"I strongly support internment in America"
Posted on 08/03/2004 8:47:30 AM PDT by aculeus
The word is out about my new book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror. I've been keeping it under wraps over the past year as I quietly toiled away in the wee hours of the morning, but since Instapundit kindly mentioned receiving the book yesterday, I am delighted now to share a few more details with you.
The official launch is Monday, August 9. Please check my books page for more info (including documents, bibliography, resources, errata, etc.) and notices of upcoming appearances, speeches, and book signings. For those of you in the Seattle area, I shall return to the Pacific Northwest this Friday, Aug. 6, for a speech sponsored by my friends at KVI-AM. It's at 7 pm at Cedar Park Church in Bothell. More info is here. Hope you can make it.
My aim is to kick off a vigorous national debate on what has been one of the most undebatable subjects in Amerian history and law: President Franklin Roosevelt's homeland security policies that led to the evacuation and relocation of 112,000 ethnic Japanese on the West Coast, as well as the internment of tens of thousands of enemy aliens from Japan, Germany, Italy, and other Axis nations. I think it's vitally important to get the history right because the WWII experience is often invoked by opponents of common-sense national security profiling and other necessary homeland security measures today.
A few things compelled me to write the book. Ever since I questioned President Clinton's decision to award the Congressional Medal of Honor to Japanese-American soldiers based primarly on claims of racial discrimination in 2000, several readers have urged me to research the topic of the "Japanese-American internment." World War II veterans wrote to say they agreed with my assessment of Clinton's naked politicization of the medals, but disagreed with my unequivocal statement that the internment of ethnic Japanese was "was abhorrent and wrong." They urged me to delve into the history and the intelligence leading to the decision before making up my mind.
I was further inspired by some intriguing blog debates last year between Sgt. Stryker and Is That Legal?. After reading a book by former National Security Agency official David Lowman called MAGIC: The untold story of U.S. Intelligence and the evacuation of Japanese residents from the West Coast during WWII, published posthumously by Athena Press Inc., I contacted publisher Lee Allen, who generously agreed to share many new sources and resources as I sought the truth.
The constant alarmism from Bush-bashers who argue that every counter-terror measure in America is tantamount to the internment was the final straw. The result is a book that I hope changes the way readers view both America's past and its present.
If you are a history buff, you will undoubtedly enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it. There are some incredible stories of untold courage and patriotism, as well as espionage and disloyalty, that have been buried in the mainstream WWII literature. If you are a parent with kids in high school, college, or law school, I hope you buy the book for your students or their teachers. And if you are simply an informed citizen, seeking answers about why we have failed to do what's necessary to combat our enemies on American soil (e.g., airport profiling, immigration enforcement, heightened scrutiny of Muslim chaplains and soldiers, etc.), I hope you buy the book to help gain intellectual ammunition and insights on our politically correct paralysis.
Liberal critics always ask if I've ever changed my mind about anything. Yes, I take back what I wrote in 2000; I have radically changed my mind about FDR's actions to protect the homeland. And I hope to persuade you all to do the same.
It's a daunting task, I know. This issue is fraught with emotion. Already, the first two reviews at Amazon.com have been posted--one on either side of the debate by individuals who have obviously not read a single page of the book. Another individual, who also admits she hasn't read the book, e-mailed the following to me today with the subject headline, "Shame on you:"
I have been a fan of yours since spotting you a while ago on FOX news…and I often agree with your views. I’m therefore appalled to read on Instapundit that you have published a book which endorses the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during WWII...I’m shocked that you would use Michael Moore-ish “truth-telling” to make the case for the internment camps. My parents’ families were interned in the middle of the desert in Arizona, and it was far from the summer-camp-like experience your publisher describes on Amazon.com. You apparently note the many “amenities” in the camps---sounds almost like Moore’s depiction of pre-OIF days in Iraq. Geez, Louise. She compares me to Michael Moore without having read a single sentence of the actual book.
Neither has Eric Muller, who runs the blog Is That Legal? that I mentioned earlier. (He is also mentioned in my book on p. 352.) Yet, based on the book cover and publisher's description alone, he comments that they do "not inspire confidence that Ms. Malkin is going to be giving us history that is Fair and Balanced." He complains that the cover unfairly likened "a Japanese-American man to Mohammed Atta"--but he does so without bothering to find out who the man on the cover is. He is Richard Kotoshirodo, a Japanese-American man who by his own admission assisted the Honolulu-based spy ring that fed intelligence to Tokyo that was key to the design of the Pearl Harbor attack. Every scholar and student who writes about Roosevelt's decision to evacuate the West Coast should know his name and story.
I expect much more emotion-driven criticism like this in days and weeks to come. And I look forward to whatever substantive debate the other side can muster up.
All that said, the fact that the book is being published at all is what made all the hard work of the past year--and the harsh ad hominem attacks sure to come--worth it. Most publishers wouldn't touch this with a 100-foot pole, and I am grateful to Regnery Publishing for fully embracing my idea. Everything else is icing on the cake (though it would be nice to outsell fluffball Maureen Dowd).
