Pretty funny stuff coming from Malkin, who seems to model herself as a Coulter-in-training.

Who could have predicted that people would attack someone who publishes a book defending the internment of the japanese and raising the issue of similar practice today would be subject to attacks by liberal ruffians?

I was remiss in failing to share this link.

What's wrong, Alex? All those references to "trolls" hitting too close to home?

Nice to hear that Malkin's shutting down her comments. Now if she can just stop writing altogether...

or breathing.

What's wrong, Alex? All those references to "trolls" hitting too close to home?

This is incoherent, even for you, eksarellkew.

I've never posted to Malkin's site, and scarcely ever glanced at it. Further, in my rare visit to your site, it was you who exhibited all the signs of trolling, even as you exhibit them now.

I never heard of her until this link. There's actually someone out there who thinks that the Japanese internment camps of WWII were a good thing?

O brave new world that has such people in it.

There's actually someone out there who thinks that the Japanese internment camps of WWII were a good thing?

She's sort of the David Irving of the blogosphere: unafraid to take indefensibly stupid positions. Check out the link for some funny book parodies.

I'm reserving judgment on the book until I've read it. However, I seriously doubt that her premise is that "the relocation of loyal American citizens during World War II and taking of their property was OK, because they looked Japanese."

Whence the photo? I always thought she was cute.

>>>> Nice to hear that Malkin's shutting down her comments. Now if she can just stop writing altogether... >>>>

Meanwhile, the hero of the liberals, Michael Moore, keeps filming his "documentaries". And at least you won't see Malkin seated next to major officials at the upcoming Republican convention, the way that porker Moore was placed in the VIP section next to Jimmy Carter.

or breathing.

Ah, wishing death upon a conservative for her opinions. Another lovely sentiment from Ehrenstein.

I'll echo Xrlq's suspicion regarding Kevin's characterization of Malkin's "apparent" premise. I'll be very surprised indeed if that turns out to be her actual premise.

Malkin, to be sure, may ask for it more than most bloggers.

Is it unfair for me to read this as saying: of course, trolls are understandable at right-wing blogs . . . just not here!

For those interested in Malkin's premise, I recommend clicking here.

I'll echo Xrlq's suspicion regarding Kevin's characterization of Malkin's "apparent" premise. I'll be very surprised indeed if that turns out to be her actual premise.

Well, gee, guys. Her book is called, "IN DEFENSE OF INTERNMENT," after all. Would it really be so shocking if it turns out to be, well, a defense of internment???

I guess one could suspend judgment of a book titled, "In Defense of Pederasty" or "In Defense of The Final Solution" (or has David Irving already penned that title?) until one has read it cover to cover, but it doesn't take a leap of faith to view the position likely taken in ANY of the titles we're discussing to be contemptible. Does it?

That's "Malkin's premise" as filtered through Eric Muller.

I find it interesting that the discussion of internment during WWII always seems to revolve around the Japanese. Yet, Europeans, Italian and German immigrants and citizens, were interned in equal numbers during the war.

It is also true that a large percentage of Japanese Nisei (American born ethnic Japanese) returned to Japan to fight against the allies and that there was strong resistance by Nisei in America to fight for allied forces.

The disproportionate weight given to Japanese internment by historians over the last thirty years seems to correlate directly with the elevation of white on non-white racism as the most mortal of secular sins. Internment is almost impossible to discuss because of its demonization by political correctness, which after all, is really a secular, poly-organic religion. Few, if any, PC writers have expressed concern with keeping Germans locked up in Texas for the duration of the war. So, it is not really the internment that riles the sanctimonious, but the skin color.

An entire world at war, essentially along ethnic lines, with primitive defensive and detection technology and an absolutely barbaric treatment of human beings by the Axis, does not make for an atmosphere celebrating diversity. Michelle is Philippino and her people suffered some of the worst atrocities under the imperial Japanese. I’ll wait for the book for her perspective on one of the most dangerous moments in human history. And I do hope she keeps breathing. Quite a writer, and a looker she is.

Maybe it's the way Kevin worded it -- that her book

apparently argues that the relocation of loyal American citizens during World War II and taking of their property was OK, because they looked Japanese.

