In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror

Rating:
Summary: Intern Ms. Malkin
Review: "Women have 71% more accidents than men per mile driven." According to Ms. Malkin's logic, she poses a greater statistical danger to the population than her male counterparts. Dare I say intern Ms. Malkin? This book was obviously written for the shock value of the idea, not because of any profound belief on her part.

Rating:
Summary: 'If civil liberties always trump national security . . . '
Review: ' . . . then the terrorists will have won.' That could have been the tagline for Michelle Malkin's incisive defense of 'racial profiling' (which is actually a misnomer, but never mind that now).

I guarantee you that unless (like one of the other reviewers) you've made a special study of the so-called 'Japanese American internment' (which is also a misnomer, for reasons Malkin explains at length), you'll learn a lot of things here that you didn't know. Malkin's essential thesis as regards the 'internment' is that the U.S. government did the best it could with the information it had at the time, and that its actions were (at least largely) justified.

The reason she presents this analysis is that the issue is rather pressing today. Homeland security efforts are being hobbled by a knee-jerk dismissal of even legitimate profiling as 'racist' -- and the so-called 'Japanese American internment' is almost invariably mentioned, with approximately the same effect that an airy reference to 'McCarthyism' has in other contexts. Malkin hopes that by clearing the air about the one, she'll help to foster reasonable discussion about the other.

I hope she's right, but I doubt it. For some reason, the entire leftward half of the American political spectrum seems to be unable to distinguish between the (false) proposition 'people from certain Arabic nations are likely to be terrorists', and the (true) proposition 'terrorists are likely to be people from certain Arabic nations'.

That's too bad, because Malkin is indubitably right in her main thesis: that national security had better come first, or we won't have a nation to exercise our civil liberties _in_. Some of us are having trouble changing our mental settings from 'peacetime' to 'wartime' -- and, perhaps more fundamentally, some of us are allowing the mind-numbing fog of 'political correctness' to blind us to hard realities that threaten our public safety.

For her efforts to help us think more clearly, Malkin is undoubtedly going to continue to be not thanked but vilified. That's a shame. Unfortunately it's par for the course in the U.S.'s current intellectual climate, where the only thoughts we're _not_ allowed to think are 'conservative' ones.

Rating:
Summary: Dangerous, but Needs to be Read
Review: A friend of mine was fifteen years old, in high school, a normal American kid, the son of a successful small businessman. One day the Government came in and said, "You've got to sell your business and move out of town - you've got 48 hours." A few days later they were indeed out of town, in an interment camp in southern Idaho with guards carrying Tommy guns walking around the barbed wire enclosure. A few years later he was let out of the camp, then he was drafted into the Army. His younger brother enlisted in the Army to get out of the camp, was sent to Italy with the famed 442, and was shot.

This is one of those books that you need to read. Perhaps like you need to read some Michael Moore, just to see what the groups at the far ends of the bell curve on both sides are thinking.

I wonder if Ms Malkin really believes what she is saying, or if she has just written a book designed to create controversy. The book is supposed to make a case for racial profiling in the War on Terror. But most of it is an attempt to justify the World War II Japanese-American 'relocation.' She spends a lot of time on a Japanese 'threat' of espionage on the West Coast. Strangely she says little about any real espionage on either the West Coast or Hawaii which never had any serious problems (after Pearl Harbour). Yes there was spying in Hawaii, but it was from the Japanese consulate - a legitimate use of consulates, just as we use ours now.

Profiling on the basis of appearance is dangerous. After all Ms Malkin is a blond, and blonds are stupid -- right?

Rating:
Summary: The pursuit of Truth.
Review: Along with just about everyone else, my sympathy for the displaced Japanese-Americans needed someone to blame for the internment. However, it is better to discover the truth, which is, in and of itself, a desirable objective. Truth also improves our understanding of history.

Ms. Malkin draws parallels to our current dilemna with mid-easterers so well that a high school history teacher could use her book as a primer in reseach and historical comparison.

Malkin's best quality, other than her scholarly research, is her desire to uncover Truth (capitalized). Both qualities are sadly lacking in journalism, as well as revelatory non-fiction books that are badly researched, with pre-ordained conclusions. She is an intellecutal gem, and I hope she stays on the scene for a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Audacious Re-Write of History
Review: I became aware of Michelle Malin's book after happening upon her several times on the TV this last August. First, as a panel guest for Bill Maher where I was struck by her audacious self-assurance, although she seemed to avoid entering her views directly into the fray. Later that week, I saw her again on Hardball with Chris Matthews and guest, former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. This time, Ms. Malkin jumped right into the fray on the recent "Swift Boat" controversy by strongly suggesting that not only has Kerry lied about his war record but that at least one of his wounds may have been self-inflicted for ulterior gain. After repeatedly prompting Ms. Malkin, without success, to either clarify her claims with some grounds of substantiation or qualify fact from innuendo, Matthew's denounced her remarks as irresponsible and ejected her from the program. A few days later while I was in a crowded restaurant, there she was again appearing on CNBC. Although, the sound was turned down, her body language exuded that same cocksure self-confidence as she was making the case in her book-undaunted by the humiliation wrought from the previous evening.

