Not in My Back Yard: The Guantanamo 240

The topic is "prisoners," and particularly prisoners from, in, or related to "war." We learned this week that some Congressmen are getting all squirmy about the prospect having any of those 240 Guantanamo detainees anywhere near their back yard (link). Other commentators have pointed out that we didn't to seem to have a problem bringing 425 thousand POWs--mostly German-- onto our own soil in World War II. At least one commentators says 425 thousand "Nazis," although this is surely inexact. There were probably a true believers--there is a story about some U-Boat captains in Arizona. But mostly, they must have been just German Willies and Joes who counted themselves lucky to be out of the action (it is said they had a lower escape record than ordinary prisoners--quel surprise).

So far, then, the comparison mzay not appear apt. But look at this, folks:at the same time that we were wiling, with scarcely a heartbet, to bring something like 425 thousand foreign POWs to our soil, we were also incarcerating 120 thousand of our own--that would be the Japanese-Americans whom we slapped into camps because they were, well, Japanese. Did somebody say "fear of the other"? Oh, now...

[Is "incarcerate" too strong? Well, where could they go? And what would happen if they tried?]