The London Spectator. Melanie Phillips commenting, of course, on the atrocities in Mumbai that took place while we were on Thanksgiving break here.
[...]
QUINN: "The Islamists showed a degree of organization and coordination which is much more akin to a commando raid by an army than an act of terrorism. They have the capacity not merely to commit mass murder but to cause mortal damage to a country's economy. Now, if they can do this in Mumbai, they can do it in London or other British cities. The infrastructure of Islamist terror is more extensively developed in Britain, and the authorities there are more paralyzed in the face of what they have allowed to grow in their midst, and now they don't know how to back out of it. And yet the West is still out there scratching its head."
"Duh, which way did he go, George? What happened? Where's all these peaceful Muslims?" Excuse me, she's right. And instead of scratching our heads, we will soon be distracted by licking our wounds. We either wipe this scourge from the face of the Earth -- "Well, you just can't say that, because there's a lot of peaceful Muslims out there." Well, there was a lot of Germans that weren't Nazis either, but we still bombed Dresden.
We either wipe this scourge from the face of the Earth, or we will be doomed to live under it. We have the technology. Do we have the spine? Don't answer that if you have trouble sleeping, OK?
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Another shining example of a rght wing chicken hawk. My guess is that he is somewhat confused as to which end of the weapon the round comes out of. Nevertheless, I never grow tired of being amused by these guys. They always love to puff up and declare that killing and military action is needed. the only problem is that when the bullets start flying and whizzing by the ears one looks around and people like Jim Quinn are nowhere to be found. Oh sure you may find him dressed as a cheerleader in a bunker somewhere (Dick Cheney anyone?) But, you'll never see him dare to sacrifice himself for his high minded ideas. Shouldn't someone ask ol' Jim where he was back when he had the opportunity to help wipe the "scourge of Communism" from Vietnam? Paper patriot, that's all he is.
If anyone has ever watched the movie "Airplane" you got to remember the guy who said "they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into, I say... Let em' crash."
It used to be that idiot right wingers like that were seldom seen and rarely heard. Where have we gone so wrong?
And what scourge is he talking about? Islamists? Extremists? Or just those darn dirty Muslims? I'm not clear on who and where he wants to wipe out. I'm pretty sure that Quinn doesn't realize that you can't wipe out an idea really. Which is what terrorism is in the end, it's an idea, an ideal, it's an ethos.
It's not as if all of these crazy terrorists are sitting around together in one room.
It sounds to me like he's talking about Muslims in general. If you only strike limited targets, then surely there will be terrorists elsewhere who can band into small groups (of, say, 20 or so) and kill innocent Americans. Even more obviously, our strikes on Germany didn't spontaneously create more Germans, and our bombing of Japan didn't create more Japanese. Killing innocent Muslims, on the other hand, could inspire people to become terrorists. So then we would have to wipe out whatever area they pop up in, including the peaceful Muslims there. The logical conclusion of this is the murder of all Muslims.
In Quinn's defense, he is probably not bright enough to conceive this train of thought.
He is not bright enough to know what a train is...let alone adding thought. He reads bloggers words in the morning and his followers think he is just talking out loud. This man is a phony.
"Do you have the spine"? For what, sitting safely in your radio studio while somebody's sons and daughters get shipped all over the world to lob bombs at everybody you're scared of, innocent or not?
Pussies like Quinn are an embarrassment to humans everywhere. If we didn't have so many invertebrate jellyfish like him in this country, we may be able to deal with problems like terrorism.
This is a mindset that I simply cannot understand. Apparently, if you think bombing Dresden wasn't such a great idea, you are some kind of wimp, or "anti-American".
Dresden was a non-military target... virtually undefended and used by the Germans as a site for field hospitals.... primarily because it was not considered a military target. The allies destroyed it to damage German morale. I guess it worked, but was it really necessary? Did it shorten the war?
Even the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be argued to have hastened Japan's surrender. I don't think the same could be said of Dresden, since Hitler held out until nothing was left.
Now, I totally agree that the Nazi regime was vile, and deserved to be wiped from the face of the earth.... but I just don't see the wanton destruction of Dresden as a proud moment in our military history.
