www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall prolifers not pleased with Bush's choice for attorney general

Perhaps he is referring to the book written by Michelle Malkin. If so, Malkin is not Japanese. She is the daughter of Filipino immigrants.

Malkin's book has been severely criticized by historians.

djs,

I�ve read the links you posted. Thank you for posting them. I agree with you that it is good that the habeas corpus and some of the related violations have been addressed by the courts. However, I find nothing in the memos that gives either permission for torture or direction to torture. Most of it seems to be directed at protecting the interests of the United States in the international community.

Regarding the book by the Japanese-American I did write down her name and the title of her book. It is somewhere in this mess I call a computer room and I will post it when I come across it. But we don�t need to rely only on her testimony that most of the enemy combatants went right back to fighting us once they were released. A very highly respected intel person named John Loftus [john-loftus.com] (a Democrat who supported Kerry and does not overly like President Bush) keeps saying the exact thing (along with many of the talking heads on the cable news shows and the newspaper columnists).

Admin

We claim GPW dosn't apply.

We say
"The nature of [a "war" against terrorism] places a high premium on ...factors such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors ..."

We say
"[t]his new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners..."

We note GPW refers to
""outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment"

Connect the dots.

Jennifer,
Thanks for looking up Michelle Malkin's ancestry. I would hazard that people who come from countries occupied by Imperial Japan might have a different outlook on the internment, than do Japanese Americans. And I'm still interested to find out if there was a rationalization for seizing the assests of the interned.

Almost all is most, but most is not almost all. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it were all, however. If I were picked up by the military of a foreign country, whisked off to detention in another country, with no process at all, with even GPW constraints dropped, you can bet your dupa that the moment I could get out I would be on the front-lines. But are we finding terrorists or making them, as Rumsfeld asked?

Admin,

Let's not mix apples and oranges. Japanese-Americans interned during WWII were not "enemy combatants", they were a mix of Japanese citizens living in America and American citizens of Japanese ancestry. While there were undoubtedly some released from internment who departed the US, made their way to Japan, and entered into battle against the US, they were extraordinarily few in number. (And, btw, Canada's record in this regard was equally dismal.) (The US also interned some German and Italian-Americans as well, although the numbers were smaller - harder to profile on sight, I guess :rolleyes: ; their cases are less well-known and there was not generally the summary confiscation of property that was a routine part of the Japanese cases.)

To quote the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Murphy when, in a shameful bow to public hysteria, actions taken under Executive Order 9066 were upheld by the US Supreme Court in Korematsu v. US:

And, from the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Jackson in the same case:

Almost the only ones released from internment were young men of military age who volunteered for military duty. And the courageous and honorable nature of their service is a damning indictment of the action taken against their fellow Japanese-American citizens and residents by their government.

The 100th Infantry Battalion was formed from the Hawaii National Guard. Three days after Pearl Harbor, its troops were stripped of their rifles and guarded at gunpoint despite the fact that they had spent those days aiding the wounded, giving blood, and guarding the shoreline. Initially, when brought to the mainland US for training, a group of them were sent to train dogs at "smelling Japs", which proved to be a useless and stupid endeavor. Ultimately, they were deployed to the European Theater and were instrumental at Anzio and in breaching German defensive lines in northern Italy.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) was one of the most decorated US units in the European Theater. It was the 442nd that rescued the legendary "Lost Battalion", a Texas unit trapped 9 miles inside enemy lines for almost 2 weeks. In the 1 month period that included that rescue, the 442nd suffered 216 men dead and 856 wounded, more than half of its total strength; two of its companies were reduced at that point to 8 and 18 men, from beginning rosters of 185.

The 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, fighting as infantrymen once the battlelines were too close to effectively and safely use artillery support, liberated the death camps at Dachau.

The 232nd Combat Engineer Company earned 2 Presidential Unit Citations for its work in clearing mines, bridge building in advance of US forward troop movements, and destruction of bridges that foiled German troop movements.

The 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion essentially rebuilt Pearl Harbor and kept the other military facilities in Hawaii functional throughout the war.

Additionally, significant numbers of Japanese-Americans served in the Military Intelligence Service, including Sergeant, later Lt. Colonel, Richard Sakakida who spent four years in total as an infiltrator and as a POW of the Japanese forces in the Phillipines (during which he engineered the escape of 500 Filipino guerilla POWs and throughout which time he regularly transmited valuable intelligence data to Gen. MacArthur). Sakakida was ultimately awarded the Bronze Star for Valor and the Distinguished Service Cross by the US and the Legion of Honor (Degree of Legionnaire) by the government of the Phillipines.

