Posted on 09/05/2004 6:47:31 PM PDT by quidnunc
Sixteen years ago, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, proclaiming it "a great day for America." It provided $1.65 billion in restitution to 82,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry who had been subjected to evacuation, relocation and internment during World War II.
Although it was almost universally hailed at the time, the decision was one of Reagan's biggest blunders. In a rare capitulation to political correctness, Reagan ignored the advice of his own military and legal experts who opposed wartime reparations for ethnic Japanese evacuees and internees. The road to reparations was paved with injustice, intellectual dishonesty and incompetence. The panel created by Congress to assess whether the evacuation and relocation of West Coast ethnic Japanese were militarily necessary didn't include anyone with a military or intelligence background. The 500-page report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians devoted just 10 pages to intelligence.
Worse, the commission failed to acknowledge the existence of long- declassified MAGIC cables — which revealed Japan's extensive espionage activities on the West Coast — until after it had published its famous indictment that wartime relocation and internment were the result of "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership." The commission's legal counsel hastily dismissed MAGIC's importance in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to approve Executive Order 9066 and the West Coast evacuation.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Hate to say it, but God forbit another 911 on America the Jews, myself included, will then cease to be the most hated people on the Earth.
How much did Japan pay the prisoners of war forced on the Bataan death march?
I believe they paid them with something along the lines of...
"We regret for having been so harsh."
You can say they paid with nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Ah, nothing like the smell of PC in the morning...
The real key is that many of those interned were American citizens. Many were undoubtedly loyal Americans. I believe J Edgar Hoover was of the opinion that the internment was not necessary, that he could track any Japanese Americans who were engaged in espionage.
I love this babe. There is no backdown in her!
I suppose Michelle Malkin thinks she's smarter than Ronald Reagan now.
Actually, i was responding to someone else's question about how did the Japanese repay the people they interned... and often killed.
The Japanese were interned en masse to protect them from the general population.
Just as Arabs will be after another jihadi atrocity on American soil.
I don't think another atrocity will happen. I'm trying to be optimistic. I hope it doesn't come to that.
Yes, almost all were American citizens, 99.9% were patriotic citizens who had their businesses, assets, etc. confiscated. This thread should die.
Rose-colored glasses placemarker.
Those b*stards are dedicated, and they're here, now.
Wow being optimistic is wearing rose colored glasses????
In this case, yes.
Well I'll wear my rose colored glasses and not give myself an ulcer, as opposed to believing the very worst about my country's military and other law enforcement to protect me. More than that, I believe in God and pray every day for this nation.
I join you in prayer.
No, that's not quite the case.
There were many who were loyal to the Empire of Japan.
The problem was that we could not just arrest the spies and troublemakers without tipping Japan off that we had broken their diplomatic code.
Consequently, moved all Japanese from the West Coast and we didn't do anything with Japanese in other parts of the US unless they were aliens.
Incidently, we didn't intern the Japanese, we excluded thm from the West Coast.
Those with someplace to go inland could go there instead of to a camp if they were citizen.
Another good point is that, unlike with slavery reparations, the internees were still alive and around to be actually repaid, not their distant descendants.
They were interned and their assets and businesses were seized.
thanks... I prayed tonight for the little innocents in Russia. I think by the grace of God only that it has not happened here again.
Read your history.
On one hand, I hear you, because at the outset it appears so wrong (racism being in question and all).
On the other hand, if all the people of Japanese ancestry interned during WWII were either only of Japanese citizenship or dual citizens who refused to renounce their Japanese citizenship, wouldn't it change the perspective quite dramatically?
It was because so much vital industry, especially our aircraft industry, was located onm the West Coast that the Japanese were excluded.
We did not have adequate resources at the time to defend against sabotage.
None were interned and none had their assets seized? Gimme a break!
The commission's legal counsel hastily dismissed MAGIC's importance in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to approve Executive Order 9066 and the West Coast evacuation.Nice of a SF newspaper to run a story like this, what with Reagan recently deceased and still being mourned, and an election going down the tubes for the Demagogic Party. It'll try anything to split off a few Bush supporters. The reason these reparations were done is to pull down the Marble Man version of FDR.
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
That would be different, and I did read her book so my views about it have softened. Seeing as how I was not there I'm not going to play sixty year hindsight about this issue. Every article I've seen her write lately is about PC this and that, but she does have a new book so I can't blame her really.
yes, that would change the situation. But it wasn't the situation.
$0.00
I didn't say none.
Obviously those who were considered to be a threat or who were enemy aliens by law were interned.
The camp for these hard cases was originally at Thule Lake, CA, but they were subsequently moved to Arizona.
However, the others who were not considered to be threats could leave the camps if they had some place inland to go.
Wherever there are Muslims mixed with other cultures, there is death and destruction, unless they are a tiny minority. Look around. WAKE UP!
Tell me what percentage then. I know in your country, Canada, virtually 100% were interned and their assets seized.
Fair enough.
I'm actually not convinced every person in those camps was either only of Japanese citizenship or had failed to renounce his/her Japanese citizenship.
Not sure if Malkin is able to prove this without a doubt (I haven't yet read her book).
Do you have any sources?
I'm interested in learning the truth about this citizenship issue.
When I read the book, I got the impression that it was more disarm the liberal claims of apartheid like oppression about ethnic profiling. The people that need to read the book aren't going to read the book though. It would only be us conservatives reading it *lol*
2/3's according to this link.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html
I'm not a Canadian, and what's more I'm old enougfh to remember WW II well.
I have no idea what percentage of the Japanese were actually interned and opposed to just being removed from the exclusion zone.
What caused FDR to decide on exclusion from the West Coast was the fact that in every country which the Japanese conquered an occupation government immediately emerged from among the Japanese expatriates there.
To him that indicated a very thorough penetration of the Japanese diaspora by Japanese intelligence.
I understand his thoughts and the reasons for it. Check out the above link though. There were not 120,000 "hard cases". Imagine your government doing this to you. I have friends who lost everything. The fact the policy was reversed in two years tells you they realized it was a big mistake.
You are right about this. They were American citizens, and their assets were taken from them and sold.
This is slippery slope stuff.
I broke a nail.
Hard times call for hard measures.
We had to protect out vulnerable defense industries on the West Coast without tipping Japan off to the fact that we had broken many of their codes.
Our access to Japanese codes was paramount and exclusion from the West Coast was reckoned to be the only polict that would not tip off the japanese.
The British knew that the Germans were going to mount a massive bombing raid against Covenrty, but they didn't dare tip the townspeople off because to do so would have revealed that they had broken the German cosed.
As a result, Coventry was bombed into rubble with a terrible loss of life.
I sympathize with those forcibly removed from the West Coast, but a lot of Americans made even bigger sacrifices during WW II.
Thank you.
I've come across that link before and noticed it isn't very specific on how "citizen of the United States" is defined.
Those born in Japan who immigrated to the US could not, by law, become United States citizens (until the law was changed in 1965). However, their children born in the US (called Nisei) were automatically US citizens. What complicated matters is that Japanese law mandated that any child born to a Japanese father was automatically a Japanese citizen, regardless of birth place.
People with dual citizenship were indeed United States citizens, but they were also citizens of Japan, a nation with which we were at war. So a loyalty oath (one way or the other) from a dual citizen was understandably expected.
Probably so! *LOL*
Fair enough, friend.
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