Maybe I'm misreading Kevin's quote, but the way he put it, it sounds ridiculous. I doubt that's what Malkin is saying, and I didn't get that from Muller's description.

Calvin -- Eric Muller and *Greg Robinson*, both of whom are, unlike Malkin, scholars of the internment, and both of whom have pretty substantial and (to me) convincing arguments against her basic thesis & approach.

To say that "Internment is almost impossible to discuss" is to admit your own handicap or cowardice, not to indict whatever "political correctness" monster lives under your bed. Malkin had no discernible problem "discussing" the topic, and now she is being properly challenged on the merits by specialists who disagree (and who, I'd add, have so far refrained from the kind of blanket, dismissive name-calling that Malkin and you have used to pre-emptively tar her critics).

As for what riles the sanctimonious, I guess I'll defer to your personal expertise, but I'd guess that on the whole people are much more aware of the Japanese internment than whatever Texas did to Germans. There may indeed be a PC element to that, but that does nothing to bolster Malkin's arguments, or refute the widely accepted notion that robbing the property and freedom of American citizens was a blight, rathern than something to be "defended."

I didn't mean to offer it as her premise, but rather as my take on the terrain she has to cross to make any case for locking up non-criminal, non-suspect Americans. My bias on it, incidentally, is also very much from a California vantage point, where ordinary non-suspect Germans and Italians were not relocated or forced to give up their businesses and property to the same extent. And where anti-Japanese racism was a factor for a half century before Pearl Harbor. Back east, I don't know. Was every single person of German and Italian descent -- CEOs, cops, etc -- rounded up and sent to Texas with only a suitcase? I'm not being smart-ass, I just had never heard that.

Patterico, my quip that she asks for it didn't offer or mean to suggest any right vs left comparison. My intended comparison was bloggers who are hot button controversial and in your face vs those who are not.

Patterico, my quip that she asks for it didn't offer or mean to suggest any right vs left comparison. My intended comparison was bloggers who are hot button controversial and in your face vs those who are not.

Fair enough. I still think it's silly for people to criticize her hairstyle -- and worse still to wish death upon her, as one commenter did here. No matter how in-your-face she may be.

I think the internment issue is interesting. I think it's easier to criticize these actions with hindsight than it would have been to oppose them at the time, under those circumstances. But hopefully we can all agree that we'd like not to see something like that happen again.

Agreed on the more insulting remarks directed at her.

But hopefully we can all agree... If only. I think it was a dark chapter in American history, and I feel safely in the majority on that. But obviously a lot of people don't agree. Including Malkin.

To say that "Internment is almost impossible to discuss" is to admit your own handicap or cowardice, not to indict whatever "political correctness" monster lives under your bed.

Children and psychotics see things creeping under the bed (and Shane MacGowan). Maybe you need to put your mattress on the floor.

The writers you cite as scholars have a clearly preconceived view of this period of history. So does Michelle. That her research is making these writers uncomfortable is not unusual in scholarship. You start with an idea and then see where it takes you. University ideological squabbles are notoriously overheated. As I wrote, I’ll wait for the book to come out to make my judgment. But you’ve already made yours.

And it's apparent from your response that you're uncomfortable with the topic: a slur, a philippic and a childish ad-homonym. There's even a patina of racism in your comment in that you don't seem to consider Michelle a person like other "people" who study this issue. What is she then? One poster above calls for her death because she dares challenge a sacred pillar of cultural Marxism, as if she were an animal. Well, the Imperial Japanese would have agreed. But don't you think a fatwa is a little over-the-top, or is this something that you also agree with?

As for the Germans, no, they were mainly immigrants or American born Germans who belonged to nationalistic homeland clubs. Most lived in the cities in the upper midwest and the east. Also, many mid-western and east coast Japanese were not interned, but were closely monitored by the government. So it's a complex issue that's been simplified to crude stereotypes by PC piety. I'm not much of a churchgoer though. So burn me at the stake. Better than a cold chop.

Calvin -- There is no bravery in being wrong, no honor in confusing criticism with persecution, and nothing funnier than watching someone complain bitterly about the "secular, poly-organic religion" of political correctness in one breath, then toss off baseless charges of "racism" in the next. Good luck with the reading!