So, stay tuned. I think we are in for a wild but very necessary and educational ride.
Ah, yes. The "it was for their own safety" argument. Funny how that argument wasn't being made at the time by the feds.
Tell ya what, if the feds ever come knocking for bald white guys who sort of resemble Timothy McVeigh, I'll take my chances w/out being interned & relocated.
If I had to read every book asserting that the Earth is six thousand years old, the center of the universe, and flat, that Communism is a viable sociopolitical system if only it hadn't been perverted by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, et al, that Snoop Doggy Dogg and Ludakris are every bit as talented as Shakespeare and Aristophanes, or whatever other tripe someone cares to disgorge before declaring that it is indeed tripe, I would never get around to reading anything worthwhile.
Ping. Food for thought.
Sorry, but I live in a country where innocent people have freedom and the criminal are punished. Anyone hanging Americans of Japanese origin from a lamppost should be tried, and if found guilty, executed. That's the way that Biblical law is approached (or don't we base things on solid foundations anymore - not touchy, feely enough)?
I hesitate to get even slightly involved in this discussion as I have some very strong opinions on this subject and don't really wish to get into a verbal fistfight this morning, but consider this: how do you suppose the people of Japanese ancestry would have been treated had they continued to live in the population as before rather than being interned? I suspect the lynchings, burned homes, and general violence toward them would've put the old South to shame. I doubt if you could have counted on local law enforcement to do anything but look the other way, especially when young American men were dying every day. Imagine answering the door bell and receiving the dreaded telegram and then looking across the road to see your Japanese neighbor weeding in his garden. I'n not saying any of this is right, only how we humans are.
Not only is general argument invalid (as I explained in a previous message), this specific example turns out, upon investigation, to be an urban legend.
One thing I don't do is respond to irrelevant questions by other posters.
I don't think she's a leftist mole, and while she has a right to write about whatever she wants, I just wonder. I'll read her book when it comes out, but seems to me she's the amongst the conservative crowd who just LOVE racial profiling as long as they aren't the ones being profiled. Besides she's no different from Sean Hannity pushing his book with sensationalism. I wonder how much of her book is about the Japanese and how much is profiling islamic terrorists?
The person complaining didn't even know who the man was. As I understand it, he saw a Japanese man, and reacted in a knee-jerk fashion, assuming the man was innocent.
Maybe he doesn't know as much about the era as he thinks he does.
Maybe that's her point.
Is that bad?
The justification for mistreating AMERICAN CITIZENS on this board is simply amazing! What is this country truly coming to?
You're going to have to come up with a better argument than that, after all...you're the one that started this thread.
There's a place to make excuses for socialists, and it ain't here.
***Following the war, my FIL went to college on the GI bill and graduated as an accountant, but nobody would hire him in Los Angeles. ***
War is HELL! Whatever gave you the idea it isn't?
I can match your story from another perspective. My brother-in-law was in the air force in WWII. When his plane was shot down, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. He was also on a forced death march. He survived and, when he returned to this country, he went to school on the GI plan and became an eye doctor. He WAS NOT ALLOWED to take the qualifying exam in his own state of NY because he had studied at the University of Pennsylvania (one of the best in the country), and was unemployed for several years except for pick-up jobs.
Finally, NY State allowed him and other veterans to take the exam.
As I said, WAR IS HELL, and some innocent people suffer because of it. But I never once heard my brother-in-law complain about as you do.
The Japanese army was a vicious foe and needed to be brought down hard.
However, I hope that you're not supporting what happened in this country with the internments?
"Hi, [talk show host name] -- I've been a Republican all my life, but I have to say Bush needs to go...."
The more I think about it, the less I can explain Malkin any other way.
No, I'm not advocating internment of American citizens - but neither am I afraid to hear Malkin out. (My father, by the way, had not an ounce of animosity for Japanese-Americans, or even the Japanese in general, post-war.)
I know a lot about WWII, but I am always willing to learn more.
I am amazed that people would advocate holding her in "contempt" based on this piece. Are we so afraid to learn that not every Japanese-American was on our side?
Also, be thankful that you got to know your brother-in-law. My uncle came home from Germany in a box.
This notion is inapplicable to claims that are so absurd on their face as to be rejectable without going through the effort of investigation.
If you disagree, then I invite you to investigate the following claim:
If you stand on your left foot on top of a ten-inch-high stool while holding your right ear in your left hand, repeat the magic words OWAH TANA SIAM fifteen times, and then bend at the knee, the pot of gold from the end of the rainbow will appear in front of you.I'm fairly sure that nobody has ever gone through those exact steps. I'll admit to being a little fuzzy on the details -- if it doesn't work, you'll need to try it with sixteen, seventeen, etc repetitions before the knee-bend, and maybe vary the stool height a bit. A truly exhaustive investigation will require trying it all again while standing on your right foot and holding your left ear.
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