Why the Japanese Internment Still Matters

War to Mobilize Democracy ^ | December 28, 2004 | Daniel Pipes

[forty_years]

For years, it has been my position that the threat of radical Islam implies an imperative to focus security measures on Muslims. If searching for rapists, one looks only at the male population. Similarly, if searching for Islamists (adherents of radical Islam), one looks at the Muslim population.

And so, I was encouraged by a just-released Cornell University opinion survey that finds nearly half the U.S. population agreeing with this proposition. Specifically, 44 percent of Americans believe that government authorities should direct special attention toward Muslims living in America, either by registering their whereabouts, profiling them, monitoring their mosques, or infiltrating their organizations.

Also encouraging, the survey finds the more people follow TV news, the more likely they are to support these common-sense steps. Those who are best informed about current issues, in other words, are also the most sensible about adopting self-evident defensive measures.

That's the good news; the bad news is the near-universal disapproval of this realism. Leftist and Islamist organizations have so successfully intimidated public opinion that polite society shies away from endorsing a focus on Muslims.

In America, this intimidation results in large part from a revisionist interpretation of the evacuation, relocation, and internment of ethnic Japanese during World War II. Although more than 60 years past, these events matter yet deeply today, permitting the victimization lobby, in compensation for the supposed horrors of internment, to condemn in advance any use of ethnicity, nationality, race, or religion in formulating domestic security policy.

Denying that the treatment of ethnic Japanese resulted from legitimate national security concerns, this lobby has established that it resulted solely from a combination of "wartime hysteria" and "racial prejudice." As radical groups like the American Civil Liberties Union wield this interpretation, in the words of Michelle Malkin, "like a bludgeon over the War on Terror debate," they pre-empt efforts to build an effective defense against today's Islamist enemy.

Fortunately, the intrepid Ms. Malkin, a columnist and specialist on immigration issues, has re-opened the internment file. Her recently published book, bearing the provocative title In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror (Regnery), starts with the unarguable premise that in time of war, "the survival of the nation comes first." From there, she draws the corollary that "Civil liberties are not sacrosanct."

She then reviews the historical record of the early 1940s and finds that:

• Within hours of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, two American citizens of Japanese ancestry, with no prior history of anti-Americanism, shockingly collaborated with a Japanese soldier against their fellow Hawaiians.

• The Japanese government established "an extensive espionage network within the United States" believed to include hundreds of agents.

• In contrast to loose talk about "American concentration camps," the relocation camps for Japanese were "spartan facilities that were for the most part administered humanely." As proof, she notes that over 200 individuals voluntarily chose to move into the camps.

• The relocation process itself won praise from Carey McWilliams, a contemporary leftist critic (and future editor of the Nation), for taking place "without a hitch."

• A federal panel that reviewed these issues in 1981-83, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, was, Ms. Malkin explains, "Stacked with left-leaning lawyers, politicians, and civil rights activists – but not a single military officer or intelligence expert."

• The apology for internment by Ronald Reagan in 1988, in addition to the nearly $1.65 billion in reparations paid to former internees was premised on faulty scholarship. In particular, it largely ignored the top-secret decoding of Japanese diplomatic traffic, codenamed the MAGIC messages, which revealed Tokyo's plans to exploit Japanese-Americans.

Ms. Malkin has done the singular service of breaking the academic single-note scholarship on a critical subject, cutting through a shabby, stultifying consensus to reveal how, "given what was known and not known at the time," President Roosevelt and his staff did the right thing.

She correctly concludes that, especially in time of war, governments should take into account nationality, ethnicity, and religious affiliation in their homeland security policies and engage in what she calls "threat profiling." These steps may entail bothersome or offensive measures but, she argues, they are preferable to "being incinerated at your office desk by a flaming hijacked plane."

http://netwmd.com/articles/article837.html

[SMARTY]

We would still be a colony of Britain with that way of looking at it. Instead, the founding fathers showed George III what he could do with his colonial aspirations in the Western hemisphere. We made a country and everyone has always been pretty welcome. Wartime??... Unprovoked attacks on the sovereign turf of the United States...???...Murder of unarmed civilians???...Perpetual and vivid promises of more and worse for us...??? that's another thing.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Where the hell do you get that ? There are plenty of racists in all camps, conservative and liberal. I think there are actually more in the liberal camp and to specifically single out paleos because a few of their members might be neo nazis is not right.

In fact, it is as bad as interning all japs just because 1 or 2 might be spies.

I think you completely misunderstood my post.

I was pointing out that some palaeoconservatives feel as negatively towards the internment of Japanese as do liberals because it was done by FDR and Earl Warren. It was in that context (sympathy for the interned Japanese) that I mentioned palaeo sympathy for the Axis.

[William Terrell]

In these cases, the government presented evidence before a judge, and the accused was allowed to question that evidence. (Due process, whaddafugginconcept...)

And if the very one or ones that will cost American lives gets past the judge? Which out of all those not brought before the judgewere sleepers? How many would have lost their lives to Americans who will just decide to bypass Due process, whaddafugginconcept?

Doubtless, the internment camps save the lives of some few. Would you have those Japanese loose their lives to prove you're not a "racist"?

Your thinking is not clear on this topic. And this being your position, you must apply it to Muslims, also, or be hypocrite.

How much freedom are you personally willing to forfeit in return for a government promise of security?

Depends on the level of clear and present danger, and if the measures have a post crisis sunset. America was in a war with the Japanese at the time, a duly declared war under 1-8-11.

How much damage to the country and citizens are you personally willing to endure for political correctness?

I asked, "How many American lives would you be willing to give up before you could think about internment?"