I think the internment issue is interesting. I think it's easier to criticize these actions with hindsight than it would have been to oppose them at the time, under those circumstances.

No kidding? It's also easier to criticize Jim Crow, and anti-miscegenation laws now than it was to oppose them at the time, under those circumstances. No doubt it is easier today for Germans to criticize the deportation and imprisonment of Jews, than it would have been to oppose those policies in 1939.

But that is not a real defense, is it?

To pretend that there was a real threat is indefensible. Hawaii had the highest percentage of Americans of Japanese descent of any state, and incidentally the most important military facilities in the Pacific. Yet the Japanese Consulate did not recruit American spies before the war (although it employed a dual citizen to drive its Japanese spy around Honolulu), and Hawaii witnessed no acts of sabotage by its Japanese population even though there was no widespread internment.

Don't forget that our neighbors to the north (i.e. Canada) were way ahead of the game on the relocation of Japanese from the West Coast.

Except the Japanese from B.C. weren't allowed to come back. They either had to stay in Eastern Canada or go back to Japan.

Huh?

> Yet, Europeans, Italian and German immigrants
> and citizens, were interned in equal numbers
> during the war.

and....

> Except the Japanese from B.C. weren't allowed
> to come back.

Cites! We want cites!

I put the link in my name to Washington U's (the St. Louis variety) website about the Japanese internment.

And I misspoke about the Canadian situation. Japanese were allowed back to B.C. but not until 1949.

The link above also states that the Japanese-Canadians were not even given the right to vote and the right to become citizens of Canada until 1949.

Google "German Internment" and you'll get a bunch of cites. Here are a couple of links. The site with the photographs has a fascinating government film from the age (real media file) on the Crystal Camp in Texas. It's about 30 minutes long and you'll need to link to the home page and then click on videos.

There were literally hundreds of camps of one sort or another throughout the US and according to released government figures, European arrests and detainment were higher than for those of Japanese descent.

I don't buy the not knowing because of the west coast argument. We all know about the Jim Crow south, wherever you're from. Ignorance about European internment springs directly from a fundamental conflict with PC praxis, or I should say PC dogma as PC really is a religion of sorts. And since most university professors over the last thirty years have leaned left, it's hardly surprising that this chapter in American history has been buried.

Not sure what bitterness Matt is foaming at the mouth about. One too many suds in Boston? Lingering hangovers can be confused with bitterness you know. I did forget to mention to crawl out from under the bed before lowering the mattress to the floor. Much safer that way.

Here are the links:

European Internment History

Internment Photographs

Racial Myths and Realities

There's a lot of intellectual reasons to dislike Malkin's anti-immigration bile. Then there's the non-intellectual one: She's the daughter of filipino immigrants. Nice.

There were literally hundreds of camps of one sort or another throughout the US and according to released government figures, European arrests and detainment were higher than for those of Japanese descent

This is either carefully parsed horse manure, or else just completely wrong.

The number of Japanese detainees outnumbered German (including those rounded up by Latin and South American countries and shipped here) by 10 to one, despite the vastly larger population of German Americans.

Moreover, the laws authorizing internment of Europeans was limited to aliens, and did not extend to U.S. born American citizens as did the Japanese interment.

I mean "internment" obviously.

Michelle Malkin's new books:

"Why Jim Crow Was Actually Fair and Appropriate"

"Why the Gentlemen's Agreement Was Misunderstood"

And, of course:

"Concentration Camps Are Good For You!"

You know, for the daughter of immigrants from an Asian country with a substantial and often militant Muslim population to be endorsing internment of Americans citizens based on racial/religious identification is a little TOO obvious, don't you think?

Maybe she wants this to be discussed simply to guilt all us red-blooded 'murricans into NOT interning all furriners and the children of furriners ... every think of that? Huh?

Maybe it's all part of her clever plan...

How do we known Michelle isn't the MANILAN CANDIDATE?

Huh? Do we?

Better safe then sorry ... lock up them Filipinas afore they become Al Kyda suicide bombers, dad gum it!

It is well-documented that the evacuation was motivated, not by racism, but by information obtained by the U.S. from pre-war decoded Japanese diplomatic messages "MAGIC" and other intelligence revealed the existence of espionage and the potential for sabotage involving then-unidentified resident Japanese aliens and Japanese-Americans living within the West Coast Japanese community.

