While
America has gone a century and a half without being “war-torn” in
the conventional sense, the damage of war is not limited to that
inflicted by guns and bombs.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
5 - WWII: Wash, rinse, repeat
World
War II, in which propaganda likewise flourished, also resurrected the
dangerous “protection” practices set during World War I, namely
the mass targeting of those suspected of “disloyalty” to the war
effort. The most infamous of these was the internment of
Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast on the sole basis of
their ethnicity.
In 1942,
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, which put the
Secretary of War and his commanders in charge of establishing
military zones, or concentration camps, and deciding whom to imprison
within their confines. Congress supported the measure, passing Public
Law 503, which allowed for the executive order’s implementation.
Significantly, the measures did not name a specific ethnic group, but
allowed the military to restrict anyone it deemed a “threat.”
Anyone
of Japanese ancestry along the U.S. West Coast was considered by the
military to present such a threat and, after the laws were passed,
many of these individuals were placed under restrictions and curfews
before being “evacuated” to internment camps scattered across the
country from California to Arkansas. However, it was later shown that
the Japanese-Americans were targeted, not out of fear for the
national security, but due to the influence of “farmers seeking
to eliminate Japanese competition, a public fearing sabotage,
politicians hoping to gain by standing against an unpopular group,
and military authorities.”
Around
120,000 Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of them American citizens,
were sent to the camps. More than half of those interned were
children. They were not given due process and were incarcerated for
up to four years, unable to leave the prison camps. Many of the
children imprisoned there came to consider the camps “home.”
Strangely
and tellingly, Japanese-Americans, despite being considered a
domestic security threat, were able to join the U.S. Armed Forces
after filling out a short questionnaire.
Not all
Japanese-Americans complied with the government orders, however. The
most well-known of those who disobeyed the internment order was Fred
Korematsu, who later challenged the internment of Japanese-Americans
on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court
eventually ruled 6-to-3 that the internment of Japanese-Americans was
well within the war powers of the President, arguing that in times of
war such actions — even if blatantly racist — are justified when
there exists a “military necessity.”
It is
important to note, however, the vague nature of the law that led to
the internment of Japanese-Americans. It stated that the Secretary of
War was authorized to “prescribe military areas” and that
“the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be
subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the
appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.”
Thus, the legal war-time precedent that resulted from war hysteria
gave the U.S. military the ability to place anyone from any group
into concentration camps using “national security” and “military
necessity” as justification.
It’s
not hard to imagine how this could play out in the United States
today if and when war breaks out. Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban”
and push to make a registry of Muslim immigrants, as well as top U.S.
officials calling people of Russian descent “genetically driven”
to be untrustworthy, are just a few examples of the xenophobia and
related hysteria currently at work in the U.S. As long as those
irrational fears are cloaked in the patriotic blanket of “military
necessity,” it seems that the internment camps could again make an
appearance on American soil.
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