Exactly, about Dresden, but at the same time, we were at war with an entire country. Like it, or not, they were viable targets simply for living in Germany.
To some degree, you're right. However, isn't it preferable to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties? In fact, isn't that normally our stated policy? I understand the concept of collateral damage, but lobbing bombs into a civilian target just to demoralize the population seems more like retribution than sound military strategy.
I realize that the concept of "civilized warfare" is an oxymoron, and I would not necessarily condemn those who made the decision to bomb Dresden. Maybe they really thought it would shorten the war. However, in retrospect, I don't think the destruction of an unarmed city is something of which we should be proud. I would consider it a tragic mistake.
But, maybe that's just me.
No, it's not just you. The most famous witness to the destruction of Dresden agrees.
I don't disagree with you at all really. But warfare then, and now are 2 very different things. We do have precision munitions now, that do go astray from time to time, because let's face it, they're not perfect, but they're far more advanced than dumb bombs were in WWII, where, there wasn't much choice but to carpet bomb large areas hoping that you'd hit what you were aiming for. Dresden though, was just carpet bombing to bring down the 3rd Reich, which again, I can't disagree with that strategy. To do something of that nature today though, would not be acceptable at all, because there is no reason for it. If you're going to bomb, we need pinpoint strikes, better yet, send Delta, or Force Recon into those same areas to scope out targets, and then in the dark of night, creep in, and take out our enemies, which is what I'm sure is happening even as I write this. Spec Ops, or precision munitions is the way to do these things, but with Spec Ops, as long as nobody gets caught, or seen doing the "deed" so to speak, there is a level of deniability that comes with that. I'm thinking that in the world of a common terrorist, or even a terrorist leader, they have no shortage of enemies from various different places, and another one dead, if our Spec Ops guys weren't seen, could have been killed by just about, well, anyone.
That being said, of course suspicion would fall normally to our side, but in the absence of evidence, we again have that deniability. We wouldn't have such deniability using say a Predator drone launching Hellfire missiles into a shack in the middle of tribal Pakistan.
From TomDispatch:
Once Americans find themselves engaged in a guerrilla war, the urge is naturally to bring to bear military strengths and limit casualties -- and the fear is always of sending American troops into an "urban jungle," or simply a jungle, where the surroundings will serve to equalize a disproportionate American advantage in the weaponry of high-tech destruction. In distant war, particularly wars where Americans alone control the skies and can fly in them with relative impunity, the trade-off is clear indeed: our soldiers for their civilian dead "including women and children."
This is not an aberrant side effect of air war but its heart and soul. The airplane is a weapon of war, but it is also a weapon of terror -- and it is meant to be. From the beginning, it was used not to "win over" enemy populations -- after all, how could that be done from the distant skies? -- but to crush or terrorize them into submission. (It has seldom worked that way.)
And:
We in the U.S. recognize butchery when we see it -- the atrocity of the car bomb, the chlorine-gas truck bomb, the beheading. These acts are obviously barbaric in nature. But our favored way of war -- war from a distance -- has, for us, been pre-cleansed of barbarism. Or rather its essential barbarism has been turned into a set of "errant incidents," of "accidents," of "mistakes" repeatedly made over more than six decades. Air power is, in the military itself, little short of a religion of force, impermeable to reason, to history, to examples of what it does (and what it is incapable of doing). It is in our interest not to see air war as a -- possibly the -- modern form of barbarism.
Ours is, of course, a callous and dishonest way of thinking about war from the air (undoubtedly because it is the form of barbarism, unlike the car bomb or the beheading, that benefits us). It is time to be more honest. It is time for reporters to take the words "incident," "mistake," "accident," "inadvertent," "errant," and "collateral damage" out of their reportorial vocabularies when it comes to air power. At the level of policy, civilian deaths from the air should be seen as "advertent." They are not mistakes or they wouldn't happen so repeatedly. They are the very givens of this kind of warfare.
I apologize for the lengthy quotes, but this is an important matter that is seldom discussed.
If you haven't already, check out Errol Morris' "The Fog of War". McNamara admits that if we had lost the war, he and LeMay would probably be tried as war criminals.