Despite what we did to their families, 21 Nisei, first generation Japanese-Americans, the children of Japanese immigrants, performed acts so heroic as to earn them the Congressional Medal of Honor, one-third of them posthumously:

• Pvt Barney F. Hajiro, Co. I, 442d RCT, USA
• Pvt Mikio Hasemoto, Orig 100th Inf Bn (Separate), USA, posthumously
• Pvt Joe Hayashi, Co. K, 442d RCT, USA, posthumously
• Pvt Shizuya Hayashi, Orig 100th Inf Bn (Separate), USA
• 2d Lt Daniel K. Inouye, Co. E, 442d RCT, USA
• Tech Sgt Yeiki Kobashigawa, Orig 100th Inf Bn (Separate), USA
• Staff Sgt Robert T. Kuroda, Co. H, 442d RCT, USA
• PFC Kaoru Moto, Co. C, 100th Inf Bn (Separate), USA
• PFC Sadao S. Munemori, Co. A, 100th Inf Bn (Separate), USA, posthumously
• PFC Kiyoshi K. Muranaga, Co. F, 442d RCT, USA, posthumously
• Pvt Masato Nakae, Co. A, 100th Inf Bn (Separate), USA
• Pvt Shinyei Nakamine, Orig 100th Inf Bn (Separate), USA, posthumously
• PFC William K. Nakamura, Co. G, 442d RCT, USA, posthumously
• PFC Joe M. Nishimoto, Co. G, 442d RCT, USA
• Sgt Allan M. Ohata, Co. B, 100th Inf Bn (Separate), USA
• Tech 5th Grade James K. Okubo, Med. Detachment, 442d RCT, USA
• Tech Sgt Yukio Okutsu, Co. F, 442d RCT, USA
• PFC Frank H. Ono, Co. G, 442d RCT, USA
• Staff Sgt Kazuo Otani, Co. G, 442d RCT, USA, posthumously
• Pvt George T. Sakato, Co. E, 442d RCT, USA
• Tech Sgt Ted T. Tanouye, Co. K, 442d RCT, USA

Michelle Malkin's book - In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling - is a piece of unmitigated hysterical extreme right-wing hate literature, mirroring much of her writing. In it, she "enlightens" the reader as to:

And that's just for starters. If Jennifer is correct, and Ms. Malkin is the daughter of Filipino immigrants, given Ms. Malkin's expertise in matters racial, perhaps she can enlighten us in a future work on the advantages that Filipinos gained from decades of being allowed to serve in the US Navy, provided they were willing to be mess stewards.

Many years,

Neil

An argument that the Geneva POW Convention does not apply does not lead to an automatic conclusion that the Gonzales or anyone in the administration is opening the door to torture. Much of what I have read on this issue shows that the intent of the administration here is to save our soldiers from the dubious complexity of international law. Given that countries like Syria and Libya sit on the human rights commission of the United Nations, this action really should not be a surprise.

One of the key arguments in the article you cited demonstrates intent: �The determination, Mr. Gonzales said, also reduced the threat of domestic prosecution under the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441). His expressed concern was that certain GPW language such as �outrages upon personal dignity� and �inhuman treatment� are �undefined� and that it is difficult to predict with confidence what action might constitute violations, and that it would be �...difficult to predict the needs and circumstances that could arise in the course of the war on terrorism.� He believed that a determination of inapplicability of the GPW would insulate against prosecution by future �prosecutors and independent counsels.�"

Neil,

Thanks for your post and for questioning what I wrote. It gives me the opportunity to extend my comments.

I was not comparing the detention of Japanese-Americans during WWII with the detention of enemy combatants in the current war. I was only noting that we have an American of Japanese ancestry (I think it was someone else and not Milkin) who was stating that she thought it correct that Japanese Americans were detained. I never stated that I fully supported this. I only stated that the issue is a complex one.

djs remarked: If I were picked up by the military of a foreign country, whisked off to detention in another country, with no process at all, with even GPW constraints dropped, you can bet your dupa that the moment I could get out I would be on the front-lines. djs states the problem accurately. During WWII if we did not detain German prisoners of war but instead released them they would have immediately gone back to Germany to fight against us. If I was fighting against the Germans or Japanese in WWII and was captured I would most certainly do everything I could to escape and harm the enemy. The same is true of the enemy combatants detained during this war. Is it appropriate to release them so that they may return to the theatre of combat to shoot at our troops?

