Posted on 09/29/2001 8:30:31 PM PDT by goodnesswins
Lessons about internment
A telephone poll in New York state has found that one-third of adults favor internment camps for "individuals who authorities identify as being sympathetic to terrorist causes." Such a story makes it sound as if internment camps are a real possibility. They are not.
The precedent is there, of course. The United States did intern Japanese Americans, including native-born citizens, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. It kept them in government camps for three years.
The Supreme Court supported it. The court unanimously rejected a challenge by Kiyoshi Hirabayashi, a senior at the University of Washington, who refused to follow an 8 p.m. Seattle curfew that applied only to ethnic Japanese. Wrote Justice William O. Douglas when Japanese Americans were rounded up: "We cannot sit in judgment on the military requirements of that hour."
It was not just the military. The internment had been approved by President Franklin Roosevelt, California Gov. Earl Warren, and by almost everyone of influence on the West Coast.
In hindsight, it was one of the largest violations of the Constitution ever accepted. Technically, the court's approval has never been overruled, and still stands; but politically, it is as dead as butter rationing. Congress apologized for it and, belatedly, offered restitution to those who were imprisoned.
Only in the most extreme case — a declared war and a widespread, obvious and immediate threat to public safety — could something like that happen again. Today's situation is not even close.
The news about this poll was that one-third of New Yorkers favored internment; only later did the stories note that 50 percent of New Yorkers opposed it. It's the larger number that includes the sensible Americans.
Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company
HMMMMM - I wonder if the death of 6000 plus constitutes an extreme case.
HMMMMM. "Today's situation (the Seattle Times says) is not even close." (To internment needed.) HMMMMM.
Anyone who complains about it can be put on a ship and sent "home," wherever that is. If they complain loudly or violently, then the ship can be set on fire as soon as it a hundred miles offshore.
Crappy liberals and other enemy sympathizers require 7,000,000 dead Americans, not 7000, before they consider us "even close." May they be interred, too.
American citizens of Japanese descent (meaning at least one Japanese grandparent) living west of the Mississippi were rounded up and imprisoned without charges or trials. Those in Hawaii were NOT imprisoned, because the Commanding General there needed them as workers (90% of the carpenters on Hawaii then were Japanese-Americans). So he invented excuse after excuse not to round them up -- usually transporation-related.
These American citizens were held in the camps for 4 1/2 years, not 3. And 40 years later, Fred Korematsu himself went back to federal court and had his crininal conviction reversed, on the grounds that the Order to imprison him was unconstitutional. The new Korematsu case reached the Supreme Court, giving it a chance to address and reverse its own unconstitutional decision. The Court turned coward. They just left standing without comment the lower court decition that they had violated the Constitution, in 1944l. This may be the only time in the history of the Court that a lower court said that it had issued an unconstitutional decision and it silently let that decision stand.
Other than these "minor" corrections, this is a fairly good article on a subject more people should know about. I know these things because one of my books, Manzanar was on the history of these camps. One of the most poinant pictures in it is of an American G.I. from the "Christmas Tree" Regiment, the 441st, coming back in uniform to visit his parents, who were being held in a barbed-wire camp, by other G.I.s. The 441st suffered higher casualties and earned more honors than any other regiment in America;s history. It was composed entirely of Japanese-American volunteers, and it fought its way up the Italian peninsula. It suffered 200% casualties.
The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob,
cyberCongressman from Western Carolina
Japanese in the three pacific coast states and Arizona were required to relocate to other states. They could go to government relocation centers if they wished, and initially most did (other than the 5,000 or so who chose to return to Japan at the outset of the war). However, with the exception of Japanese sent to Tule Lake Relocation Center (these were people about whom there were specific espionage concerns or who were known activists in Japanese patriotic organizations), they were free to leave at any time and indeed around 30,000 did so during the course of the war (but they had to relocate to states outside the exclusion zone). At the end of the war, another 5,000 or so chose to return to Japan.
The Japanese relocation was in response to espionage concerns of a generalized nature (that is, there relatively few individuals known to the government to be dangerous). In the year prior to Pearl Harbor, two Japanese spy rings (one based in Seattle and the other in LA) had been broken up and the spies returned to Japan (no use making Japan mad at us, after all). Japan, unware we had broken their consular code, moved spying operations into their consulates. Soon their consulates were reporting, and we were reading, that they were getting excellent response from the Japanese community, including Japanese serving in the armed forces). They also reported plans to move operations to northern Mexico in the event of war. (In hindsight, it appears they were telling the boss they were doing a bang up job over here and ought to be promoted).
Due to racism of both Anglos and Japanese, knowledgeable Anglos who understood that the vast majority of Japanese were loyal Americans were few and far between. All "we" knew was their consulates were reporting success in setting up spy/espionage rings. What "we" did know about was the existence of numerous Japanese war veteran and patriotic (to Japan, not the US) groups, and that Japan had successfully recruited Japanese Americans to fight in its war against China. We also knew that Japanese "cultural" presentations to Japanese Americans sometimes included specific exhortations that Japanese here were expected to support Japan.
And, too, there was the issue of citizenship. Until 1924, Japan considered any child born of Japanese parents overseas to be citizens of Japan. Children born after 1924 could be brought to Japanese consulates and registered as Japanese citizens. You do the math in terms of the percentage of the Japanese population here who were also citizens of Japan. You should note that when we are at war, the government has the right to pick up citizens of the country we are at war with. Our country simply ordered these people to relocate.
The relocation scheme was not found unconsitutional then or later because it was not unconsitutional. In hindsight, it appears to have been unnecessary. It certainly seems extreme today (as does the nightfall curfew for Americans of German and Italian descent in the first few months of the war). The only mainland violence from Japanese I ever heard of involved some miners in, I think, Utah who armed themselves and threatened management. They sobered up and went back to work.
In hindsight, we could have taken our chances with whatever had been set up under the consulates. Perhaps some things would have been blown up (a member of one of the Japanese veterans groups was living across the street from a main power switching station for the Bay Area and when arrested two days after Pearl Harbor was found to have a rifle and several hand grenades), but we know now we probably wouldn't have been brought to our ruin. At the time, however, it was the belief of the military (and the CONVICTION of FDR) that national security demanded it.
One thing it was was inconsistent --- Japanese in Hawaii were not forced to relocate. The military needed the labor. And, the Hawaian Island were under marshall law, so perhaps the military felt more in control.
As I said, the only people who could not leave were those in the Tule Lake Relocation Center. Alien Germans and Italians about whom there were specific espionage concerns, several thousand of them, were likewise required to stay in camps.
As former Senator Hoynihan once said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts."
Billybob
Except for Tule Lake, they were free to leave at any time and around 30,000 did so. The relocation order did not affect anyone living outside of Washington, Oregon, Western California, Arizona and, later, eastern California (ie, east of the Sierras). The statement "everyone west of the Mississippi was picked up" is simply false.
Son, you just don't know what you're talking about, book or not.
I heard tonight that people can enter from western europe without a visa. Do you know if that is true? Would that apply to people who came from, say, Syria via Germany?
The list of countries would be fairly long, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, although they "nominally" support the War on Terrorism. True, the nation may, but these nations are the origin of many of the indviduals known to be terrorists.
I have no idea what kind of a record keeping mess, the INS has. I seriously doubt they could execute anything close to a grand sweeping out, of non-citizen foreighners. But we should, for our own safety.
That is the Visa Waiver Programm. Citizens of certain countries do not need to go to the US Consulate to get a tourist visa. Basically they get it at immigration when they enter the country. It has little to do with where the flight comes from. (All passengers from all flights get mixed up in immigration anyhow)
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