I don't think it can be argued that Hiroshima and Nagasaki hastened Japan's surrender. That is simply fact. As for Dresden, that's a tough call that our leaders had to make. I'm sure they didn't go to bed with smiles on their faces afterward, but the reality is that the German people were being forced into provisional status with the punishment for refusal beng execution. As unfortunate as it may be, the only way to defeat Germany was to extoll total destruction or at least the fear of total destruction upon its populace. It didn't take long for this realization to become apparent once the Russians began raping and pillaging right through downtown Berlin.
Good points from you and Magnolialover; one admonition I remember from a high school history teacher is that we cannot really judge history through the prism of modern morality. I do not condemn those who decided to bomb Dresden or Hiroshima... I'm sure they struggled with those decisions.
I think what we can do is judge, in retrospect, the strategic value of those decisions to some degree, though it is impossible to know for sure, even this much later, how things might have turned out otherwise.
Dropping the atom bomb on Japan probably did convince them to surrender, though there is some controversy over whether the second bomb was necessary. The argument most often used is that invading the islands would have been too costly. I've never heard a third option discussed, such as containment and blockade. Japan's military was decimated, so they could have been effectively isolated. Of course, if millions had starved to death out of stubborn resolve, that may have been even more cruel than the atom bomb.
Dresden may be a different case. As it turned out, Hitler was unwilling to surrender under any circumstance. I think he actually expressed the desire to see the German people destroyed if they couldn't have victory. Given that, the strategic value of Dresden's destruction was probably minimal, since the Germans didn't surrender until Berlin was reduced to rubble and physically occupied by the allies.
However, we have to take into account the mood of the time. We were pi$$ed off at the Germans and the Japanese, so killing their civilians was probably considered justified retribution. Now that Germany and Japan are our allies, it's hard to imagine that level of anger toward those countries.
It is an interesting exercise in the philosophy of war.
we cannot really judge history through the prism of modern morality.
Careful there judging history. We hardly know it. The facts back then were reported with even less accuracy than today.
"I think what we can do is judge, in retrospect, the strategic value of those decisions to some degree, though it is impossible to know for sure, even this much later, how things might have turned out otherwise."
Fair enough.
That always makes me wonder. Is there anything that these conservatives are NOT scared of?
Let's make the list:
1. Gays
2. Terrorists
3. Liberals
4. Obama
5. Michelle Obama
6. Clintons (take your pick)
7. Black people
8. Anyone who disagrees with them about, well, anything
9. Liberal bloggers
10. Guns not being allowed in say, Church, or a grade school.
11. Some whacko who may, or may not shoot at you (not likely by the way)
I understand that we liberals always get painted as bed wetters, but I'll say this again, and I've said it before: I'd rather die in some horrible terrorist attack than cede even one of my basic rights as a human being, and as an American.
They don't seem to think the same way.
Wow, there is so much missing from that list:
Mexicans
Muslims
Atheists
Russians or anything Russian
Rap music
'Happy Holidays'
Poor people (i.e. lazy)
Things that make the baby Jesus cry
I could go on....
Public School Teachers
Labor Union Members
Scientists
City, County, State and Federal Employees
Sorry, I was pressed for time earlier, and couldn't come up with a good and complete list, thanks for adding on.
I could also ad the big one.
Al Gore...
Don't forget:
Socialists, or socialism
Fairness Doctrine
Lucid rational thought
Education
You all seem to be forgetting those deadly FRENCH FRIES.
Quinnie, may I ask you a simple question? You talk about wiping out people. Please provide an exact target...City name, Country name, Address..Come on Brave Boy, don't just talk or read as you do in the morning, give us your fine direction based on your military insight. Quinnie, this website does not have the TrailerTrash Republicans that listen to your show. Hell, they agree with you. Maybe they can pinpoint a target...but remind them that New Orleans is NOT a state.
And for Rosie, that good Xtian woman justs goes along for the pride. Rosie, you are not a real Christian...just a Xtian.
It is indeed the party of fear. Not love, compassion, understanding or brotherhood. The party of fear and loathing, Christians for capital punishment.
Now, here's a little exercise in logic that could be fun.... Next time a NeoCon spouts something like this, extolling the virtues of "total war", ask him what he thinks of William Tecumseh Sherman.
