Posted on 12/28/2004 7:55:25 AM PST by 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
Read your first point and your last point. Also read the first and last sentence in your third point.
I'm not sure saying that the US should emulate the govts. of Hitler, Mussilini, and Tojo, is a very good way to make your point. In fact, it is a good argument for the opposing view.
During the Clinton Administration your argument would have read "I don't know about Internment Camps, but it is LUNACY to allow any person(s), who belong to a KNOWN group like Free Republic, conservatives or republicans in general, hell bent on the total annihilation of our way of life in general and our form of liberal, enlightened Western Civilisation in particular to have FREE reign to accomplish there tasks."
The essence of democrats is a lack of respect for individual freedom and for the idea of limited government. It was democrats who did this, I doubt the party of Lincoln would have. I think a rigorous investigation of every Japanese would have been warranted, but indiscriminate jailing was not. I think it is ok to profile the muslims and single them out for a closer look than grandma jones. But you just can not be in favor of summary internment.
As did UK, Canada, Austrailia, Finland, SU, France. And every other country in WW II.
It is matter of international law that enemy aliens can be interned.
You seem to be confusing the words "many" and "most", and the fact that I am talking about different age groups.
I seem to recall that in WW II Japanese-Americans fielded one of the most heroic and decorated units in US military history. They fought in Italy and were relentless, fearless and formidable in battle, taking huge losses in the defense of our/their country. Let Arab-American's take a lesson here.
In WW II we did not declare war against Emperor Hirohito and the Kamikazis, against Hitler and the SS. We declared war against Japan and Germany, and that means against the people of those repsective countries. When at war, all people of that nation/culture are suspect enemy. No room for fine distinctions.
Govt. can do anything it wants, including mass executions. But should but can domestic citizens in the US, be interned ? and as I recall, France was under Nazi occupation.
Ok, how come no one bothered looking at the internees and releasing them as time permitted. You keep desperatly trying to come up with arguments to support and unsupportable position. Instead, you could just modify you views.
Ah, yes, the "you didn't understand my nuanced presentation" argument. Leave that silliness for Kerry.
Because there was too much money to be made in looting the internees' property, and a premature release would spoil the fun.
The standard excuse of tyrants. "Time is of the essence! Do not waste valuable time thinking about what we're doing, you must ACT NOW OR ELSE WE ARE DOOMED!"
I don't think any American leaders were happy about or proud of the necessity to segregate Japanese Americans, but I also do not think they had any kind of alternative to doing just that.
Well, there wasn't anything else that would allow the political cronies of various California Democrats to loot the property of Americans of Japanese descent.
Given the immediacy of the crisis, their abject fear of further and more devastating attacks HERE and their knowledge of limited available US military resources and or lack of confidence in US military readiness...well, what else could they do in a hurry???
You do realize that had the Clinton Administration adopted that attitude on April 19th, 1995, you and I would still be locked up in a "temporary detention camp" right now?
I know that. I dated a girl whose Dad was an internee. He actually has a funny immigration story. His japanese name was Yomara. INS changed his name to something more american which in his case was Homer like in Simpson.
It isn't about American citizens that there is evidence of their committing or planning a crime.
It is about the preventive detention of over five million inoocent American citizens.
Now, the congress could declare war on all Moslems and then constitutionally authorize the preventive detention of over five million innocent American citizens who belonged to that religion IMO.
It would be incredibly stupid. Pipes isn't even advocating it. He's just throwing out concentration camps as raw meat for the types that like them.
Next time I wont waste my time responding.
Buh Bye.
Next time I wont waste my time responding.
Buh Bye.
The democrats and Hitlery in particular would have loved to locked all of us up. If Kerry had won, I fully expected to have 4 years of personal IRS hell.
NO Japanese-Americans were convicted of domestic espionage in WW II, despite the fact that all who were East of the Mississippi, and those in Hawaii (for particular reasons I describe in my book on the subject) were not detained.
On the other hand, dozens of German-Americans and Italian-Americans were convicted of such espionage.
If you are seriously interested in this subject, you should read a thorough and accurate account of these events. You could do worse than to start with my book, Manzanar, published by the Times Books Division of Random House.
Either learn about the subject, or leave it alone. Do not contribute further ignorance to this important issue.
Congressman Billybob
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