N.C. Congressman OK With Internment Camps

AP ^

[Barney Gumble]

N.C. Congressman OK With Internment Camps

HIGH POINT, N.C. - 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.

Rep. Howard Coble (news, bio, voting record), R-N.C., made the remark Tuesday on WKZL-FM when a caller suggested Arabs in the United States should be confined. Another congressman who was interned as a child criticized Coble for the comment, as did advocacy groups.

Coble, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said 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."

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 asked Coble to apologize and said he should be removed from his committee chairmanship.

"We are flabbergasted that a man who supports racial profiling and ethnic scapegoating" chairs the subcommittee, the group's national executive director, John Tateishi, said in a statement Wednesday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that Coble explain his remarks. Spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said the comments were "particularly disturbing."

In 1988, President Reagan signed a bill authorizing reparations of $20,000 for each surviving camp veteran.

[aristeides]

In Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950), the Supreme Court in 1950 upheld the continued imprisonment of German captured soldiers in U.S. military prison in Germany. They were captured in China in 1945, fighting alongside the Japanese after the surrender of Germany, and convicted of violating the law of war by continuing to fight.

[DoughtyOne]

To: DoughtyOne

Quite frankly, I don't like your tone. I have not defended enemies of American here.

You seem to be looking for a fight where there shouldn't be one. Nothing in my remarks implied that you were defending enemies of America.

When you brought up the treatment of US POWS, it seemed an inference that I should worry myself about them.  How do you know what I think about them?

And your snide comment about us adopting standards of Japan was a total inversion of my statement. We compensated the people; Japan didn't. We treated the
Japanese-Americans humanely; Japan didn't do the same for Americans.

I commented on precisely what I wanted to.  I did not condemn the housing, food or other items at internment camps.  Raising those issues was bogus on your part.

As for their losses of property or cash, I did mention it.  I do not believe all Japanese Americans were compensated wholely.  If they were, there would have been no basis for a 1980s fix.

When you brought up the treatment of our POWs vs the internment camps, it was a silly comparison.  Do you think I approve of how our POWs were treated?  Did I make any compartive statements?

You keep talking about "humane". The relocation camps were a lot more humane than you think; 4,5000 Japanese-Americans left the camps to go to college, $4
million was allocated to help others start businesses. Money from crops left behind were deposited in the peoples' accounts.

Once again, I mentioned the issues I wanted to.  You are the one going off the deep end exatrapolating opinions on issues I didn't address.  I didn't address the condition of camps.  I did not address the issue of people being unable to continue their education.  I did not address the issue of relocation or a lack of business seed money.

I addressed the problems with confiscation of property and restitution.  I have seen interviews with internees who address the issue of compensation.  They were not compensated.  Some may have been.  And if so fine.  Those who were not compensated were not treated humanely.

And people could leave the camps at any time to live anywhere other than the West Coast.

Did I say they couldn't?  What has this to do with the comments I made?

You're looking at 1942 through the prism of 2000. In 1942, the outcome of the war was not certain; In 2000, the outcome is well known. In 1942, there was
espionage and spying that could have tipped the outcome and who was or was not a spy or Japanese sympathiser was not apparent. The government response may
have been overboard (in today's prism) but it was as humane as possible.

Here you're going off on some diatribe about the 2000 vision of 1942.  I never said the outcome was predetermined.  That was the main basis I used for not condemning the camps.  Duh.

Listening to stories of separation can be wrenching. Next time you hear one, ask the speaker what his father did to get sent to Tule Lake rather than Nebraska.

Once again, your inference is off the wall.  How do you know I didn't?

You act as if the handling of the Japanese interns was perfect.  Hello, it wasn't.

I don't condemn it universally, but I do condemn some of the practices carried out.  If you don't like it, too bad.

36 posted on 02/06/2003 1:03 PM PST by jackliberty