Since most of the remaining Hard Right Republicans are Southerners, I think I can guess what most would say.
Funny story about that.
When I was in college, a few friends of mine drove down to Florida from Maine for Spring Break '93. Anyway, during their drive through parts of Georgia, they got pulled over for speeding on the Interstate. State Trooper comes walking up to the car, big old drawl on a big old man, Smoky the Bear hat, shiny boots, and everything else you can think of that would be stereotypical for a Georgia State Trooper.
Trooper asks for license, registration, and proof of insurance. Takes them back to the car, writes up the ticket, comes back, and says, "You know boys, this is Georgia, not Maine, we don't drive that fast down here, so take it easy OK?"
My friend, who is a severe wise guy, speaks up, and responds, "Oh yeah, well, Sherman drove through Georgia pretty fast didn't he and you didn't stop him."
"Son, get out of the car, hands on the roof, because you're going to jail."
Lesson learned, when in Georgia, don't make fun of them for letting Sherman go through their State, they don't have a sense of humor about such things...
That brings to mind an image from popular culture that is floating in the back of my mind... I don't recall if it was from a commercial or a movie.
It's a southern cop in a Smokey Bear hat with mirrored sunglasses. He leans over toward the camera and says, "You in a heap a trouble, boy!"
What was the charge?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_301_(Turkish_penal_code)
"Insulting Southernness" ?
Well, Al-Qaeda should thank him for recording a splendid recruiting ad.
"No no no! We Americans are not reasonable people, intent on justice while opposed to violence! We're bloodthirsty beasts who hate Arabs and hate Islam, who have vvowed to nuke Meccaand who take the Holy Qu'Ran and flush it down the toilet! Listen! This is what they say on their radio, what Amerixans listen to on their way to work!"
"So if you have somemisgivings about machine-gunning people in a restaurant, if you think that this might be wrong,just run that Jim Quinn tape again, and you'll know what Americans really are!"
What is with this Nazi analogy for everything? It was 70 years back.
IMO, any person who brings up the Nazis reference as it relates to current world events (I am respectful to history and to the people who suffered because of Nazis) should be decalred deranged and placed in a mental asylum.
The proper generic term is fascism. Bush dipped his toe in authoritarianism but was rebuked by the diversity of the people and their views. Had America been a country founded on genetics and not enlightment ideals, we might have gone the full distance to fascism. There will only be one true Nazi regime, but vigilence for the wafts of fascism will always be required. Despite the recent election, I have a feeling future administrations will try again.
This guy is a useless redneck. If he knew what he was talking about he would be aware that we never did wipe Nazism "from the face of the Earth" we just weakened it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/merkel-under-pressure-to-ban-neonazi-party-462937.html "The calls for a ban on Germany's largest neo-Nazi party - which has won parliamentary seats in two eastern states in recent regional elections - were the latest response to last weekend's disturbing outbreak of xenophobic violence."
Most of the WWII-era Nazi leaders ended up in Brazil or Argentina (which just happen to be Christian countries, Miss Rose). And the Israelis had to kidnap them out of those countries b/c the good Christian leaders wouldn't give them up to face trial - Miss Rose!
And here's one in Ohio http://www.upi.com/Related-News/Nazi_hunters_want_88yearold_man_extradited_from_Ohio/88381227911339/ wanted for the murder of 29000 people.
I second the move to place all the people who make analogies between terrorism and Nazi Germany in asylums!
I wonder how Quinnie responded to this accuracy of his statements...It does get to him everytime MM quotes his idiocy. He acts as if it doesn't bother him but it does. And I only say that because he refuses to respond here on this site and always has a lie to throw to his listener. Naturally, he doesn't take phone calls either..maybe 3 a day. He has a LISTEN SHOW.
Or you are doomed to try and coexsist peacefully. (The horror!)
How do these religious whack-jobs idiots not realize that whne they speak this way, they make themselves into petty little men who are no better than our enemy? In fact they sound JUST LIKE our enemies! If he said what he did in Arabic, it may have well have been the latest Al-Zawiri video!
Let's not "save" ourselves at the cost of what makes us worth saving, huh?