I don�t see Ms. Malkin�s book as �a piece of unmitigated hysterical extreme right-wing hate literature.� I have not read it. But the fact that many on the political Left are attacking it suggests that it might be worthwhile reading. [Many of the same people now refer to the Bible as �hate literature� because of it's pro-life and anti-homosexual activity content, (those horrible Ten Commandments) so Malkin is in very good company with us Christians.]

Oddly, �The Case for Racial Profiling� as a title hits home. I am �racially profiled� almost every time I go through security at an airport. I have dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and wear a closely trimmed beard. Those who meet me for the first time seem to assume that I am of Arabic ethnicity. Since 9/11 I had occasion to fly about 25 times. Almost every time I am pulled aside and given an extra screening, one far more personal than the majority of people get. It appears that I am being selected because I fit the profile of an Arab-American. I am not thrilled with the extra delay but if this effort serves to detain some terrorists I cooperate willingly. I think it is not unwise for our country to look a bit more closely at the ethnic group from which most terrorists are coming from.

Admin

Dear Administrator,
You choice to take the narrowest view of the comments in Gonzalez's memo misses the broader context of the the memos that he vetted from DoD and Justice and the dissent raised by the State Department. This issue was widely reported http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26401-2004Jun8.html
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5167122/site/newsweek/
and was the subject of intensence discsussion at many Catholic fora and blogs - with most intensity arising fromt eh starling fact that many Catholics came squarely down on the pro-torture side of the argument.
http://disputations.blogspot.com/2004_06_06_disputations_archive.html#108679188155809873
http://www.markshea.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_markshea_archive.html#108688972070859635

In the aftermath of diregarding intrenational treaties and standards of human rights, as is vclear from the Justice and DoD memos.

Especially in the part that you disregard. While there may be a need to detain, there is no need to flout international treaties, or to disregard our own standards of human rights. I had thought that you had earlier stated agreement with the courts's repuidiation of this administrations's dismissal of any process apart from its own decree in determining the status of the people it detains and in limiting access to any legal remedies. Rumsfeld is right to be concerned about the effect our actions have in breeding terroists.


From Jennifer on another thread:
Jennifer, you are way ahead of the Administrator!

djs, there is no �pro-torture� side of the argument.

I have read much on this issue, including all the links you have offered. Your choice to take the worst possible interpretation of the motives of the administration does not lend credibility to your argument.

I reject your accusation that I am intellectually dishonest. I may believe that your conclusions on some issues to incorrect, but I nevertheless believe you to be an intellectually honest individual.

Admin

I don't take the worst possible view. But the facts are that there was a great deal of discussion within the administration to develop a strategy to bypass, with no judicial oversight, customary legal rights and dignities. And that little by little this effort was not merely theoretical but was certainly implemented in Guantanamo. And that these novel legal perspectives are being struck down in court. According to reports accompanying release of these documents, Gonzalez himself expressed dissatisfaction with the job that he did as the President's legal councel; Ashcroft is, by contrast, going out with a salvo of criticism against the courts. Gonzalez will be an vast improvement over Ashcroft, but his involvement in this business raises doubts about his committment to the rule of law.

I am sorry for the criticism, but what is there to say about the manner of your considering Malkin's book worthwhile? Perhaps you would like to consider that among its critics is Neil, who cannot be considered an enemy of Christianity.

And I don't want, in any way, to leave the impression that you are part of the pro-torture cohort. But the discussion over the summer on the subject, quite surprisingly, revealed the presence of such a group.

I agree that there was a great deal of discussion along the lines of bypassing judicial oversight. On the domestic side seems to have been mostly to counter the liberal activism of many of the courts, which often grants greater attention to the guilty and forgets about the victims. On the international side this seems to have been mostly to counter a very unfair, anti-American international community (international law is not and should not ever be above the U.S. Constitution). I may disagree with some specific actions of the administration but I see no evidence of them being �pro-torture� and I believe that such accusations on your part are unfounded. For the most part, I see some legitimate issues being raised to an extreme level merely for political purposes. I think it would have been much better all around for the Left to have refrained from hysteria and simply calmly and clearly pursuing their complaints in more appropriate ways. Implying �pro-torture� motives to the administration hasn�t helped.

As to Ashcroft�s comments, I think they have some merit. Much of the attack upon his work has been purely political (including some of what has come from the courts). Those attacking seem not to care about a serious analysis of the Patriot Act but rather just a partisan attack that he can do not good because of the political party he belongs to. I reject such activities on both sides.

