bulldogg said:
How was it supposed to be obvious in 1942 when hostilities had just begun? How? Hindsight makes one omniscient but in 1942 things were not obvious no matter what you choose to believe. I am not haunted nor feel shame for actions prior to my birth. They did what they thought was right at the time and were very humane when you take into consideration what others did at this time.
(1)
Legal problems: How do you change the American legal system to make some citizens guilty before proven innocent? How do you change the American legal system to target a group of citizens on racial grounds using physical facial differences or a last name? Remember we are talking about American citizens and not those living in occupied territories. They were American citizens and legally entitled to the rights guaranteed by the constitution: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States". It is no wonder that Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 was later considered by many to be unconstitutional. [Was it ever repealed?]
(2)
Civilians & War - A Lesson from the Geneva Convention: [Nuremberg established that the Geneva Convention could be instituted ex post facto]. Article 79 states: The Parties to the conflict shall not intern protected persons, except in accordance with the provisions of Articles. A list of reasons and controls are offered. In the US case, I am not even sure how the Japanese or German Americans were classified...they did not fall under the status of enemy belligerent or enemy non-combatant. They were citizens and protected by the constitution.
(3)
Hindsight? Assuming internment was temporarily legal or understandable, which it was not, what factors could possibly have warranted the actions in the first place? What evidence at the time revealed that a "5th Column" existed? None. Internment was based on spurious racist arguments. It was odd that Roosevelt supported policies at home that he blasted as immoral on the international stage. The more I think about Roosevelt, the more disgusted I become. For me, just more wartime hysteria and hypocrisy. [See below for more on the "5th Column"]
(4)
At least Japanese internment was not as bad as in other countries? Sure. But is this really an argument? Why would Americans want to compare any of their actions with Stalin's Gulags, Hitler's Camps, or Polish, Czech or Serbian ethnic cleansing operations? The fact that this type of argumentation even exists is an admission of how immoral some American actions actually were. Do Americans really want to judge themselves according to the worst examples of inhumanity in history?
Here are some interesting facts:
(1)
Some internment prior to war: "Upon the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Presidential Proclamations 2525 (Japanese), 2526 (German) and 2527 (Italian) were signed. Many homes were raided using information from the CDI, and hundreds of aliens were in custody by the end of the day, including Germans and Italians (although war was not declared on Germany or Italy until December 11)".
(2)
Japanese "guilt" on race grounds: Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, who administered the internment program, repeatedly told newspapers that "A Jap's a Jap" and testified to Congress, "I don't want any of them (persons of Japanese ancestry) here. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty ... It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty. ... But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map."
(3)
Strange simularities to the Holocaust: "Most internees suffered significant property losses. Upon evacuation, the Japanese American internees were told that they could bring only as many articles of clothing, toiletries, and other personal effects as they could carry....Some Japanese American farmers had to sell their property in a matter of days, for pennies on the dollar. In these cases, the land speculators who bought the land made huge profits."
The German 5th Column as an Explanation: I am not going to write a great deal on this issue...suffice to say that it is yet another historical hoax. Germans in Czechoslovakia or Poland, for example, formed political organizations during the 1920s and 1930s and had contacts with Nazi-Germany. So what. This type of behavoiur was true of much of Europe. Ukranians and Russians even formed anti-Communist groups that were sponsored by the western democracies and operated in Stalin's prison state. Getting back to the Germans, the 1920s and 1930s witnessed two decades of Czech and Polish persecution...programs that left thousands of Germans dead, raped and property-free. Any even slightly objective account of German or Ukranian political activities has to recognize (a) the inalienable human right to pursue political activities and (b) that these groups only did so because they were persecuted in the first place and (c) that these groups did not represent a threat to the perpetrators...other than by natural demographic weight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment