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A Blessed Thanksgiving to all.
I just wanted to address specifically one part of The
Washington Post article where it said, "In World War II, the United States
rounded up Japanese Americans and deprived them of their liberty."
There was an interesting commentary in Chronicles, February
1995, titled, The Eternal Regiment, which was about a
Japanese-American Infantry Regiment that had the reputation of being the
"most decorated" American unit of World War II.
"The amount of propaganda about this unit circulated by the
Japanese-American community and its supporters is truly astounding."
However, my intention is not to go into the saga of the
infantry, but to address the issue of Japanese-American internment.
Chronicles writes: "In fact, when the government wanted
to close the relocation centers in December 1944--long before the war's
end--Japanese-American leaders both in and out of the relocation centers lobbied
Washington not to close them ; Among their many reasons, the
evacuees' lands had been leased for the duration of the war; some of
the Japanese nationals were still not convinced that Japan would lose the war;
and as Lillian Baker reported in her 1991 book, The japanning of America;
Redress & Reparations Demands by Japanese-Americans ("japanning"
referring to the process of blackening fabric or metal; in this case, the
varnishing of truth and the blackening of America's honor), some of the Japanese
"frankly never had it so good, being given three meals a day, a bed, medical
attention, and no requirement to 'work' for any of this and [some of them]
actually wept when the relocation centers were closed. This meant these
men were going from non-labor back to stoop labor."
"Remember, all that the evacuees were required to do to be
released from the relocation centers--and from the dances, dinners, concerts,
parties, schools, and graduation ceremonies that the centers provided the
children and their families at taxpayers' expense, which Japanese-American
lobbyists in the 1980's described as "pain and hardship" - was to pledge
allegiance to the United States and to resettle in one of the 44 available
states not designated a military zone. Even Mas Odoi, president of the
442nd Memorial Association, admitted in testimony before a United States Senate
hearing in 1984 that the evacuees were by no means "imprisoned" in
"concentration camps," that they were free to leave upon certifying their
loyalty to this country, that the "majority of people that are active [in the
redress and reparations movement] are the Sanseis and young Niseis who were not
born or were small children at the time," and that the Personal Justice Denied
report by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians is
"very biased" and "decidedly pro-redress because the moderate voices (in the
Japanese-American community) have been largely squelched."
Sort of gives a different side of the picture, doesn't
it?
Stella
----- Original Message -----
By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, November 19, 2001; Page A21
In World War II, the United States destroyed Nagasaki
without pausing to see whether the first atom bomb, dropped on Hiroshima three
days earlier, would induce Japanese surrender. Half a century later, few
Americans complain about this incident. In World War II, the United States
rounded up Japanese Americans and deprived them of their liberty. Half a
century later, this wartime expedient is denounced as heinous. Incinerating a
civilian is apparently better than locking him up, if the lockup is at home.
Geography is everything.
Now consider the Bush administration's decision last week
to authorize military tribunals for trying foreigners suspected of terrorist
connections. The most troubling part was that these tribunals potentially may
be set up at home, not just in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Abroad, tribunals seem
possibly okay; after all, there's a war going on out there. At home, they are
harder to stomach; after all, there's a Bill of Rights to protect
here.
Is this geographic segregation tenable? You can certainly
question it. It is easy for civil libertarians to denounce Japanese internment
now, but the fact that the Supreme Court upheld the policy at the time shows
that contemporary guardians of the Bill of Rights thought the issue was more
complicated. World War II also offers a direct precedent for President Bush's
military tribunals: Nazi agents caught on American soil were tried by military
court, and the Supreme Court signed off on this.
If military tribunals on American soil were tolerable
then, surely now the case is stronger? More than past wars, this one is being
fought on the home front; there is a Homeland czar to prove it. Unlike past
enemies, al Qaeda is not a territorial army with a few appended saboteurs; it
is saboteurs, period.
Moreover, these saboteurs are scarier than any of their
predecessors. In past wars against nations, the United States feared agents
who might blow up dams, not aspirant martyrs who might nuke a city. Even
terrorists used to understand limits. In 1944 two members of the Zionist Stern
Gang were captured by an Egyptian policeman because they chose not to shoot
him. Killing ordinary officials violated their terrorist
principles.
If the nation is up against a ruthless foe who operates on
its home turf, can't it use traditional courts to fight him? To a large extent
it can and should; military tribunals are nobody's first option. But sometimes
it may be impossible to prosecute without compromising an intelligence source,
and that's a serious problem. In past wars, intelligence was one of many
weapons. In the struggle against the foe in the shadows, intelligence is the
weapon.
If America has used domestic tribunals in the past, and if
a transnational, suicidal enemy makes them seem more necessary now, why should
one resist them? The classic response is that ruthlessness is self-defeating.
The successful terrorist movements of the past -- in Ireland prior to 1921, in
Palestine in the 1940s, in Algeria in the 1950s -- have all won by inducing
governments to carry out unpopular crackdowns that undermined their own
legitimacy.
This is a good argument for restraint. But it is not an
argument for restraint at home exceeding the restraint exercised externally.
American legitimacy in this war depends on popular support abroad as well as
at home; and in the CNN era, support at home is affected by the way we conduct
the war externally. If anything, one might argue that restraint abroad is more
important than restraint domestically, because the battle for public opinion
abroad is a lot fiercer.
The truth is that the case for geographic segregation is
not altogether logical. The United States fights a war to root out terrorist
cells in Afghanistan, inevitably killing civilians along the way. It logically
follows that it should fight terrorist cells at home, accepting some
collateral damage to the civil liberties of foreign residents. But this is not
the end of the debate: Powerful American ideals have a way of trumping
logic.
Ever since the founding, Americans have believed they
could build a City on the Hill, a fairly illogical ambition. They have
believed they could avoid foreign entanglements, even when they could not;
they have believed that if they made war, it was only to end future wars, even
though this was impossible. American aspirations have set the country up for
charges of hypocrisy and bouts of bitter disillusionment. Yet they have
endured anyway, serving as an inspiration to the world. For this triumph over
logic, we are all profoundly grateful.
President Bush, who once spoke of a "crusade" and of
"Operation Infinite Justice," stands squarely within America's messianic
traditions. When it comes to military tribunals, however, he has violated
those same ideals and courted justified criticism. But it has to be said that
this contradictory mixture belongs to the American tradition too. Abraham
Lincoln, that greatest of American idealists, suspended habeas
corpus.
The writer is a member of the editorial page
staff.
© 2001 The Washington Post
Company
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