From: "George Z. Bush"

Roosevelt also threw Japanese residents into detention camps by the tens of
thousands. Imagine if Bush 43 tried to do that with Muslims.

Roosevelt was wrong in his day, and our Congress not too long ago
acknowledged
precisely that.

Interesting that Earl Warren was a strong proponent of interning the Japanese
while J.Edgar Hoover opposed it.

I don't know where we're going with this comparison.

Probably nowhere. The situation in WW2 is not comparable to the situation
today. And some of the things Roosevelt did couldn't even be contemplated
today. For example, he pushed Attorney General Francis Biddle to try his more
outspoken congressional critics for sedition, in particular Martin Dies, Burton
Wheeler and Hamilton Fish. Under pressure from FDR William Powell Maloney was
named "Special Assistant" with broad investigative powers to unearth links
between Roosevelt's war policy critics and German propaganda and intelligence
networks. During the investigation Maloney leaked hints that he was about to
indict Rep. Fish and Clare Hoffman, though he never did. He also targeted
Father Coughlin, the "radio priest," but shied away from issuing an indictment.
He did, however, indict 28 "extremest" antiwar types from various walks of
life. Eventually 30 people were tried but with no convictions.
Today that would be like Bush pushing Ashcroft to have Michael Moore, Noam
Chomsky, the Dixie Chicks, et al, tried for sedition, with threats of charging
Ted Kennedy with treason. Not even conceivable, so much have times changed.

Throwing people into
concentration camps because you fear something they might possibly do some
day
in the future without a shred of evidence is no more conscionable (sp?) today
than it was when Roosevelt did it in 1942.

The old saying is that after every war there is less freedom to protect. But
the US generally has learned from the extreme actions taken during previous
national emergencies and behaves with more restraint each time. Bush can't do
what Roosevelt did, Roosevelt couldn't do what Wilson did and Wilson couldn't
do what Lincoln did.

And again, this war isn't like WW2, where we had clear nation-state enemies and
harnessed the full power of the economy to crushing them without mercy and with
total disregard for "collateral damage." Today's war, whether we are for it,
against it, or sitting on the fence, we have to admit is a pretty low-intensity
affair, not even close to the intensity of Vietnam, let alone World War II.
The closest comparisons I can come up with--and they aren't all that close--are
the post-civil war Indian campaigns, the Philippines Insurrection and various
Carribean/Central American adventures, with the Philippines business being the
closest. Difficult, costly, not a lot of casualties but militarily challenging
and with general success, even some amazing accomplishments, but not
unambiguously leading somewhere, while divisive among citizens, with many
wondering not only what the point of it all was, but actively opposed to an
effort that seemed to be against the basic principles of the country: We should
not be going around invading other countries to impose democracy on them. And
the cynics said it was really about making money not democracy. The equivalent
of Haliburton then was, I suppose, Del Monte or Dole.

Same song, different lyrics.


Chris Mark