You didn't answer.

[Poohbah]

I asked, "How many American lives would you be willing to give up before you could think about internment?"

You're using the liberal "if it saves only ONE life, then it's worth the cost" argument.

And I asked an equally valid question: How many rapes (and concomitant murders) are you willing to accept before you could think about imprisoning interning all men in concentration detention camps?

Isn't that shoe starting to pinch a wee bit?

[Poohbah]

And if the very one or ones that will cost American lives gets past the judge?

BTW, that argument can be applied to the "imprison all men as potential rapists" argument.

It can also be applied to the "imprison all conservatives at potential Timothy McVeighs" argument.

You would surrender your freedom for a little security.

"Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams.

[William Terrell]

And you are using the bleeding heart liberal, "we can't profile the population that is the most likely source of the problem, we have to do everybody or we will be "racist".

[William Terrell]

BTW, that argument can be applied to the "imprison all men as potential rapists" argument.

A rapist trespasses on one life, for his own edification, making him a criminal. A terrorists or alien belligerent/spy trespass on many lives, for a general ideal, making him an enemy.

How is it that you can't tell the difference?

[Poohbah]

A rapist trespasses on one life, for his own edification, making him a criminal. A terrorists or alien belligerent/spy trespass on many lives, for a general ideal, making him an enemy.

That's nice. And this justifies the argument for detaining Americans of a minority group you dislike because...?

(Cue "Final Jeopardy" music)

How is it that you can't tell the difference?

How is it that you can't tell how the government will (not may, will) cheerfully abuse the power you seek to give it? How is it that you do not dread the prospect of President Hillary Clinton being able to indefinitely detain any American she deems a "terrorist" and an "enemy of the state?"

If Bubba Clinton had taken the tack you argue on April 19th, 1995, we'd both still be in "temporary detention for the duration of the emergency."

[Modernman]

Further most JA's were under the age of 16 and were only Americans by virtue of being born in this country.

What's your point? The vast majority of Americans are citizens because they were born in this country.

[Modernman]

Sicilians did not ally themselves with the anti American policies of a foreign country at war with the US. Or has that fact been re written too?

Neither did the vast majority of Japanese-Americans.

[Modernman]

MOST of the US aircraft mfg. in 1941 was on the west coast and ALL of that was within range of ANY Japanese gunboat that pulled up to shore or anywhere near shore.

Hawaii was pretty much the extent of how far the Japanese Navy could get without refueling facilities. Logistically, hitting Pearl Harbor was pure genius on the part of the Japanese Admiralty. Doing the same to San Francisco would have been next to impossible.

There was NO US navy to stop them and next to NO ground troops immediately present to protect these facilities.

Protect the facilities from what, an invasion? No way that was even in the realm of possibility.

[conserv13]

Also, Hawaii was not a state in 1941.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Good article. Pipes shows that the idea that the Japanese were interned solely because of their race is typical liberal BS. Liberal girly-men will whine and complain about this but never about the internment of Germans and Italians. The internment of white people never concerns them, after all, only white people can be racist.

[sinkspur]

Michelle Malkin and Daniel Pipes are defending the indefensible in this case. There is simply no other phrase that can accurately describe it. Antonin Scalia properly placed the Korematsu ruling approving the internment next to Dred Scott in terms of bad calls.

Absolutely right. To even consider interning American citizens simply because they are Muslim is hysteria at its worst.

[Paulus Invictus]

* Most were openly and rabidly Anti-American * Over 80% of those interned held dual citizenship. * Most of these, at the opening of hostilities, applied for visas to return to Japan * As this was an entirely new phenomenon, Congress had to enact regulations regarding issuance of visas during wartime.

Wow! Where did you get this strange data? I never read anything like it in the dozens of books I have read about the affair. The latest book is "The New Dealer's War'" in which the forced removal of the Japanese from California was the result of racist hostility and jealousy. Even J. Edgar Hoover was opposed to the incarceration of the Japanese/American citizens. FDR forced the issue, however and it was done.

My uncle was a camp commander and he never once mentioned any anti-Americans in the camps. Quite the contrary, he came to admire them and they liked him. There were camps here in Utah and they flew the flag and celebrated the 4th of July as fervently as anyone else. There were even more Japanese in Hawaii, but they were not removed. Futhermore, how come so many young Japanese in the camps joined the army and fought extremely well, winning more medals per unit than any other in WW II?

[staytrue]

the internment of Germans and Italians

The internment of anyone without some probable cause is wrong. I don't know the subject well, but my guess is the japanese internment was widespread, systemic and without any attempt at finding probably cause, while the internment of others was not widespread and I suspect the few who were interned was because of probable cause.

What the jap internment has to do with profiling is beyond me. Profiling is where you give a person a more rigorous investigation as opposed to someone else. Internment is profiling to the point of being judge jury and jailman all in on swoop.

[Paulus Invictus]

To be exact, they attacked us because FDR cut off all oil and steel supplies to Japan. They depended upon the oil we supplied for 50% of their needs. They wanted to assure new oil supplies from Dutch refineries and oil fields in Indonesia and they wasted little time in doing just that.

[staytrue]

the Japanese were interned solely because of their race is typical liberal BS

Ok, so some patriotic as hell jap citizen is strolling down the street minding his own business but then is put into an internment camp. Tell me why that this is liberal BS.

By the way, here is a great clinton quote for you "I never made policy SOLELY because of a campaign contribution."

[staytrue]

To even consider interning American citizens simply because they are Muslim is hysteria at its worst.

I agree, but I do think it is okay to watch them a little more closely than you would watch grandma jones.