FDR and Bush 43

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

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

The situation in WW2 is not comparable to the situation
today.

It's comparable in that both FDR and Bush 43 faced one day events that
fundamentally changed the course of the country.

FDR mastered his challenge, Bush 43 is foundering.

This is from today's NY Times:

"Mr. Lehman also predicted that the commission's final report would include
unanimous recommendations for change in the intelligence services, which he
said could not distinguish "between a bicycle crash and a train wreck."

"It is dysfunctional," he said. "It needs fundamental change, not just tweaking
and moving the deck chairs or the organization boxes around."


I don't know if we can stand four more years of spinning our wheels in the war
on Terror.

Bush 43 is an incompetent arrogant elistist *******. It is time for him to go.

Walt

From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 6/20/2004 10:58 AM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:

From: jdupre5762@

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.


Chris Mark

Germans and Italian residents were also detained. Ellis Island even became a
detention camp.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

B2431 wrote:

Germans and Italian residents were also detained. Ellis Island even
became a detention camp.

German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were not
interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were. Not just alien
residents, mind you, but American citizens, some going back several
generations, were locked up in camps without the slightest hint of due
process. They were even forbidden to move out of the prohibited areas
voluntarily; only internment was acceptable.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872

From: "Thomas Schoene"
Date: 6/20/2004 4:36 PM Central Daylight Time
Message-id: .net

B2431 wrote:

Germans and Italian residents were also detained. Ellis Island even
became a detention camp.

German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were not
interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were. Not just alien
residents, mind you, but American citizens, some going back several
generations, were locked up in camps without the slightest hint of due
process. They were even forbidden to move out of the prohibited areas
voluntarily; only internment was acceptable.

--
Tom Schoene

I never said otherwise. Most Americans are totally unaware that entire German
and Italian families were also interned. Most European internees were just as
innocent as the Japanese. Bear in mind who was making the arrests: the FBI
under J. Edgar "like my dress?" Hoover.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
link.net...

German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were
not
interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were.


Not true. While it was not as wide spread and is not nearly as well known
as
the incarceration of Japanese-Americans, there were Americans of Italian and
German descent that received similar treatment.

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 21:36:31 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

German-American and Italian-American citizens of the United States were not
interned en masse; Japanese-American citizens were.

If you are the person interned, it makes very little difference if you
were singled out or interned en masse. Indeed, it's probably worse if
you were singled out.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

From:

Germans and Italian residents were also detained. Ellis Island even became a
detention camp.

Right. Not much attention is paid to it, but it was pretty serious business.
Many Italian fishermen, for example, people who had emigrated to the US decades
before Pearl Harbor, lost their livelihoods because they weren't allowed near
ports.


Chris Mark

Right. Not much attention is paid to it, but it was pretty serious business.
Many Italian fishermen, for example, people who had emigrated to the US decades
before Pearl Harbor, lost their livelihoods because they weren't allowed near
ports.

I lived in Concord MA during the war. In the 1940s it was a
truck-farming town, not a yuppie bedroom community. Many of the
farmers were Italian. One was so Italian that the boys were named
Primo, Secondo, and Tercero, if I spell them correctly. In the way of
boys, however, we were totally unaware that there was anything unusual
in this, and I don't recall that I ever associated them with the evil
Germans, Italians, and Japanese with whom the nation was at war.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org