[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by FLIPPER 348

there was no *might*, it was happening

Ah, so it's ok then. They were all criminals. That's what you mean, right? Every single person, man woman and child, who got locked up was conspiring against the United States?

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by HighTechRedneck

That is unfortunate for the Japanese Americans who were imprisoned, but at the time, it was believed to be necessary enough to go through the trouble.

Believed by who?

They were CITIZENS. They get to vote. They were people, just like you, whose ancestors came to this great nation, just like yours, in search of a better life. What makes you more of an American than "them"?

[FLIPPER 348]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

Nope.

Lots of things do depend on the situation. Not this one. Imprisoning someone because of where their parents were born is and always will be wrong.

You would not have said that in 1942. Do a little research and your knee-jerk reaction might change a bit.

Do you think with a two front war going on & while we were losing one quite badly we would take the time and military resources to move & secure several 1000 people for no reason??

[FLIPPER 348]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

Ah, so it's ok then. They were all criminals. That's what you mean, right? Every single person, man woman and child, who got locked up was conspiring against the United States?

No, some of them were. How would you have handled the situation??

[HollowHead]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

If the government came to lock me and my family up and confiscated our property because I have yellow skin and slanty eyes...

And this is exactly what gets me about the, "...they interred German-Americans and Italian-Americans, too." argument. The G-A and I-A combined numbers were somewhere in the 4% area (5K) and most of those were naturalized / resident aliens. Over 111K American citizens of Japanese ancestry were locked up and properties taken simply because they didn't look like Germans or Italians. HH

[aplcr0331]

Is anyone saying we should lock up American citizens today? Why are we arguing over something that already happened? The government apologized, payed reparations and most everyone knows that it was a mistake. Good grief, tomorrow I'm hugging the first Japanese person I see and buying them some tea so we can have a good cry about this.

[FLIPPER 348]

Originally Posted by HollowHead

Over 111K American citizens of Japanese ancestry were locked up and properties taken simply because they didn't look like Germans or Italians. HH

No, it's because we were not threatened by an invasion on the East Coast.

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by FLIPPER 348

You would not have said that in 1942.

Well, in 1942 my family was still in Korea. My grandfather was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army, in fact. Most of my extended family was already dead--murdered, you see, during the Japanese occupation.

Do you think with a two front war going on & while we were losing one quite badly we would take the time and military resources to move & secure several 1000 people for no reason??

Absolutely.

I wore the green suit, just like you. You can't possibly tell me that you didn't see things that were unfathomably wasteful and stupid during your time in the green machine.

There is no "reason" that's a good enough reason to lock up American citizens who are not being charged with a crime. Not a single one. The fact that I have to explain this on a forum dedicated to supporting the second amendment is saddening and sickening at the same time.

Those people were citizens, just like me and you. Many of them were born here, just like me and you. They have ancestors that came from somewhere else, just like me and you.

Where they came from does not matter. They lived here, they followed the laws of this country, they were entitled to the legal protections that are afforded to any citizen.

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by FLIPPER 348

No, some of them were. How would you have handled the situation??

Figured out which ones they were, and locked those ones up. How is that even a question?

[427]

Originally Posted by FLIPPER 348

No, it's because we were not threatened by an invasion on the East Coast.

So sabotage, captured spies and Uboats off the east coast and in the gulf of mexico don't count?

[FLIPPER 348]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

Where they came from does not matter. They lived here, they followed the laws of this country, they were entitled to the legal protections that are afforded to any citizen.

Dude, it was war and a different time. (we were attacked BTW)

[FLIPPER 348]

Originally Posted by 427

So sabotage, captured spies and Uboats off the east coast and in the gulf of mexico don't count?

No, there was no threat of German invasion.

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by aplcr0331

Is anyone saying we should lock up American citizens today?

Just a few years ago we had an American citizen locked up at Guantanamo without a trial.

Why are we arguing over something that already happened?

Because there are people who claim to be Americans that love freedom who think it was fine.

[FLIPPER 348]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

Figured out which ones they were, and locked those ones up. How is that even a question?

How is that even an answer given the situation we were in at the time??

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by FLIPPER 348

How is that even an answer given the situation we were in at the time??

Times of crisis are precisely when it is the most important to respect the rights we are guaranteed in our Constitution. Did you swear to defend the Constitution only when it was convenient? I sure as hell didn't.

[HollowHead]

Originally Posted by FLIPPER 348

No, it's because we were not threatened by an invasion on the East Coast.

BS. A German U-boat landed five Nazi commandos on the the south shore of Long Island not far from where I went to high school. Outside of a few baloon bombs, what was the IJA presence on US soil? HH

[427]

Originally Posted by devildog2067

Just a few years ago we had an American citizen locked up at Guantanamo without a trial.



Because there are people who claim to be Americans that love freedom who think it was fine.

We are at war and there are provisions in the Patriot act that allow Americans to be held without trials indefinitely. It seems pretty easy to labeled an "enemy of the state."

[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by aplcr0331

Is anyone saying we should lock up American citizens today?

Originally Posted by 427

We are at war and there are provisions in the Patriot act that allow Americans to be held without trials indefinitely.

See? There you go.

[Trapped_in_Kali]

Was it right?
No.
Would I have done anything different?
I don't know, I wasn't there. There was a lot of prejudice against Asians and anger over Dec 7th.
Today is a different time & hindsight is 20/20.

