Let's continue the comparison.

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.

If 43 gets reelected, we may not have to do very much imagining. We
presently
have an undisclosed number of Muslims in detention who have not yet been
charged with any crimes against the state, nor have they been allowed access
to
legal counsel and they've been subjected to a lot of other things made
possible
by the Patriot's Act. The numbers may burgeon in time.

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

George Z.


President Roosevelt's incarerating American citizens of Japanese ancestry
without due process was very bad. There's no doubt about. But no one had
dreamed the Japanese could attack PH. It seemed prudent to take all precautions
on the West Coast. To condemn FDR now is to make a generational judgment on
him, however.

I will say I might be more forgiving of Bush 43 playing fast and loose with
executive power -- if-he-had-anything to-show-for-it.

I had not posted much in this NG around the time of the invasion, but I did
support it. MUCH to my surprise the Bush administration had only the vaguest
notion of how post-war Iraq would look. They then made every operational and
strategic mistake they possibly could.

I've posted them before. These include:

Not involving the UN in the war. Basically, as events have shown, without UN
involvement (i.e. more troops), we can't subdue the country.

Misreading (unless he just lied) the intelligence on Iraqi complicity/duplicity
in Al Quaida's attacks on the US.

Ditto on weapons of mass destruction supposedly held by Saddam.

Dismissing the Iraqi army. We could have paid them $200,000,000 for three
months (vice 5,000,000,000,000 a month that we are spending now) and not had
hundreds of thousands of military trained men hanging around unemployed.

Dismissing Ba'ath party officials. It's now suggested that at least some
Ba'athists be brought back.

Ignoring the estimate of the Army Chief of Staff in Feb, 2003. Gen.
Shinseki said "several hundred thousand" US troops would be needed. The
Bushies just ignored that -- it didn't fit the plan.

Focusing on Iraq when Al Quaida is in Afghanistan. Afghan countryside is now
run by the warlords.


Again, look at where FDR was after three years, and look where Bush is. I was
watching "Meet the Press" today. Lehrman, the former Reagan era SecNav was
saying, "we still don't have this, that and the other thing." And Tim Russert
said: "After three years?" All Lehrman could do was hem and haw.

That's what I am saying -- after three years?

Let's take a moment to think about another war time president, Abraham Lincoln.

When Lincoln took office, seven states were in active rebellion. The US army
was only 17,000 strong. The armory at Pensacola (for instance) was manned by
an ordance sergeant and his wife. Most of the army was in the west. That was
March 1861. Lincoln made a ton of mstakes. He fired generals probably too
quickly. He consistenly over estimated Union sentiment in the south, he
meddled in operations (until Grant took over). Of course Lincoln did a lot of
good things too.

Three years later, Union armies totaling over a million men were poised to
crush the rebellion, which they shortly did.

How close are we to crushing Al Qaeda?

It was reported a couple of nights ago that Al Qaeda training camps are
operating RIGHT NOW in the afghan/Pakistani border area. And did anyone see
the report that Taliban fighters had occupied a provincial capital in
Afghanistan this last week? They've since been ejected, but I guess someone
will now make a parallel to that occupation and the Battle of the Bulge.

Bush and his sorry crew need to go --not because he ducked his military
obligations, --not because he stole enough votes in Florida to steal the
election (aided and abetted by the Supreme Court), but because he is a
blithering idiot with blithering idiot staffers who have fouled up the war on
terror.

Walt