Totally Loosing Perspective on Al-Queda

[Queequeg]

The Keep Terrorists Out of America Act

It's a great name for a bill, and it will make great fodder for 2010 campaign ads -- who wants to be the guy who voted against keeping terrorists out of America? The bill was announced at a press conference this morning with the ranking members of each House committee present. It would require the President to get the consent of both the governor and state legislature before moving terrorists now being held at Gitmo to any U.S. state.
Here's a clip of Rep. Pete Hoekstra at the presser this morning explaining to a particularly thick reporter why the threat posed by al Qaeda detainees is different, and far more serious, that that posed by German prisoners of war. As Hoekstra explains, the Germans didn't kill three thousand American civilians as they went to work. In fact, one is struck by the degree to which German POWs were considered harmless. They were allowed to work among civilians, helping with all kinds of manual labor. Does anyone imagine that al Qaeda detainees will be allowed to do road work?

Posted by Michael Goldfarb

So the difference between Al-Queda and the Nazis is that....Al Queda kills civilians?  Seriously?  This quote is taken without a grain of salt by a Jewish writer?

Link.

I don't really understand why Islamic Terrorist types are so fantastically different from Bundists or German Spies, either. 

Shamelessly stolen from Yglesias.

I think this leads to a larger point; some people in this country appear to have blown up the threat posed by Islamic Terrorism into an existential threat, which, as long as they don't have nuclear or serious biological/chemical weapons, it won't be.  They'll never be comparable to the Nazis

[Phillip V]

Germans are hot. Islamic terrorists are not.

[Berkut]

Comparing the threat posed by the Nazi regime to the threat posed by terrorism, then turning around and transferring that analysis to the threat posed by German POWs to the threat posed by terrorist prisoners is a bat farcical, isn't it?

Could it be (follow me here) that while the Nazi regime was vastly more deadly than terrorism, particular German POWs were not at all dangerous, while particular Al Qaueda prisoners are extremely dangerous?

It is a lot to wrap your brain around, I know, but maybe sleep on it a little bit, let it percolate.

[The Brain]

maybe a whale ate his brain

[garbon]

Could it be (follow me here) that while the Nazi regime was vastly more deadly than terrorism, particular German POWs were not at all dangerous, while particular Al Qaueda prisoners are extremely dangerous?

It is a lot to wrap your brain around, I know, but maybe sleep on it a little bit, let it percolate.

[Phillip V]

What I don't get is America put the Japanese into internment camps during WWII, but do not do the same to Muslims now. The difference is... Seriously? I think this leads to a larger point.

[garbon]

What I don't get is America put the Japanese into internment camps during WWII, but do not do the same to Muslims now. The difference is... Seriously? I think this leads to a larger point.

???

[The Brain]

What I don't get is America put the Japanese into internment camps during WWII, but do not do the same to Muslims now. The difference is... Seriously? I think this leads to a larger point.

It's this rule of law thing they have in America. Look it up.

[DisturbedPervert]

What I don't get is America put the Japanese into internment camps during WWII, but do not do the same to Muslims now. The difference is... Seriously? I think this leads to a larger point.

Generally people aren't ok with that anymore.  Besides, from a practical standpoint, it's impossible to tell who is a muslim.  With a Japanese, it's easy, but muslims come from all ethnic groups.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't really understand why Islamic Terrorist types are so fantastically different from Bundists or German Spies, either. 

Shamelessly stolen from Yglesias.

I think this leads to a larger point; some people in this country appear to have blown up the threat posed by Islamic Terrorism into an existential threat, which, as long as they don't have nuclear or serious biological/chemical weapons, it won't be.  They'll never be comparable to the Nazis

You don't see how Islamic terrorists are different from Bundists?

There may well be some people in this country who have blown up the threat posed by Islamic terrorism into an existential threat, but this story has nothing to do with that.  It's a congressman grandstanding on the closure of Gitmo.

[garbon]

Generally people aren't ok with that anymore.

Indeed.

[Queequeg]

Could it be (follow me here) that while the Nazi regime was vastly more deadly than terrorism, particular German POWs were not at all dangerous, while particular Al Qaueda prisoners are extremely dangerous?

Particular, as in spies with English language skills who could infiltrate most levels of American society? 

I'd say that, say, a German spy getting his hands on information sensitive to the Manhattan Project would have been terrible.  Worse than almost anything Qaueda could pull off.

[garbon]

I'm loose.

[katmai]

I'm loose.

Something we learned 6 years ago

[garbon]

Something we learned 6 years ago

You impugn my honor, dear sir.