You could have taken my criticism of Neil�s post on Malkin�s book at face value in light of his description of her book as �a piece of unmitigated hysterical extreme right-wing hate literature, mirroring much of her writing.� Malkin, a conservative, is far more mild then many of her liberal counterparts (Maureen Dowd quickly comes to mind). In her recent columns Malkin has addressed such �right-wing hate� issues as bias against home-schoolers, illegal aliens with voting cards, the forgotten interned during WWII who were of European ancestry, and the media�s worship of Barack Obama while totally ignoring conservative minority politicians who have won victories this year. Malkin may have a feisty, tongue in cheek writing style, but she is no right-wing Michael Moore. It should have been pretty clear that I was being teasingly sarcastic at Neils� Hardball-type cable news show description of Malkin as a person who is most often hysterical and hate-filled. Whenever I see such accusations on either side I usually conclude the person being attacked is worthy of my attention.

Thank you for the clarification.

Yes, there are even Catholics who advocate the use of torture. But even here we must be careful to define what constitutes torture, because I think that most Catholics who are labeled �pro-torture� are not really supportive of �torture-without-limit� and are labeled unfairly. Let us remember that for an activity to be considered torture it must necessarily include severe or excruciating physical pain.

If I was a Marine platoon leader who had captured an enemy soldier and that soldier knew the location of my fellow Marines that were being tortured and would be soon decapitated by the enemy, I�d have no problem depriving him of sleep or even roughing him up to learn the location of my men so that I could rescue them. I don�t consider that severe enough to qualify as torture. But this doesn�t mean that I would torture them endlessly for days or start cutting off fingers or would ever support such a thing. I don�t see temporary sleep deprivation or roughing up as tactics as �pro-torture�. I think it is unfair to lump these realities of war together with real torture. Is there a line between the two? Yes. Is it easy to know the line? No. It is very difficult.

Or consider a different example. If a 16 year old girl is kidnapped in front of her father, but as they drag her into the getaway car the father manages to pull one of the kidnappers out of the car. If I were that father, the first thing I�d do would be to call the police. The second thing I would do would be to pound the hell out of the kidnapper I caught until he told me where there were taking my daughter.

Admin,

When you and I disagree, it is always so civilly accomplished that I almost feel guilty engaging in it , but it never stops me .

"Hardball-type cable news show description" - hmm, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places for work; could be that I have a whole career bent that I haven't even considered yet. I will concede that Malkin has taken on and written some excellent pieces attacking issues on which I would agree with her. However, on this one, I can't give any quarter. Like you, I am inclined to give attention to those attacked and, while I now understand that you weren't intending to compare WWII internment to the detainee situation, you did cite Malkin's writings (in which she did so) as a supportive consideration.

Although I think that Alex believes that I never post anything more than a prayer here without first performing a web-wide search on the subject at issue (and he's right in some instances ), this isn't such a circumstance. I have a long-standing personal interest in the history of Japanese-American internment (don't ask why - it's no more explainable than my interest in the Amish, Shakers, episcopus vagante, or color variations in early US stamps) - just one of those things (pervasive enough that I apparently communicated it to my 2 oldest, who both did major research projects on it during college). So, Malkin's thesis, which runs counter to virtually every modern historical interpretation of the events is a lightning rod for me, particularly in her use of it to justify anything else.

Your reasoning as to what is and isn't torture and your description of the circumstances that might shape your reasoning is not significantly different than my own thoughts in that regard. The one distinguishing factor might be in our views of the Geneva Convention protocols; as a medical officer in Viet Nam, I was very conscious of those and our stated intent to abide by them, despite the fact that the US was not a signatory to them and despite knowing that the enemy did not necessarily do so. (It can be disheartening to hear in one breath that you are to be recognized as a non-combatant and, in the next, to be warned that priority targets in any ambush by the enemy are the officers and/or non-commissioned officers, the radioman, and the medic, not necessarily in that order, for the purpose of disrupting a unit's leadership, communication, and morale.) Yet, adherence to the Convention wasn't questioned, because it was a mark of our nation's civilized status. Those who chose not to obey the "rules of war", people like Lt. William Calley, were as anathema to most of us as the Catholic and Orthodox were to one another at the end of the first millenium. To the extent that the Convention affords protections to detainees that were not foreseen in drafting the Constitution, I don't see those provisions as superior to the Constitution, but as complementary.

Suffice it to say that Ms. Malkin is a bit the ideologue for my taste, but I won't let your affinity for her way of thought get in the way of that dinner you once promised if I ever get down to Falls Church again in this lifetime .

