Posted on 02/05/2003 4:16:00 PM PST by Jean S
HIGH POINT, N.C. (AP) - A congressman who heads a homeland security subcommittee said on a radio call-in program that he agreed with the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
A fellow congressman who was interned as a child criticized Coble for his comment on Wednesday, as did advocacy groups.
Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., made the remark Tuesday on WKZL-FM when a caller suggested Arabs in the United States should be confined.
Coble, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said that he didn't agree with the caller but did agree with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who established the internment camps.
"We were at war. They (Japanese-Americans) were an endangered species," Coble said. "For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street."
Like most Arab-Americans today, Coble said, most Japanese-Americans during World War II were not America's enemies.
Still, Coble said, Roosevelt had to consider the nation's security.
"Some probably were intent on doing harm to us," he said, "just as some of these Arab-Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us."
U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., a Japanese-American who spent his early childhood with his family in an internment camp during World War II, said he spoke with Coble on Wednesday to learn more about his views.
"I'm disappointed that he really doesn't understand the impact of what he said," Honda said. "With his leadership position in Congress, that kind of lack of understanding can lead people down the wrong path."
The Japanese American Citizens League called Coble on Wednesday and asked him to issue an apology, while the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee demanded that Coble explain his remarks.
It is "a sad day in our country's tradition when an elected official ... openly agrees with an unconstitutional and racist policy long believed to be one of the darkest moments of America's history," the group said in a statement.
AP-ES-02-05-03 1842EST
Islamism is the invocation and/or actualization of jihad to impose sharia, or Islamic law, on the infidel - or ALL non-Muslims - by force.
All American Muslims should renounce Islamism. If they don't, I believe an argument can be made for the idea that they are traitors to this country, and should be locked up.
MKM
While it's true that people of German and Italian descent (mostly aliens) were interned for being disloyal during WWII, the same is not true for ethnic Japanese. They vast majority were interned for being Japanese. This would account for the fact that, while over 100,000 Japanese were interned, only 10,900 Germans and 3,200 Italians were held.
Besides, much as I hate to point it out, most security risks involve this group:
FBI agents arrest pair on espionage charges
Woman with Aryan ties accused of trying to pass defense secrets
Bill Morlin
Staff writer
A former Washington Army National Guard officer and his ex-wife were arrested Tuesday on espionage charges involving an alleged attempt to pass secrets to an attorney for well-known racists.
Rafael Davila, 51, and Deborah Davila-Cummings, 46, were simultaneously arrested by FBI agents at separate locations in Washington and Oregon.
Davila-Cummings is accused of attempting to pass top-secret U.S. documents. A federal source said the intended recipient was attorney Kirk Lyons of North Carolina. He is named in the indictment, but not charged.
The charges were filed in U.S. District Court in Spokane.
The indictment alleges that sometime in August 1999, Davila-Cummings attempted to deliver "national defense documents."
Her former husband is accused of "unauthorized retention" of national security documents that she's accused of attempting to deliver.
The nature of the documents isn't detailed in the indictment.
Davila-Cummings has visited the former Aryan Nations compound in North Idaho and has ties to certain Aryan Nations members, according to a federal source familiar with the case.
Davila was arrested at his parents' home in Ontario, Ore, authorities said. His former wife, a special education teacher for the Pasco School District, was arrested at her home in College Place, Wash.
They both face up to life in prison if convicted of the charges.
Both are named in separate counts of "unlawful retention of documents relating to the national defense of the United States."
Only Devila-Cummings is named in a third count of attempting to deliver documents relating to the national defense.
She is accused in a fourth count of making a false statement to the FBI.
On April 20, 2000, the indictment alleges, she made a "false, fraudulent and fictitious material statement" when interviewed by FBI agents.
She said "she did not recognize Kirk Lyons' name and was certain she never met Kirk Lyons, when in truth and fact she knew her statement and representation was false," the indictment says.
Her father, Earl Cummings, of Spokane, said he learned of his daughter's arrest when she called him from jail on Tuesday.
"I have no idea what they're talking about," the 80-year-old Cummings said.
Asked if his daughter had ties to the Aryan Nations or its members, Cummings responded, "None whatsoever."
He said his daughter and her former husband were divorced "some time ago," and he couldn't provide further details about the former husband's background.
