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

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This diligently documented book shows that neither the internment of ethnic Japanese--not to mention ethnic Germans and Italians--nor the relocation and evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast were the result of war hysteria or race prejudice as historians have taught us.

From the Publisher

Everything you've been taught about the World War II "internment camps" in America is wrong: - They were not created primarily because of racism or wartime hysteria
- They did not target only those of Japanese descent
- They were not Nazi-style death camps In her latest investigative tour-de-force, New York Times best-selling author Michelle Malkin sets the historical record straight-and debunks radical ethnic alarmists who distort history to undermine common-sense, national security profiling. The need for this myth-shattering book is vital. President Bush's opponents have attacked every homeland defense policy as tantamount to the "racist" and "unjustified" World War II internment. Bush's own transportation secretary, Norm Mineta, continues to milk his childhood experience at a relocation camp as an excuse to ban profiling at airports. Misguided guilt about the past continues to hamper our ability to prevent future terrorist attacks. In Defense of Internment shows that the detention of enemy aliens, and the mass evacuation and relocation of ethnic Japanese from the West Coast were not the result of irrational hatred or conspiratorial bigotry. This document-packed book highlights the vast amount of intelligence, including top-secret "MAGIC" messages, which revealed the Japanese espionage threat on the West Coast. Malkin also tells the truth about:
- who resided in enemy alien internment camps (nearly half were of European ancestry)
- what the West Coast relocation centers were really like (tens of thousands of ethnic Japanese were allowed to leave; hundreds voluntarily chose to move in)
- why the $1.65 billion federal reparations law for Japanese internees and evacuees

was a bipartisan disaster
- and how both Japanese American and Arab/Muslim American leaders have united

to undermine America's safety. With trademark fearlessness, Malkin adds desperately needed perspective to the ongoing debate about the balance between civil liberties and national security. In Defense of Internment will outrage, enlighten, and radically change the way you view the past-and the present.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc. (September 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895260514
• ISBN-13: 978-0895260512
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (156 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #237,438 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Do we really need to relearn the lessons of Japanese America, September 26, 2004

By	FDb77 (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Do we really need to relearn the lessons of Japanese American internment?

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, I was arrested and convicted for being a Japanese American trying to live here in the Bay Area. The day after my arrest a newspaper headline declared, "Jap Spy Arrested in San Leandro."

Of course, I was no spy. The government never charged me with being a spy. I was a U.S. citizen born and raised in Oakland. I even tried to enlist in the Coast Guard (they didn't take me because of my race). But my citizenship and my loyalty did not matter to the federal government. On Feb. 19, 1942, anyone of Japanese heritage was ordered excluded from the West Coast. I was charged and convicted of being a Japanese American living in an area in which all people of my ancestry had been ordered to be interned.

I fought my conviction at that time. My case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in 1944 my efforts to seek protection under the Constitution were rejected.

After I was released in 1945, my criminal record continued to affect my life. It was hard to find work. I was considered to be a criminal. It took almost 40 years and the efforts of many people to reopen my case. In 1983, a federal court judge found that the government had hidden evidence and lied to the Supreme Court during my appeal. The judge found that Japanese Americans were not the threat that the government publicly claimed. My criminal record was removed.

As my case was being reconsidered by the courts, again as a result of the efforts of many people across the country, Congress created a commission to study the exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans. The commission found that no Japanese American had been involved in espionage or sabotage and that no military necessity existed to imprison us. Based on the commission's findings and of military historians who reconsidered the original records from the war, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, declaring that the internment of Japanese Americans was unjustified. Finally, it seemed that the burden of being accused of being an "enemy race" had been lifted from our shoulders.

But now the old accusations are back. Fox News media personality Michelle Malkin claims that some Japanese Americans were spies during World War II. Based upon her suspicions, Malkin claims the internment of all Japanese Americans was not such a bad idea after all. She goes on to claim that racial profiling of Arab Americans today is justified by the need to fight terrorism. According to Malkin, it is OK to take away an entire ethnic group's civil rights because some individuals are suspect. Malkin argues for reviving the old notion of guilt by association.

It is painful to see reopened for serious debate the question of whether the government was justified in imprisoning Japanese Americans during World War II. It was my hope that my case and the cases of other Japanese American internees would be remembered for the dangers of racial and ethnic scapegoating.

Fears and prejudices directed against minority communities are too easy to evoke and exaggerate, often to serve the political agendas of those who promote those fears. I know what it is like to be at the other end of such scapegoating and how difficult it is to clear one's name after unjustified suspicions are endorsed as fact by the government. If someone is a spy or terrorist they should be prosecuted for their actions. But no one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy.

Fred Korematsu was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medial of Freedom, in 1998. He and his wife, Kathryn, continue to live in their longtime hometown of San Leandro.

