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

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[[File:InDefenseOfInternment.jpg|165px|thumb|Cover for ''In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror''.]]
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'''''In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror''''' ({{Isbn|0895260514}}) is a 2004 book by conservative author [[Michelle Malkin]].<ref name=defense>''In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror'' by Michelle Malkin (2004) Regnery Publishing. ISBN:0895260514.</ref> As it says in the title, the point of the book is to defend the [[Japanese-American internment]] camps during [[World War II]], and to advocate that the [[United States]] engage in something similar in order to fight the [[War on Terror]].

==Michelle vs. The Founders==
The book opens with this paragraph:

{{quotebox|I start from a [[politically incorrect]] premise: In a time of war, the survival of the nation comes first. [[Civil liberties]] are not sacrosanct. The "unalienable rights" that our [[Founding Fathers]] articulated in the Declaration of Independent did not appear in random order: Liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be secured and protected without securing and protecting life first.<ref name=defense/>{{rp|xiv}}}}

Of course, one could find several quotes from the founding fathers that disagree with Malkin's rather odd interpretation. The most famous example being [[Benjamin Franklin]]'s famous line "Those who would give up essential [[Liberty]], to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."<ref>[https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107 Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 11 November 1755]</ref> Patrick Henry's similarly famous comemnt "Give me liberty or give me death"<ref>[https://ammo.com/articles/founding-fathers-quotes-liberty-freedom-america Founding Fathers Quotes on Why America's Revolutionaries Fought For Liberty and Freedom]</ref> also works to show how the founders disagreed. However, one only needs to understand what the word "unalienable" actually means ("impossible to take away or give up"<ref>[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unalienable unalienable]</ref>) in order to understand why Malkin's point about word order is grasping at straws, to put it nicely. Something cannot be more unalienable than another thing for the same reason something cannot be more inevitable than something else; if something is inevitable it is certain, so it is equally certain as all other things that are certain.

For the record, the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" actually comes from [[John Locke]], specifically a phrase he coined put along side his notion that a government must protect its citizens right to "life, liberty, and property."<ref>[https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/john-locke/ John Locke]</ref>

Malkin's disdain for civil liberties is present all throughout the book. She defends one person who was "merely observing that adopting lesser measures that the entire grievance industry vehemently protest as civil rights atrocities… can prevent acts of [[terrorism]], which in turn can prevent larger infringements on civil liberties down the road."<ref name=defense/>{{rp|xix}} However, even giving her the benefit of the doubt that a civil liberties-minded [[government]] would one day perform a 180°&nbsp;turn the second they have an excuse to, that would still in no way justify the original infringements.

==Were there Japanese terrorists?==
One of Malkin's big pieces of evidence is the MAGIC cables,<ref>[https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Magic_cables/ Magic cables] ''Densho Encyclopedia''.</ref> which she claims provide evidence of "an aggressive effort to recruit West Coast spies, including both [[Japan]]ese aliens (Issei) and U.S.-born citizens of Japanese descent."<ref name=defense/>{{rp|21}} Malkin writes that it had "vital importance in shaping [[FDR]]'s national security policies abroad and at home."<ref name=defense/>{{rp|37}}

However, in his review for ''[[Reason (magazine)|Reason Magazine]]'',<ref name=Reason>[https://web.archive.org/web/20041214201032/http://www.reason.com/0412/cr.em.indefensible.shtml Indefensible Internment]
</ref> Eric L. Muller points out two major issues with this claim. The first one being:

{{quotebox|Many of the men who proposed and implemented the internment did not have access to the ultra-secret MAGIC cables. Lt. Gen. John DeWitt,{{efn|Of "a jap is a jap" fame.<ref>[https://encyclopedia.densho.org/John%20DeWitt/ John DeWitt]</ref>}} the chief architect of the eviction of Japanese Americans, did not see them. Neither did the governors of the Mountain West states, who in April 1942 rejected the federal government’s request to allow Japanese Americans freedom of movement and instead insisted that any Japanese Americans in their states be kept behind barbed wire and under military guard. Plainly, the MAGIC intelligence could not have influenced them.<ref name=Reason/>}}

And the second issue being:

{{quotebox|Nothing in the historical record shows that Roosevelt, Stimson, or McCloy attached any particular significance to any specific MAGIC decrypt, let alone to the vanishingly tiny fraction that mentioned a desire to enlist Nisei{{efn|Nisei refers to second-generation Japanese-Americans.}} spies.<ref name=Reason/>}}

Regarding claims of recruitment, Malkin is greatly misrepresenting what these messages actually said. Historian Greg Robinson points out that one message cited "does not say that such recruitment took place, and furthermore that recruitment was to take place even more among non-Japanese. "He also notes that many of the cables could not have been used as justification for internment because they "recount information given to Japan in fall 1941, long after any discussion of recruiting Japanese Americans had ceased." (This isn't the only issue with time Robinson finds, as he notes one event that Malkin used to justify internment happened "four days after Executive Order 9066 was signed, so it could not have played a factor in any of the decisions.) <ref name=Robinson>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080905220514/http://www.modelminority.com/article849.html A Critique of Michelle Malkin's "In Defense of Internment", Part Two]</ref>

==Malkin and David Lowman==
''In Defense of Internment'' is dedicated to a man named David Lowman, whom Malkin has also credited as being the person who got her interested in this topic in the first place, writing in 2004:
{{quotebox|After reading a book by former National Security Agency official David Lowman called ''MAGIC: The untold story of U.S. Intelligence and the evacuation of Japanese residents from the West Coast during WWII'',<ref>''Magic: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast during World War II'' by David Lowman (2001) Athena Press. ISBN 9780960273614.</ref> published posthumously by Athena Press Inc., I contacted publisher Lee Allen, who generously agreed to share many new sources and resources as I sought the truth.<ref name=Robinson/>}}

However, given Malkin's decision to hold Lowman in high regard, he was not a very good source and the book doesn't say what Malkin thinks it does. ''Publisher Weekly'' noted, although Lowman does say MAGIC played a large role in the decision to intern the Japanese, his book has nothing "directly rebutting charges that sheer [[racism|racist]] hysteria contributed as well."<ref>[https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-9602736-1-4 Magic: The Untold Story of U. S. Intelligence & the Evacuation Of...] (01/01/2001) ''Publishers Weekly''.</ref> This is a far cry from Malkin who says, definitely, that the "internment measures were based not on anti-Japanese racism."<ref name=defense/>{{rp|54}}

==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Books]]
[[Category:Conservative deceit]] 
[[Category:Propaganda]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Shysters]]
[[Category:United States politics]]
[[Category:World War II]]

Categories: Books, Conservative deceit, Propaganda, Racism, Shysters, United States politics, World War II