BTW, I find Ms. Malkin's concern for European victims of internment to be nothing more than a convenient measure by which for her to attempt demonstrating that Japanese-Americans got no more than they deserved or didn't really have anything about which to complain. There was no more justification for the internment of German- or Italian-Americans than there was for that of the Japanese; but, there were differences.

• Confiscation of property and assets were measures employed on a much more limited scale with respect to detainees of European ancestry;
• Almost all such detainees were actually foreign nationals, internment of foreign-born, naturalized US citizens was rare among these groups, and internment of their first-generation American descendents was virtually unheard of;
• Their internments lasted for a significantly shorter period overall;
• "Parole", allowing their return to civilian life under watchful surveillance with some restrictions on movement, was exercised much more frequently;
• The camps, in which they were interned, were situated in significantly less harsh environments;
• The internees were almost exclusively adult males of military age or slightly older - internment of women, children, and the elderly were the exception rather than the rule

This was true despite the fact that there were vastly more alleged and documented episodes of espionage activity on the part of German-American residents or citizens. (Among Italian-Americans in the same categories, such activity was as uncommon as among the Japanese-Americans.)

Many years,

Neil

Neil,

I think you are far too normal to have your own cable show.

But, you remind me of something. A local talk radio show had tryouts from the local community to whoever was interested in hosting their own talk show. The winner got a slot on Sundays from 12:00-3:00 PM and is excellent. He describes himself as a �conservative who happens to be black�. I say go for it if you can!

Careful, comments like that will get you labeled as a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy. But we would welcome you with open arms!

Seriously, though, I sited Malkin�s writings mostly because she questions the modern historical interpretation. And I have learned that the modern historical interpretation is oftentimes wrong. She seems to be raising the European internment issue only because they have been ignored and do not fit conveniently into the current liberal interpretation of the events of WWII. [Japan attacked us on our own soil, something Germany never did. It was fitting, from the point of the WWII government, to react stronger to Japanese-Americans than to European-Americans. That is never a consideration with many modern interpretations of this issue.]

I reject what happened to ethnics of Japanese and European ethnicities in WWII, but my rejection is to the way it was done rather than the idea itself. It was wrong to round up these people and detain them in camps. But it was not wrong to take a hard look at them or to keep tabs on them in time of war. The enemy would very naturally attempt to infiltrate this community and it is fair to take a harder look among these communities. [I have a few friends with security clearances who, during the 1970s and 1980s were closely questioned because a family member happened to subscribe to the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. None were (to my memory) offended because they were Slavs and they knew that the Soviet Union was an enemy.]

My point, which I expressed poorly, was that in WWII, if it was thought necessary to keep tabs on ethnic peoples (citizens and non-citizens) living here in the United States, then it should not be surprising that here at the beginning of the 21st century there are those who think it is appropriate to detain actual enemy combatants. I have no problem detaining true enemy combatants for longer periods. I do have problems with just rounding up suspicious people and detaining them �just in case�. From everything I have read 98% of the current detainees fall into the first category.

Thank you for your service to our country during the Vietnam War. I am glad you strived to keep the Geneva Convention protocols. I submit for your consideration that the administration�s decisions were not to deny humane treatment to enemy combatants / prisoners, but that it was mostly to keep our soldiers out of the jurisdiction of the anti-American international courts (especially in an era where the enemy does not recognize the Geneva Convention and seems to find support even at the United Nations).

BTW, I just called a friend who works at a certain cable network whose studios are split between Washington, DC and Ft. Lee, NJ. She mentioned that there are a few prime time slots coming open in January. Shall I send them you name for a tryout? :p

Admin

To clarify, I find something awry when a Catholic feels at home with either the right or left wing agendas, without serious reservations, given the nature of Catholic social teaching. The political party does not exist, at least in the United States, that approximates the social "agenda" of the Catholic Church. It bothers me when Catholics act like either of the pathetic political options in the US do so.
There are elements in the "right wing agenda" that I agree with: anti-abortion, pro-traditional family, support for school vouchers and faith-based initiatives come to mind. However, their committment to so-called free market economics ["liberalism" in papal terms], for aggressive war-making, for hyper-nationalism, all leave me cold. Similarily, the left is agreeable when it is pro-labor [as the Church traditionally has been], when there is a preferential option for the poor and dispossessed, for the immigrant, and so on. Unfortunately the modern left is also chained to the right to kill the unborn, to homosexualists and other things inimical to any Christian.
I guess I mean that something is wrong when a Catholic feels at home with any modern political agenda....
-Daniel