In a time of war, Michelle Malkin insists, the survival of the nation must come first. In her provocative new book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror, she explains why, contrary to the short-sighted propaganda of self-anointed "civil libertarians," civil liberties are not sacrosanct. The bestselling author of Invasion argues here that the "unalienable rights" that our Founding Fathers articulated in the Declaration of Independence don't appear in random order: Liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be secured and protected without securing and protecting life first.

Malkin fearlessly contradicts the Leftist conventional wisdom that anyone who champions profiling and even internment must by definition be a free speech-hating, Bill of Rights-trampling, immigrant-bashing tyrant. In Defense of Internment offers a ringing justification for the most reviled wartime policies in American history: the evacuation, relocation, and internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II. It also defends racial, ethnic, religious, and nationality profiling as effective defensive measures in today's War on Terror.

In Defense of Internment proves that everything you've ever learned about the World War II "internment camps" for Japanese in America is wrong: they weren't the product of racism or war hysteria, they weren't only for Japanese, and they were nothing at all like the Nazi death camps to which they are often compared by craven and opportunistic alarmists on the Left. Malkin not only sets the historical record straight -- she also refutes the arguments of pseudo-historians and sanctimonious liberal analysts who use this distorted history to undermine our crying need for national security profiling.

Malkin is not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps -- but she brings a bracing dose of desperately needed common sense and fearlessness to the ongoing debate about the balance between civil liberties and national security. Says Malkin: "A nation paralyzed in wartime by political correctness is a nation in peril." She provides conclusive proof that wartime presidents can't afford to indulge pandering nonsense from those who would make our security secondary to anything: a nation can't stand for anything unless it is still standing. For defending this unalterable truth, argues Malkin, America need not ever apologize. In Defense of Internment will outrage and enlighten you, and radically change the way you view the past -- and the present. Malkin also tells the truth about:

• Why the detention of enemy aliens and the mass evacuation of ethnic Japanese from the West Coast were not the result of irrational hatred or conspiratorial bigotry

• Revealed: the vast amount of activity by Japanese agents and nationalist groups on the West Coast before and during World War II (much of which was discovered when American cryptanalysts broke Japan's high-security wartime codes)

• Inexcusable ignorance: former Attorney General Janet Reno's false 2003 claim that there was absolutely "no record" that any Japanese Americans posed a security threat during World War II

• How modern civil rights advocates routinely misrepresent the actual contents of Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, which established the camps

• Why the phrase "Japanese-American internment" is actually historically and legally inaccurate

• Who resided in enemy alien internment camps? Surprise: nearly half were of European ancestry

• How immediate apprehensions of aliens after Pearl Harbor may have been instrumental in preventing further havoc on American soil (just as the detention of Middle Eastern illegal aliens may have done so following the 9/11 attacks)

• What the West Coast relocation centers were really like: tens of thousands of ethnic Japanese were allowed to leave; hundreds voluntarily chose to move in -- and many residents even protested their closing!

• How the preeminent Japanese American organization of the World War II era understood and embraced the wartime imperative to put national security first

• Stunning and long-forgotten facts about ordinary Japanese Americans who betrayed America by putting their ethnic roots first after Pearl Harbor

• Another forgotten bit of history: the February 1942 Japanese attack on Goleta, California -- the first foreign attack on the U.S. mainland since the War of 1812

• The $1.65 billion federal reparations windfall for Japanese who were interned in the World War II camps: why it was an unmitigated disaster

• How civil liberties absolutists have invoked the evacuation and relocation of Japanese to attack virtually every homeland security initiative aimed at protecting America from murderous Islamic extremists

• The anti-profilers: their persistent refusal to deal with the clear and present danger that our nation faces today

• Facts that American officials didn't know in 1942 -- making it unfair in the extreme for modern-day analysts to reproach them for establishing the camps

• Why today, as in the World War II, our government must set aside cultural sensitivities and provide for the common defense -- including through "racial profiling"

• How ethnic activists and civil liberties groups contradict themselves by objecting to the use of racial, ethnic, religious, and nationality classifications during wartime, but supporting use of similar classifications in peacetime, to ensure "diversity" on college campuses and carry out their harebrained social engineering schemes

• How today's Japanese-American leaders have united with Arab and Muslim spokesmen to undermine America's safety

• The height of politically correct stupidity: how the Pentagon, fearing "profiling" charges in the wake of evidence that Muslim chaplains may have been involved in espionage, chose to review all two thousand eight hundred military chaplains, rather than focusing exclusively on the twelve Muslim chaplains

• How, contrary to liberal hysteria, the Bush administration's approach actually echoes that advocated by opponents -- not supporters -- of World War II evacuation and relocation

• Why religious profiling is an essential tool in a war where the enemies are religious extremists carrying out a religious crusade to kill Americans

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  Member Book Reviews
  
   Not Rated
  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. 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. Is 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 per capita 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.

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  Michelle Malkin presents a brilliant case for identifying the bad guys and then interring them. NOTHING should impede the defense of our nation and its people; all of its people. And profiling is the way to identify a group of people that are trying to kill us. That profile will, no doubt, change over time as Islamic fundamentalists recruit the help of others that have, thus far, not been part of that profile. Only a very small number of Muslims or Arabs are trying to kill us and they must be identified, period. The vast majority of Muslims and Arabs are innocent and deserve the right to live in freedom. After all, that is what a democracy is all about.

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  "In Defense of Internment," Michelle Malkin presents a brilliant case for identifying the bad guys and interring them. In doing so she reminds us of the Japanese interments during WWII. As an Asian-American herself, Ms. Malkin is well-aware of that of which she speaks.
  
  While the bad guys must be locked up, there must also be some mechanism to review cases and to release the innocent. That is a difficult task, but a vital and critical one. Military tribunals provide an excellent mechanism to accomplish this. Should there be any doubt about one's guilt or innocence, than that internee must remain in custody until the war is over. -- Noel Gibeson
  
  
  Greg Eater  Not Rated
  A must read to really understand the full story regarding the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII and how similar it was to the situation we face as a nation today. Much like the GITMO detainees that we recently had to release, there was tremendous top secret evidence to support the decisions that were made by the U.S. government. Malkin does a great job of documenting many of the "MAGIC" communications that were intercepted which proved that there was an extensive network of Japanese spys on the west coast. She also does a great job of comparing the situation facing present day America. She asks, "if we found out through top secret documents before 9/11 occurred what the terrorists plans were, would we have let it happen?" We would have stepped in just as we did with during WWII to protect the nation as a whole rather than focusing on sensitivity to the rights of terrorists who wanted to kill Americans. A technical read, but great information to understand what really happened in America during WWII.

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