I have spent some time perusing Ms. Malkin's book in the bookstore-enough to get the gist of her polemic without reading it through in its entirety. Suffice it to say, Malkin's account of the Japanese internment and the alleged justification for it, is at considerable odds with the preponderance of evidence I have assimilated about that chapter of history over the years from a range of sources and social-political vantage points. Malkin's book immediately reminds me of Ann Coulter's recent apologia on Joseph McCarthy. Like Coulter, Malkin argues that the established historical accounts on these events are essentially false--distorted by a conspiratorial leftist agenda. Such a charge, by the way, has been similarly made some years ago in the argument that the holocaust was a Zionist lie and never happened.

What is most troubling about Malkin's book is that it is part of a growing legion of politically-driven re-writes of historical accounts which are irresponsible-if not malevolent distortions-of fact. More troubling still is the brazen audacity required to purport such charges. The problem is that there are far too few people like Chris Matthews who are holding such people accountable for their claims and there no real consequences for malicious lies aired to the public as fact. Free speech, it seems to me, can only survive if it is adheres to some standards of accountability to truth and fair play.

Rating:
Summary: This has all been said many times before before...
Review: I won't comment too much on the merits of the central argument of this book about the influence of MAGIC intercepts on the decision to intern Japanese Americans. Suffice to say that the evidence is very unclear as to how important the intercepts were, and how they were understood within the larger context which undoubtedly included economic profiteering and "racist hysteria". I tend to side with Malkin that MAGIC was more important than many mainstream historians have conceded, but I think she goes way to far in implying that there was no racism or that the Japanese Americans were treated no differently than the German or Italian Americans.

But the main point I want to make is that NOTHING MALKIN SAYS ABOUT THE JAPANESE INTERNMENT IS NEW IN ANY WAY. People have been pointing to the importance of the MAGIC intercepts as a basis for establishing a real military necessity for over 25 years, ever since they were first declassified in 1977. I've read at least three earlier books that make exactly the same arguments as Malkin's, although perhaps not so sensationalistically - David Lowman's "Magic: the untold story of U.S. intelligence and the evacuation of Japanese residents from the West Coast during WW II" (2001), Keith Robar's "Intelligence, Internment & Relocation" (2000), and Lillian Baker's "American and Japanese Relocation in World War II: Fact, Fiction, and Fallacy", published way back in 1993!

The point is that you don't have to buy Malkin's book to read her less-than-ground-breaking ideas - you can read the books she cribbed from for free at your local library.

Rating:
Summary: More Illiterate Junk from the Right Wing
Review: It is often quite hillarious how the right wing in America thinks that their "authors and books" are devoted to the "truth". When you examine their claims however, they are fueled by their own myopic views, fascist intentions and warped sense of reality. This book, written by an amateurish hack who calls herself a "journalist" was in some way written to "legitimize" the absurd notion of "internment" and racial profiling during World War 2 and subsequent years to come. It's basic tenet is that since America was at war with Japan, "every Japanese person is an enemy". Lacking all modes of common sense, not to mention contradicting itself, it is a thesis formed by either a dead gerbil or an immature high school student. Using her argument, its then asked why didn't everyone in America get locked up? Heck, everyone fits some ethnic pattern that was involved in the war. One can't suppose because a man is Japanese that is is obviously an enemy, not only does that violate basic individualistic premises, it violates the American constition. I know hundreds of instances where American soliders were saved by "Jap civilians and soliders". Merit belongs to individuals not to political ideology or "profiling". There was no evidence at all for what the governtment did at that time.

Rating:
Summary: Malkin's detractors are the historical revisionists.....
Review: Let's get one thing straight, it is Malkin's detractors who are the historical revisionists. They succeeded in rewriting this history back in the 1980s when a politically motivated commission that was hand picked by the JACL decided that the evacuation was based on "hysterical racism", while ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

A popular rebutall by the reparations activists is "not one Japanese-American was convicted of espianage during the war". What they don't tell you is the government decided to evacuate rather than convict because they didn't want sensitive intelligence being revealed through the courts. One only has to follow the Zacharias Moussoui (sic) trial today to understand what a circus convicting would have been and still is today when sensitive intelligence is involved.

That said, the last American convicted of treason was a Japanese-American, Tom Kawakita who got his jollies torturing his fellow American who were POWs in Japan during he war. Of course Kawakita wasn't a POW, he worked for the Japanese because he was Japanese (even though he was born in America). So after the war Kawakita decides he's an American again....