You can read about MAGIC and it's subseqently being ignored by the reparations commission here.

http://www.athenapressinc.com/

The actual declassified MAGIC intercepts are here.

http://www.athenapressinc.com/smithsonian/Appendix3.html

The U.S. Congress immediately passed legislation providing enforcement provisions for FDR's Executive Order, unanimously in both the House and Senate, provided under Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution.

Only persons of Japanese ancestry (alien and citizen) residing in the West Coast military zones were affected by the evacuation order. Those living elsewhere were not affected at all.

It is not true that Japanese-Americans were "interned. Only Japanese nationals (enemy aliens) arrested and given individual hearings were interned. Such persons were held for deportation in Department of Justice camps. Those evacuated were not interned. They were first given an opportunity to voluntarily move to areas outside the military zones. Those unable or unwilling to do so were sent to Relocation Centers operated by the War Relocation Authority.

At the time, the JACL (Japanese American Citizens League) officially supported the government's evacuation order and urged all enemy alien Japanese and Japanese Americans to cooperate and assist the government in their own self interest.

It is misleading and in error to state that those affected by the evacuation orders were all "Japanese-Americans." Approximately two-thirds of the ADULTS among those evacuated were Japanese nationals--enemy aliens. The vast majority of evacuated Japanese-Americans (U.S. citizens) were children at the time. Their average age was only 15 years. In addition, over 90% of Japanese-Americans over age 17 were also citizens of Japan (dual citizens)under Japanese law. Thousands had been educated in Japan. Some having returned to the U.S. holding reserve rank in the Japanese armed forces.

During the war, more than 33,000 evacuees voluntarily left the relocation centers to accept outside employment. An additional 4300 left to attend colleges.

In a questionaire, over 26% of Japanese-Americans of military age at the time said they would refuse to swear an unqualified oath of allegiance to the United States.

According to War Relocation Authority records, 13,000 applications renouncing their U.S. citizenship and requesting expatriation to Japan were filed by or on behalf of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Over 5,000 had been processed by the end of the war.

After loyalty screening, eighteen thousand Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans were segregated at a special center for disloyals at Tule Lake California where regular military "Banzai" drills in support of Emperor Hirohito were held.

The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Consitutionality of the evacuation/relocation in Korematsu v. U.S., 1944 term. In summing up for the 6-3 majority, Justice Black wrote:
"There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot --
by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight -- now say that at the time these actions were unjustified." That decision has never been reversed and stands to this day.

It should be noted that the relocation centers had many amenities. Accredited schools, their own newspapers, stores, churches, hospitals, all sorts of sports and recreational facilities. They also had the highest percapita wartime birth rates for any U.S.community.

More history for you to consider regarding the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians:

Consider that of the nine commission members, six were biased in favor of reparations. Ishmail Gromoff and William Marutani, relocatees themselves, sat in judgment of their own cases. Arthur Goldberg and Joan Bernstein made sympathetic, pro-reparation statements publicly before hearings even began. Arthur Fleming had worked closely with the JACL (he was a keynote speaker at its Portland convention in the '70s). Robert Drinan was a co-sponsor of the bill establishing the commission.

Consider that notices of when and where hearings were to be held were not made known to the general, non-Japanese public.

Consider that witnesses who gave testimony were not sworn to tell the truth.

Consider that witnesses who were pro-reparation were carefully coached in their testimony in "mock hearings" beforehand.

Consider that witnesses against reparation were harassed and drowned out by foot-stomping Japanese claques, that the commission members themselves ridiculed and badgered these same witnesses.

Consider that not one historian was asked to testify before the commission, that intelligence reports and position papers contrary to reparations were deliberately ignored.

Consider that as a result of the above, the United States Department of Justice objected strongly to the findings of the commission.

Lastly while we've all been educated on the doctrines associated with the rise of Nazism, I would be curious to know if courses are provided teaching the history of the doctrines of Japanese militarism, a belief system similar and equally as insidious as Nazism?