106 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Loyalty of Japanese Americans during WWII going unheeded, September 6, 2004

By	Brian Tada - See all my reviews

As a conservative, pro-life, "traditional family values" Republican third generation American of Japanese ancestry, I was shocked and saddened by the gross inaccuracies in Malkin's book.

For example, the book purports one of the basic, underlying reasons for internment was the Japanese espionage "threat" on the West Coast. However, Japanese Americans during WWII were among the most loyal to America, and many served valiantly for the U.S. during the war.

According to the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in a report entitled, "Personal Justice Denied", it stated that "not a single documented act of espionage, sabatoge or fifth column activity on the mainland was committed by an American citizen of Japanese ancestry or by a resident Japanese alien on the West Coast." This view has been substantiated consistently by independent scholars and researchers for almost 50 years since WWII.

Two of my uncles, although interned, volunteered to enlist in the U.S. Army in the 442nd Regimental Combat Unit. One of my uncles in the unit earned a REAL Purple Heart after he sustained extensive damage to his ear when an enemy grenade exploded near his head while fighting for the U.S. in Europe during the war.

The 442nd suffered huge numbers of casualties and is the most decorated combat unit in American history. They were credited for saving a Texas unit trapped behind Nazi lines, although a significantly larger number of Japanese American U.S. soldiers lost their lives rescuing them than the total number of soldiers that were in the Texas unit.

My mom, a U.S.-born American citizen, was also interned during the war. She felt as if she were without a country. Yet she never, ever considered turning her back on this nation she calls "home". She, along with my family, proudly display American flag decals on our clothes and our cars.

Yes, I strongly believe America needs to continue to vigorously fight for freedom here in our homeland and abroad, and defend itself against terrorism. I also have confidence that America, through prayer, wise decision-making and courageous, measured action will pro-actively prevent the mistakes of the past and implement much more innovative and effective means of fighting 21st century terrorism rather than even considering reverting to the extreme, heinous act of wholesale incarceration of innocent people without due process.

136 of 172 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars So sad..., August 14, 2004

By	QV210 - See all my reviews

I picked up this book at a store because it caught my eye. You see, unlike the author, or any of the reviewers heartily recommending the book, I have some relatives who were actually in the camps.

One of my aunts was interned as a child, as was her entire family. I have talked with her and her surviving family many times about this subject. The family of girlfriend of mine had been in the camps, and she interviewed many former internees for a documentary film as a senior project. I worry that, as the surviviors die off, there will be no one left to refute revisionists such as Michelle Malkin.

Needless to say, I was disgusted by reading the book, and returned it for a refund. The author does do a good job of creating the impression of a well-researched book, so I did some research of my own on the internet. What I found made me realize that the author probably did as much research as I did.

Like any other revisionist book, this has sparked a sharp response from actual scholars in the field. Realize that Malkin is a hard-right COMMENTATOR. She is not a journalist, much less a scholar. She apparently spent about a year writing this book (on a part-time basis), and her research was largely based on files gathered by other revisionists. She has made a career out being controversial and propagating a right-wing agenda. She is the perfect shill for this, since she is an articulate, attractive, Asian woman. Can you imagine if someone like Pat Buchanan had written this book? I look forward to her next book on how the Holocaust never happened.

However, the relevant point of this book is not scholarly research. The author seeks to convince us that racial profiling is required today if we are to survive the terrorist menace. This is where Malkin's "ethnicity", at least in appearance if not in character, pays off in spades in being to get away with being controversial.

What does racial profiling really mean? Does it mean we should treat people differently based on their appearance, their religion, their accent, their manner of dress? For one, the assumption that all potential terrorists are young Arabs is flat wrong. Think of McVeigh, John Walker Lind, or Padilla, as well as Phillipine extremists (hello, Michelle?), Indonesian muslims, and on and on. Even if true, how do we identify these Arabs? They can change their clothes, accents, even falsify papers. What's left is outward appearance. Well, there are millions of Americans with ethnicities that are Latin-American, Jewish, Spanish, Indian, Greek, Italian, and on and on, who could pass for "Arab or "Muslim". And what about the women and kids? Couldn't they be terrorists too?

Basically, what happens today is that any American or visitor who looks obviously Muslim (or wears a turban, like Sikhs do), gets treated with suspicion in many public places. Obviously, any real terrorists would not attract attention to themselves, so usually innocent people get treated badly.

The unavoidable inference from the premise of this book is that it is OK to discriminate based on race, and that we should consider locking up the Arabs. This is never stated by Malkin, of course, but the cover of the book alone speaks volumes. Is this what we have come to, again? This is a sad day indeed for Americans who care for the values that make this country great, and who despise ignorance, paranoia, and intolerance.

Here is law professor Eric Mueller's comments on this book:
http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/2004_08_01_isthatlegal_archive.html#109176416329230176

The following is an excellent overview on Michelle Malkin: who she is, who is backing her, and what her agenda is.
http://www.bopnews.com/archives/001225.html#1225