Posted on 07/23/2015 4:54:01 AM PDT by VitacoreVision
“If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right, and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”
Thus spoke retired General Wesley Clark, a former Democratic Party presidential candidate, in an interview on MSNBC this past Friday.
Back in 2004, Clark, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, was harshly critical of what he considered the Bush administration's excessive response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.
But since then, he has drastically altered his position, now strongly supporting the use of domestic internment camps, specifically citing those where Americans of Japanese ancestry were sent during World War II. (There were also camps for Germans and Italians, but in much smaller numbers.)
While many would have agreed with Clark's earlier assessment that Bush went too far in his reaction to the 9/11 attacks, citing actions such as the PATRIOT Act’s reduction of civil liberties, Bush never suggested anything nearly as sweeping as that now proposed by Clark.
One can certainly understand arresting, trying, and incarcerating any person conspiring to commit acts of violence inside the United States; however, Clark’s proposal is chilling to constitutionalists. He is advocating going after those who are not only not involved in a conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, but who have not even yet been radicalized. “We have got to identify the people who are most likely to be radicalized," he asserted. "We’ve got to cut this off at the beginning."
“I do think on a national policy level we need to look at what self-radicalization means because we are at war with this group of terrorists,” Clark added.
Americans are understandably concerned about Islamic terrorism. Those who either commit or conspire to commit acts of violence should be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But the idea of sending to internment camps those who might become radicalized, and might conspire to commit violence is absolutely chilling.
Once such a precedent has been set, who might the next target of the federal government be? The Obama administration considers members of patriotic organizations such as The John Birch Society, Eagle Forum, and the Tea Party to be extremists. Some even regard pro-lifers or evangelical Christians as “radicals.”
Who would decide which individuals would be sent to these internment camps? During World War II — Clark’s model — it was one man: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, commanding that Japanese Americans be relocated away from the West Coast and into internment camps — without any due process, proof of disloyalty, or regard to American citizenship. This draconian policy led to the eventual incarceration of over 100,000 people, 62 percent of whom were U.S. citizens.
After Japan's “Meiji Restoration” in 1868, in which Emperor Meiji wrested power back from the warlords and began the modernization and industrialization of his country, many Japanese had taken advantage of the opportunity to emigrate to the United States.
In 1936, as relations between the United States and Japan were souring, Roosevelt directed the Office of Naval Intelligence to create a list of “those who would be the first to be placed in concentration camps in the event of trouble” between Japan and the United States.
However, as the two nations moved closer to war, Charles Munson of Naval Intelligence delivered a report on November 7, 1941, that “certified a remarkable, even extraordinary degree of loyalty among this generally suspect ethnic group.” FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover supported Munson’s findings, contending to Roosevelt that the Japanese posed no espionage threat.
Despite this, FDR issued his order and appointed Lt. General John DeWitt, head of Western Command, the administrator of the internment program. “A Jap’s a Jap,” DeWitt explained, when reporters queried him about “loyal” Americans who just happened to have Japanese ancestry. DeWitt told Congress, “I don’t want any of them here. They are a dangerous element.... It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen; he is still a Japanese.... But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.”
The attorney general of California — Earl Warren, later the chief justice of the Supreme Court — argued for the federal government to remove all Japanese from the West Coast. On February 2, 1942, the Los Angeles Times even editorialized of those Americans of Japanese ancestry, “A viper is nonetheless a viper, wherever the egg is hatched.”
Some of the interned Japanese chose to join the U.S. armed forces, ironically to “fight for liberty,” and were sent to the European theater. The bulk of them fought in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which emerged from the war as the most highly decorated U.S. military unit of its size, earning the nickname “the Purple Heart division.” Historian John Toland tells the story of an American prisoner of war who witnessed a battle between Germans and the 442nd. When a German soldier expressed to him surprise that they were having to fight Japanese, the American soldier advised the German that he'd been taken in by Hitler’s propaganda. The Japanese, he informed the German, are really on “our side.”
While the 442nd fought for America, most Americans of Japanese blood languished in the camps, which were cramped, with little room for privacy. One camp in Wyoming even had unpartitioned toilets. As the war progressed, conditions did improve in the camps, and life went on, with schools, such as they were, activities, including baseball games, and the like.
Eventually it became obvious that the incarceration had no good purpose; however, FDR opted to delay the release of the interned prisoners until January of 1945, so as not to endanger his reelection chances in 1944. In this decision he ignored the advice of both FBI Director Hoover and War Relocation Authority (WRA) director Dillon Myer that the internment should end in 1944.
