Michelle Malkin is not Japanese, and her book received near-universal condemnation from civil rights groups, historians and asian-americans alike.
It's disturbing to me that you're referencing this piece of crap to make an apparently sincere argument that internment might actually not be a bad thing. That's all it takes, huh?
edit: original comment by sp332, apparently deleted in shame
I didn't know she wasn't Japanese. But really I was trying to find a link to the introduction since she's a lot more convincing than just me saying "someone thought it was a good idea."
What is the supposed rationale for Japanese internment being a good idea? Was it the supposed danger to the Japanese themselves from retribution? Why didn't that happen elsewhere, where they were not interned, if so? Was it the risk that Axis sympathizers would sabotage the war effort? If so, why did this never happen in Hawaii, which was so full of Japanese-descended Americans that internment simply could not be done?
The specific point that I recall was that it was impossible to ask Japanese living in America to deny one of their countries and adhere completely to the other. They were both Japanese and American and would therefore be hopelessly compromised if they had to pick a side.
Sort of makes me wish America would declare war on the Philippines. Be sure to visit Malkin in her camp after a few years to ask for her updated opinion on the matter! After all, it would be impossible to ask her to deny one of her countries ...
The single-most decorated U.S. Army combat brigade during WWII was composed of Nisei Japanese-Americans. Even for the persons who actually immigrated from Japan, why else would they have come over if not because they saw something better? They can't all have been fifth columnists sent to blow up planes in hangars.
However a simpler response is to point out that we did not inter German-Americans, Italian-Americans, immigrants from Bulgaria or Romania, etc., despite there being a much less clear reasoning for war with the European Nazi powers.
Actually, I think there was a book about this, like where people were arrested for thinking about crimes, something like that. Except a lot of those Japanese probably weren't even thinking it.
And yet, that was clearly not the case (e.g. the large Japanese population in Hawaii that was not "hopelessly compromised"), so that's a pretty bad justification.
It's disturbing to me that you're referencing this piece of crap to make an apparently sincere argument that internment might actually not be a bad thing. That's all it takes, huh?
edit: original comment by sp332, apparently deleted in shame
> That's not as cut-and dried as it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Defense_of_Internment This Japanese woman wrote a defense of the internment.