[FLIPPER 348]

Originally Posted by HollowHead

BS. Outside of a few baloon bombs, what was the IJA presence on US soil? HH

– The attack on Pearl Harbor severely damaged our Pacific forces and brought America into WW2 – on the side that was currently losing. And this was not like the Gulf War or Vietnam, we could not simply choose to “go home” and end the war. Losing would have likely meant — at some point — marauding Axis armies marching through the countryside raping, murdering, and pillaging everything in their path. The stakes don’t get any higher than they were in a conflict like World War 2.

– On December 11th of 1941, the freighter SS Lahaina was sunk by a Japanese sub off of Honolulu. Another Japanese sub sank the SS Manini in Hawaiian waters 6 days later. On December 18th, another sub sank the SS Prusa near the “big island”. Several other December attacks occurred within 20 miles of the California and Oregon coastlines. On February 23rd, a Japanese sub shelled the Ellwood oil fields in Goleta, California. At least one “high ranking Japanese military official–Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi…was eager to carry the war to the U.S. mainland”.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson also wrote this in his diary on February 10, 1942

“…I think it is quite within the bounds of possibility that if the Japanese should get naval dominance in the Pacific they would try an invasion of this country; and, if they did, we would have a tough job meeting them.”

In other words, Japanese forces were close and the danger to our homeland was very real.

– Richard Kotoshirodo, a Japanese American and John Mikami, who was Japanese, gathered extensive amounts of information while they were spying that was very helpful to the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. Japanese-Americans (Yoshio and Irene Harada) aided a Japanese pilot who landed at Niihau island, Hawaii after being shot down while attacking Pearl Harbor.

Cables decoded from the Japanese in May 1941 said in part,

“We have already established contacts with absolutely reliable Japanese in the San Pedro and San Diego area, who will keep a close watch on all shipments of airplanes and other war materials…”

That same cable also stated that the Japanese had Japanese-American spies in the Army and that they were watching traffic crossing the American / Mexican border.

A January 3rd, 1942 army MID memo states, “‘there can be no doubt that’ most of the leaders within the Japanese espionage network of Japanese clubs, business groups, and labor organizations “continue to function as key operatives for the Japanese government along the West Coast”.

So we knew that the Japanese had a spy network in America before Pearl Harbor and we believed it was still operating after the attacks.

– While we clearly couldn’t trust citizens of Japan (or other Axis nations) to run around unsupervised while we were in the middle of a fight to the finish with their home-countries (hence the 11,229 Japanese citizens, 10,905 German citizens, 3,728 Italian citizens and a few others who were rounded up and interned), American born citizens were of course a different matter. Certainly, most of them were loyal. Curtis Munson who was been sent to investigate the issue, estimated that 90-98% of Japanese-Americans could be trusted (although he had his doubts about 9000 Kibei — Japanese-Americans schooled in Japan).

However, Munson also noted that even a very small number of saboteurs could do a cataclysmic damage to the war effort,

“…The harbor at San Pedro could be razed by fire completely by four men with grenades and a little study in one night. Dams could be blown and half of lower California might actually die of thirst. One railway bridge at the exit from the mountains in some cases could tie up three or four main railroads…”

Here’s more on the damage that could be caused by saboteurs from Provost Marshal General Allen Gullion,

“If production for war is seriously delayed by sabotage in the West Coastal states, we very possibly shall lose the war….from reliable reports from military and other sources, the danger of Japanese-inspired espionage is great.”

– America and other nations traditionally interned “enemy aliens” during wars. For example, in World War 1 more than 6300 “European-born civilians” were interned. Moreover, Mexico and Canada both chose to move ethnic Japanese away from their coasts. Also, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that interning Japanese citizens was constitutional.



– Last but not least, there were no easy options for dealing with the situation. Mere monitoring of suspect Japanese citizens would have likely be too difficult given the number of people involved, the consequences of failure, and the demands of a world war. Criminal prosecutions of suspected spies would have been nearly impossible because intelligence sources couldn’t be revealed and it would be extraordinarily difficult to prove someone who was say simply watching ship movements (so they could later report them) was committing a crime. Another possibility would have been some sort of “quasi-judicial military tribunal,” but there would have been constitutional questions about that and it couldn’t possibly be as effective as evacuating and/or interning Japanese-Americans along the West Coast.

[JW1178]

Then you look at today where we have anti-american islamist living in this country and enjoying the 1st adm rights against us.

[HollowHead]

Google "Balbir Singh Sodhi" and you'll see what happens to innocent Americans who just happen to look like the bad guys. And the saddest part is that he didn't even look like the bad guys... HH

[jollygreen]

Screw it. I never shot an Indian, never owned a slave and never interned a japanese.

I don't feel a bit guilty re the real or imagined mistakes of my ancestors. It's all ancient history.

[Hauptmann6]

Herding thousands of your citizens into concentration camps is wrong. No matter their ancestry.

[MAC702]

Originally Posted by FLIPPER 348

No, some of them were [criminals]...

[In the 1980's], legal historian Peter Irons stumbled upon evidence that government officials had withheld several documents from the Supreme Court stating that Japanese Americans posed no military threat to the United States. ...

In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act, which led to a formal government apology for internment and payment to of $20,000 to internment survivors.

Source: http://racerelations.about.com/od/th...Internment.htm