Here's a summary of his story.

Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952)

Mr. Kawakita was born in the United States in 1921. His parents were Japanese nationals. Therefore, Mr. Kawakita had dual nationality with both the United States and Japan. On March of 1941, Mr. Kawakita decided to attend the University of Meiji in Japan. Although war broke out between the United States and Japan in December, 1941, Kawakita remained at school. After graduation, Kawakita sought employment as an interpreter. He never attempted to join the military of either country. Kawakita worked for a private company engaged in mining and processing of minerals for munitions. He worked on the island of Honshu, on which, there was also a Japanese prisoner of war camp supervised and managed by Japanese military personnel.


In early 1945, approximately 400 American prisoners-of-war were housed at the camp on Honshu. These men had been in captivity under terrible circumstances for almost two and half years, and due to malnutrition, inadequate health care, confinement and hard work, the American prisoners were suffering and in bad condition. Kawakita aided the Japanese military in numerous ways, both requested and not requested by the military personnel, and in the course and scope of giving aid to the Japanese, Kawakita abused the American prisoners. The American prisoners were used as workers for the mine until August, 1945, when the camp was surrendered to the American military forces. Kawakita then assisted the American military forces with interpreting services. In June, 1946, Kawakita sought re-entry to the United States and took the oath of allegiance to America.


Once back in America, Kawakita started graduate studies at USC. While in a store in Los Angeles, Kawakita was recognized by Willliam Bruce, a former POW. Bruce reported Kawakita to the authorities. The FBI arrested Kawakita in June of 1947, and before the end of the month, he was indicted for 15 acts of treason. Kawakita entered a plea of "not guilty" on the grounds that he had renounced and/or abandoned his United States citizenship and was expatriated at the time of providing assistance to the Japanese military on Honshu.


The District Court jury found Kawakita guilty of eight overt acts of treason as follows:


1. Kawakita knocked an American prisoner of war into the camp cesspool and beat the POW repeatedly on the head as he tried to crawl out of the cesspool.


2. Although Kawakita had no authority and no military duties, he swore at the prisoners, beat them, threaten them, and punished them for either resting, or not working faster and harder at the mine, and for not filling their quota of ore.


3. Kawakita and Japanese guards lined up about 30 POWs, and as punishment for making clothing out of Red Cross blankets, beat the POWs or forced them to beat each other. Kawakita hit prisoners who, he thought, did not hit other prisoners hard enough.


4. Kawakita threw stones and dirt and prisoners forced to run around the camp because they finished work early.


5. Kawakita forced a prisoner to carry a log up an icy slope. When the prisoner fell and became badly injured, Kawakita did not seek assistance for the prisoner for over five hours.


6. Kawakita forced a prisoner to kneel on bamboo sticks jammed into the joints of the prisoner's knees. The prisoner was forced to keep his arms above his head holding a bucket of water. When the prisoner tired and bent his elbows, Kawakita would hit him. Kawakita engaged in this torture of American POWs for no other reason other than he was bored on Honshu island.


7. Kawakita repeatedly taunted the American POWs with statements such as: "We will kill all you prisoners right here anyway, whether you win the war or lose it. You will never get to go back to the States." And " I will be glad when all the Americans is dead, and then I can go home and live happy."


The jury found that all of these overt acts of cruelty actually gave aid and comfort to the enemy. Kawakita was convicted of treason and sentenced to death.


On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, Kawakita argued that (1) he had lost his US citizenship by registering in Japan as a Japanese national, and (2) that a person who has dual nationality can only be guilty of treason to the country where he resides, not to the other country that claims him as a national. The Supreme Court rejected both of these arguments holding that (1) Kawakita was a national of the United States upon his birth and that he had never renounced it, and (2) a person who holds dual nationality will be subject to the claims of both nations. The Court wrote, "One who wants that freedom can get it by renouncing his American citizenship. He cannot turn it into a fair-weather citizenship, retaining it for the possible contingent benefits but meanwhile playing the part of the traitor."


The United States Supreme Court confirmed the District Court conviction of treason against Kawakita, and stated that it would not interfere regarding the imposition of a death sentence. In refusing to reverse both lower courts, the Justices wrote, the "flagrant and persistent acts of petitioner" against the POWs was such that a trial judge had great leeway in reaching the decision of death.


On the last day of President Eisenhower's administration, he commuted Kawakita's death sentence. Kawakita was then released from prison, stripped of his US citizenship, and roughly deported to Japan.

