Daniel J. Pipes

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Response to internee re: Malkin book

Reader comment on item: Why the Japanese Internment Still Matters

Submitted by Armond Festine (United States), Jan 20, 2005 at 14:33

I also read and enjoyed Michelle Malkin's book. The premise of her book is not that the WWII internment of Japanese was an intrinsically good thing, although she cogently argues that it was justifiable based upon the accepted intelligence of the day. Rather it is that the latter day apologetic revisionism and erroneous assertions that such was the result of racial hysteria, is intrinsically bad. This is because it gives rise to a dysfunctional belief that any type of enhanced scrutiny based on racial, religious, or ethnic characteristics is always inappropriate.

Unfortunately, such a belief system impairs our ability to provide basic security. In war, any enemy is always likely to have some common racial, religious, of ethnic characteristics. And indeed there may be people with the same characteristics that are not the enemy.

Ms. Malkin neither applauds the WWII internment of the Japanese, nor does she advocate the wholesale deportation of Muslims. She does instructively point out that our collective failure to understand and appreciate the real reasons for President Roosevelt's actions hinders our ability to presently prosecute the war against global Islamic facism.

This is why the Japanese interment of WWII is relevant to what is happening in the world today.



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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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