Any clasess on the kokutai? Hakko Ichiu? Any reading of Kokutai no Hongi? Shimin to Michi? The role of Nichiren Buddhism and Japanese "Language Schools" in teaching these doctines of Japanese racial superiorty to ethnic Japanese colonies throughout the word prior to Pearl Harbor?

Those of you learning this history at your public schools and universities should understand you are being taught an extemely biased and partial version of what really happened and why. I would urge you to go beyond the politically correct version of this history as propagated by the Japanese-American reparations movement.

One more....

Nothing was confiscated. That's a myth...

As Karl Bendetsen pointed out way back before most of you were born (1972) and long before this history became politicised...

First, about their assets, their lands (Nisei could own land), their possessions, their bank accounts and other assets, their household goods, their growing crops--nothing was confiscated. Their accounts were left intact. Their household goods were inventoried and stored. Warehouse receipts were issued to the owners. Much of it was later shipped to them at Government expense, particularly in the case of those families who relocated themselves in the interior, accepted employment and established new homes.

Lands were farmed, crops harvested, accounts kept of sales at market and proceeds deposited to the respective accounts of the owners.

Whenever desired, Shinto and other religious shrines were moved to the centers.

Second, it was never intended by Executive Order 9066 and certainly not by the Army that the Japanese themselves be held in Relocation Centers. The sole objective was to bring relocation anywhere in the interior--east of the Cascades and Sierras Nevada and north of the southern halves of Arizona and New Mexico. Japanese were urged to relocate voluntarily on their own recognizance and extensive steps were taken to this end. The desire was to relocate them so that they could usefully and gainfully continue raising their families and educate their children while heads of families and young adults became gainfully employed. They were to be free to lease or buy land, raise and harvest crops, go into businesses. They were not to be restricted for the "duration" so long as they did not seek to remain or seek to return to the war "frontier" during hostilities.

In furtherance, from the very beginning I initiated diligent measures to urge the Japanese families to leave with the help and funding (whenever needed) of the WCCA (Wartime Civil Control Administration) on their own recognizance and resettle east of the mountains. To this end, I conferred with the Governors of the seven contiguous states east of the mountains. I called a Governors’ Conference at Salt Lake City. I invited them to urge attendance by members of their cabinets, by members of their legislatures and by the mayors of their communities. It was a large and successful conference. I advised them in full, sought their full cooperation, asked them to inform their citizens and to welcome and help the evacuees to feel welcome without restrictions, to become members of their inland communities and schools and to help them find employment and housing. I told them that these people would become a most constructive segment of their respective populations. These who resettled certainly did. Where needed I told them that the WCCA would provide financial support for a limited period.

Further to this end, I conferred with the elders of each major Japanese community along the Pacific Coast, wherever they were and, as well, in Arizona and New Mexico. I carefully explained all this to them. I urged them to persuade their fellow Japanese to leave before the evacuation to assembly centers began and while it was proceeding. I assured them that the WCCA would provide escort, if requested, by those who felt insecure. We organized convoys and shipped to those, who had resettled, their stored possessions.

This phase of resettlement from the temporary assembly centers came to a regrettable and necessary halt. Hostility toward the Japanese, at first, either nonexistent or minimal, developed quite suddenly and intensively in the western states of the interior, east of the Sierras and the Cascades.

The protection of the evacuees mandated that such a measure be instituted. I visited each assembly center and discussed the reasons for this with leaders among the evacuees. They fully understood. Assurances were given that unremitting efforts would be taken with state and city officials and with community leaders to deal with and to defuse these attitudes. Further assurances were given that resettlement from the ten Relocation Centers would resume in due course. Fortunately, within ninety days or so, these hostile feelings were substantially diminished due to the good offices of officials, community leaders and the press of these interior states. As the process of relocation from the Assembly Centers to the Relocation Centers progressed, so also did the WCCA resume its actions to foster relocation or more properly "resettlement" directly from the Relocation Centers.

P.S. I'd recommend being a little less enamored with the dime-a-dozen Ph.D comments the blogs keep flouting and look at the hard primary resources that support Malkin's book...

For balance, also this link to discussion at Volokh.com casting serious doubt on Malkin's work and Bob's sources, and her response. Thanks to Amy for the pointers.

Also: Link Link