Rating:
Summary: defending the indefensible
Review: malkin admits there were/are innocent people imprisoned. the crime, as it is, amounts to fitting a profile. her blanket claim is that similarity to a few (for that is all the MAGIC code intercepts identified) criminals justified/justifies the wholesale revocation of any conceivable right (speech, religion, association, miranda, equal treatment under the law, unreasonable search and seizure, etc.).
her "data" is incomplete and unconvincing. she quotes, say, one prisoner saying there weren't that many guards, and they were nice guys: this somehow justifies... something. likewise with her unsubstantiated claim that barbed wire was not malicious, but intended to protect the prisoners from wild animals.
only one point stands from the entire book: japan was working to create a spy network in hawaii and california, mostly by recruiting nissei (ethnic japanese americans). what does not stand is the "solution" our government concocted at the time: arrest every immigrant and citizen of japanese anscestry. that would (And did) retard japan's recruitment efforts. the MAGIC intercepts proving this were not properly considered by the reagan administration's reparations hearings.
but the fatal flaw is the ham-fisted, inhumane lack of attention to reality. by destroying the liberty of large swaths of our population, we defeat the purpose of a war that was/is fought in the name of "freedom." imprisoning japanese americans was a pre-emptive strike against ourselves. tantamount to sending the u.s. air force to bomb pearl harbor, in order to prevent japan from doing so. to a child ripped from her mother's arms, it does not make a difference whether said ripping was in the name of the rising sun or the stars and stripes. trauma, inhumanity, and prison are horrors in any language.
ah, says malkin, but our japanese americans got to stay in nice places. practically like a summer camp in the mountains compared to nazi death camps! that may be true, i reply; but when the argument for internment comes down to this (america is a nicer prison warden), i cry for how far we have fallen. such is rumsfeld's argument for abu graib. maybe a few "bad apples" still torture iraqi prisoners, [...]
so you, japanese-american former prisoner: be happy we are not as bad as the nazis. give that reparations cash back. michelle malkin has decided reagan was a mere left-wing bleeding heart when he offered it. and you, undisclosed prisoner at guantanamo: be thankful you are forced to stand in one of the 12 department of defense approved coersive positions. [...] forget thought of rights. bow down and beg for mercy, at the feet of the all powerful, english-only, colonialist White america. because that, my ethnically-challenged brethren, is what racial profiling is all about. will america reapeat the mistakes of the past? are we doing so right now?
do not buy this book. do not fall for her sloppy arguments. and most of all, do not let racist motivations shape america's foreign policy and imprisonment. we have a moral and constitutional obligation. find out what is happening at guantanamo. restore the geneva convention and the bill of rights to those prisoners, with no torture, and with evidentiary hearings. hold our so-called "patriotic" leaders accountable for defiling the liberty that is america. and let world war ii's history teach us: never again.

Rating:
Summary: Lowering standards
Review: Malkin, via her previous book on immigration, and her syndicated columns, has demonstrated a commitment to lowering the standards in both history and journalism. With "In Defense of Internment", she is at her amateurish best, or worst, if you prefer. In a rather lame, juvenile delivery, she argues that the restrictions of civil liberties, forced detentions, and racial profiling in the current US War on Terrorism are a good thing, and parallels the internment of Japanese during World War Two. However instead of actually addressing the evidence or making rational arguments, she indulges in shrill name calling and ideological Right-wing axe grinding that characterizes virtually all of her writing.
Malkin, who is a part-time contributor to Fox News hysteria, and frequent guest on the Pat Robertson Christian hate circuit, contends that the Japanese internment was imposed with ample justification and that the Japanese welcomed it, and actually enjoyed it. According to her twisted version of events, the Japanese living on the West Coast in the early 1940's gratefully forfeited all their belongings and went to these wholesome recreation camp areas where they could play, frolic, and watch movies as they sat out the war. When they got bored with the entertainment overload, they could just come and go as they pleased; and the real bonus came a generation later, when President Reagan and Congress sent out handsome reparation checks to the survivors or their descendents. Malkin deplores such acts of national conscience as oversensitive political correctness, while ignoring the actual losses incurred by the Japanese when they were forced to sell their properties and businesses at a fraction of their actual value. She is a little weak on the statistical side when it interferes with her hate driven ideological agenda.
With her favored totalitarian impulses, she argues that American citizenship should afford no special protections in the US. Whether it was in WW II with Japanese-Americans, or now with suspicious looking Mid-east types; incarceration and denial of legal representation should be applauded and really is part of the healthy Orwellian Malkin version of Americanism.
Unfortunately, even if the argument had merit, and good cause for the WW II internments could be established, this is hardly the source to use. The writing basically consists of a middle school caliber format where it looks like someone is trying to learn how to write a term paper. It consists of a hodge podge of quotes and name calling trying to earn a grade of "C". Sadly, it doesnt even rate that, give it an "F" and leave it on the library shelf or in the bookstore. There are real journalists and historians more committed to the craft.