<http://www.townhall.com/bookclub/malkin1.html> Townhall.com In Defense of Internment The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror By Michelle Malkin Review by Peter-Christian Aigner There is no such thing as a "good decision" in war. Nations do what they must in order to survive. That sometimes means doing things that would otherwise be considered intolerable - suspending habeas corpus, for example, or using atomic weapons. While progressives don't favor this view, it is gifted to the critics to be idealists. Leaders must be utilitarian. This is the starting point from which Michelle Malkin offers her qualified defense of the internment of the Japanese during World War II. In a nutshell, she argues that the historians who take a moral purist's stand on Japanese internment forget that FDR and the generals could not see into the future. Theirs was not an immoral choice that stemmed from "wartime hysteria" or "racism" (at least primarily), but a responsible action based on solid intelligence, constitutional legality, and tough deliberation. While liberals will no doubt scream over this thesis, Malkin is no Ann Coulter controversialist. She makes a clear, reasoned, straightforward argument, picking apart the standard orthodoxy with methodical care. It is not iconoclasm for mere shock effect, though the book is quite shocking. Popular films such as Welcome to the Paradise and Snow Falling on Cedars leave the impression that Japanese internment was a cruel manifestation of bigotry, a groundless, irrational response to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. According to this reading of history, 120,000 scared patriotic innocents were rounded up and forced into "concentration camps," where they languished for the rest of the war under the heartless gaze of armed guards. Little of this is true. Less than two-thirds of the 112,000 removed from the West Coast were Japanese Americans; the rest were "enemy aliens," not citizens. This was not the first time internment or relocation had been used; it was a centuries-old, worldwide practice. The Alien Enemies Act enabled the executive of the United States to make such decisions in 1798, and that law remains on the books today. During World War I, 6,300 European resident aliens were interned; during World War II, almost 15,000 were. More would have been relocated, but the government estimated that 53 million Americans were of Axis-European heritage. Such an undertaking would have been impossible, as the total U.S. population at this time was just over 100 million. Instead, the government instituted curfews, forced aliens to register with local authorities, censored foreign-language newspapers, and excluded potential subversives from sensitive areas. Thousands of nationalists were deported, and thousands more were sent to relocation centers with the Japanese. But the most important factor in the decision to relocate and eventually intern the Japanese was an espionage network discovered in the western United States. As part of MAGIC, a top-secret project, over 5,000 cables were decrypted by the finest code-breakers in the government - just a sliver of the communication estimated overall. These messages revealed a clear, extensive, pro-Axis mole system in key industrial and military areas in California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii. In addition, investigators found detailed maps of Oahu in the cockpits of downed Japanese fighter planes in Pearl Harbor. The Japanese Empire relied on internal agents in the Philippines and other territories it conquered as well. This information was released in 1977, and though it was just as damning as the Venona papers released eighteen years later, it has been greatly ignored by current-day historians. Malkin apparently wants to reverse that neglect: she includes the documents that have been declassified in her appendix, which makes up half the book. Her point-by-point deconstruction of the racist-paranoid school on internment is also well-footnoted, and full of credible and well-respected sources. Detractors will have a hard time shooting her out of the sky on the basis of her non-academic credentials. The connections Malkin makes between Japanese internment and "racial profiling" during the War on Terror will inevitably enrage critics. While Malkin does not make any serious policy recommendations, she does use these topics to remind us that the inalienable rights listed by the Founders "do not appear in random order." Liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be secured and protected unless life is secured and protected as well. In Defense of Internment is a thoughtful book, recommended for persons concerned about both historical truth and civil liberties alike. Peter-Christian Aigner is an intern at the Heritage Foundation, and recently received his M.A. in American History from Fordham University, the Bronx. Further Reading: "Current Lessons from the Japanese-American Relocation of WWII." Townhall.com chat with Ken Masugi of The Claremont Institute, 11/14/01 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'