Another source said Davilia served in Vietnam, then became a military intelligence officer for the Washington Army National Guard.
The couple has lived in Western Washington and Alaska, other sources said.
They were ordered held without bond after an initial appearance Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno.
She scheduled detention hearings for Thursday.
"This case involves the sale of `top secret' and `secret' documents involved with the defense of the United States," Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Hicks said in court on Tuesday.
Outside of court, he declined to comment. Hicks said a statement would be released today by U.S. Department of Justice officials in Washington, D.C.
Jim McDevitt, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, also wouldn't discuss details of the case.
"These espionage case are very, very important," McDevitt said. "These allegations are very, very serious."
Lyons couldn't be reached for comment in North Carolina Tuesday.
He was married at the former Aryan Nations compound to a woman whose family was close to Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler.
Lyons has called himself an "active sympathizer" with his clients, who have included former Texas Ku Klux Klan leader Louis Beam and James Wickstrom, head of the Posse Comitatus.
More recently, Lyons has been associated with the Council of Conservative Citizens.
• Bill Morlin can be reached at (509) 459-5444 or by e-mail at billm@spokesman.com. Spokane News.
[clip][/clip]
They were cold, wet, weary and battle-scarred. Yet that didn't stop the men with names like Hayashi, Inouye, Kobashigawa, Okutsu, Sakato and Kuwayama from answering the call Oct. 27, 1944, to rescue a battalion surrounded by German forces.
For the next three days, their unit, the all-Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, would fight in dense woods, heavy fog and freezing temperatures near Bruyeres, France, and prove their motto "Go for Broke!" wasn't mere words. "Go for Broke" is Hawaiian slang for "shoot the works."
The Germans cut off the Texas National Guard 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment in the Vosges Mountains on Oct. 24. The 442nd was ordered in after the enemy had repelled repeated rescue tries by the 141st's other two battalions.
Nearly half the men in the Japanese American unit would be dead or wounded three days later with the "Lost Battalion" still isolated.
"Then, something happened in the 442nd," according to historians at the Army Center for Military History in Washington. "By ones and twos, almost spontaneously and without orders, the men got to their feet and, with a kind of universal anger, moved toward the enemy position. Bitter hand-to-hand combat ensued as the Americans fought from one fortified position to the next. Finally, the enemy broke in disorder."
"The Lost Battalion" rescue is recorded in U.S. military annals as one of the great ground battles of World War II. The regiment relieved the 211 besieged Texans on Oct. 30, and had gone for broke to do it: It suffered more than 800 combat casualties.
Thankful members of the 141st gave their rescuers a plaque that read, "With deep sincerity and utmost appreciation for the gallant fight to effect our rescue after we'd been isolated for seven days."
The "Lost Battalion" is just one entry -- a defining one, to be sure, but only one -- in the regiment's catalog of valor during World War II. For its size and time in combat, less than two years, the 442nd is the most decorated unit in U.S. military history.
The lead case was Korematsu v. US, 1944, approving the jailings for racial identity only, no charges, no trials. A minority of 3 Justices said this "goes beyond the outer limits" of the power of a Commander-in-Chief, and into "the ugly abyss of racism." Fred Korematsu himself went back to court 45 years later, and had his conviction thrown out as violating the Constitution.
One of my eight books was on those internments, Manzanar, and I practice in the Supreme Court. I condemn in advance ANYONE who attempts to defend this excreable decision of the US Supreme Court.
Congressman Billybob
Click for latest column for UPI, "Those in Peril on the Sea" (Now up on UPI wire, and FR.)
As the politician formerly known as Al Gore has said, my book, "to Restore Trust in America"
The Japanese whose disloyalty was known were interned. The others on the West Coast were relocated, either to the relocation camps or to places of their own choosing away from the West Coast.
You're condemning me, then.
Have you, by any chance, read Lowman's book MAGIC? If you have not, may I suggest you do so before opining on this subject. Before judging what the government did, you really should know why it did it.
At the end of the war, those on Hawaii were still free. NONE of those interned on the Mainland was ever convicted of any crime of espionage or sabotage. On the other hand, a few German-Americans and Italian-Americans (who were not interred) were so convicted.
Even on Hawaii, where the animus against "Japanese" was obviously the strongest, none of the backlash that Rep. Coble talks about, occurred. He is wrong, wrong, WRONG.
Congressman Billybob
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.