The WWII internment camps are just what General Clark has in mind as a model for today. And he is not alone. Prominent neoconservative Daniel Pipes has called internment “a good idea” which offers “lessons for today.” And Michelle Malkin, in her book In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror, was blunt, declaring: “Civil liberties are not sacrosanct.”
Despite the clear protections of civil liberties in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in 1944 the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in the case of Korematsu v. the United States that the internment camps did not violate the Constitution.
Former Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, who assisted the U.S. Department of Justice in effecting the “relocation” of the Japanese, addressed this issue in the epilogue of his 1992 book, Executive Order 9066: The Internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans:
The truth is — as this deplorable experience proves — that constitutions and laws are not sufficient of themselves.... Despite the unequivocal language of the Constitution of the United States that the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, and despite the Fifth Amendment’s command that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, both of the constitutional safeguards were denied by military action under Executive Order 9066.
The actual “lesson for us today” is not that we need to reimplement internment camps, but rather that all American citizens must develop a renewed respect for the protection of their civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Related Articles:
Remembering the Internment of Japanese Americans
Supreme Court Justice Scalia Warns of U.S. Internment Camps
Politics aside, I never thought much of this guy. Yes he served, but he also has been a consistent self-promoter above anything else. Loves to be on TV and the sound of his own voice. I guess he would have been a better democratic president than Obama, but that’s about all I can say for him.
Saw a show where they did a rolling on the floor funny parody of Russel Crow in Gladiator.
Oh look. It’s General James Mattoon Scott.
Nor is the ideology of progressives, for that matter. Where can we ship THEM?
And there is authorization to do just that: the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011, which allows(among other things) the indefinite detetntion without trial of US citizens deemed "threats to national interest"...
There was a valid case for internment of the Japanese based on military necessity. With good reason, the Roosevelt administration feared espionage and sabotage from the numerous Japanese spy rings that, based on radio intercepts, were known to be operating on the US west coast. The FBI and other security agencies though were unable to locate and shut down the Japanese spy rings, so the US interned the Japanese — and the illicit spy radios all went silent.
Small point - odds are it wasn’t “Janet Reno’s Boys” in those vehicles. While its not rocket science to operate those vehicles, it does require some training. In particular, it takes a while for a crew (even if each member is well trained) to become effective. I’ve always believed either active duty or NG soldiers manned those vehicles.
The really sad part - it would be totally different today. Every agency involved, from the Sheriff to the FBI would already have their own MRAPS and PCs on site, with their own well trained crews.
Why does somebody keep flogging this story? They are coming across as cheerleaders for it.
President Trump will put Clarke in his place; and such ideas as he’s flacking, into the round file, where they belong.
He’ll also put REAL Generals and Admirals back in charge of our Military, I might add.
The guy who almost started WW-III?
Only took seven posts, not bad.
Thank the Lord that British general relieved him.
5.56mm
They want them for Christians, conservatives, returning soldiers and prolife demonstrators. The democrat party leaders know the only way to win, however they see that, is to destroy the opposition. What a fantastic way to do that, put the opposition in camps, so they cannot vote. Is that much different than what the POTUS and at least 10 senators did to the teaparty, sicked the IRS on them so they could not participate in elections?
To an active volcano...:^)
“I’ve always believed either active duty or NG soldiers manned those vehicles.”
They were JTF-6 assets so you are correct.
How about, if you're thinking of internment camps, we all get organized, get ahead of the curve in that road that leads to 'camps', and STOP LETTING PEOPLE INTO THIS COUNTY WHO MOST LIKELY HATE THE USA?
How about let's start right there, hmmm?
And then, instead of setting up camps, and figuring out how to feed all those people (whoever it is that would be sent to 'camps') if they are foreigners, let's spend the time and money which would need be spent on pre-planning and logistics analysis in figuring out who would be sent to those camps -- AND DEPORT THEM!
How's that? Just kick 'em out. Wouldn't that be wa-aay cheaper, in the long run?
Way more effective too, other than perhaps for consideration those same persons may join or be enlisted in an army somewhere, at some time on the future, we (the USA) may have to fight.
If any were to be deported --- make good records on these people, like fingerprints, DNA tests, biometric iris recognition, etc.
Any who come back to this nation, as part of any army,or any force at all (including criminal gangs) fighting against this nation, or subverting this nation's laws --- in any way--- if those individuals found inside the borders of the USA --- those individuals be subjected to summary execution. No appeals allowed other than identification confirmation.
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