ANSWERS: 2
  • It's always uncertain to predict what if's from WWII. Today, we look back at Executive Order 9066, or Generalplan Ost, or the Holocaust, and correctly evaluate these policies as barbaric and immoral. I am not going to try to defend them, as they were horrible moments in history, but I think they are all explained by conservative politics in the 1930's and going into the early 1940's. As awful as it is to look back and see how viscious the human race was in the past, it wasn't that long ago (19th century) when imperialism was the general policy of many European countries. This sort of imperialism wasn't just collecting territory, it generally involved genocide. And by genocide, I mean that the king, queen, tsar, kaiser, emporer, or whoever was in charge of enacting imperialistic policies, would look at a territory and say "Gee, I wish that X ethnic group didn't live there anymore, because that land has Y resource that the empire really wants." Y could be oil, wood, farmland, or even just a place to put more people. X could be any Native American tribe (USA), Circassians (Russia), Armenians (Ottoman Empire), or basically any group that had less sophisticated weapons than the invading empire. WWI came along and should have ended all of that. The German, Austo-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires were destroyed, the Spanish and Russian Empires collapsed under its own weight, and the British, Dutch, French, Italian, and Portuguese Empires were shedding overseas territories rapidly, as Imperialism was no longer viable. But, sadly, the USA wasn't really in a position to learn from the mistakes of other nations, and Germany, Italy, and Japan were trying to (re-)establish their empires, as if it were still 1880. It absolutely doesn't excuse any of the terrible policies enacted, but maybe it explains how these ultra-conservative political groups maybe didn't seem as outlandish as they do today. So, on to order 9066. The order didn't mention ethnicity of any sort, rather, it gave power to the military to restrict people's movements and general liberties and human rights indiscriminantly. Obviously, the Japanese Americans were the most cited as group who ended up in concentration camps because of this executive order, but many European Jews also ended up in American internment camps, not because of their Jewish heritage, but because they had fled from Germany and Italy, and the military was looking to confine anyone coming from those places as a potential threat. So, two scenarios, and maybe kind of a "duh" moment when I list those, but: 1. These people posed no threat to the USA, and their treatment was simply unnecessary. or 2. A small portion of these people might have carried out attacks on US security if they had not been contained. Scenario one is the accepted scenario, by the way. In that case, had order 9066 never existed, there would have been more Japanese Americans and also European immigrants in America who would have gone about their lives and been more prosperous after the war, rather than having to focus on rebuilding their lives from the ground up. Those people might have provided further support for the USA in the war, leading to fewer losses. And, at the very least, it would have saved the USA from having to pay reparations in apology decades later. In scenario two, which is not likely, but possible, some attacks on the USA from within could have led to even more anti-Japanese or anti-immigrant sentiment in the USA, leading to something worse than order 9066, unless the people at the time decided to become much more forward-thinking than we know that they were. Ultimately, order 9066, most likely harmed the USA for the sake of securing an unlikely threat. That said, if there were some people intending to attack the USA from one of the targetted groups, there is no reason to expect them to have ever complied with order 9066 anyway; they would have been likely to form underground terrorist cells. If anything like that happened, it was ineffective enough to conclude that it didn't matter in the long run.
  • We'll never know. These things have always been done during times of war to protect against espionage and sabotage. Who can say they wouldn't have done such had they been allowed to collaborate and move about freely. Japan attacked us out of nowhere! We weren't even involved in the war before that. We had chosen neutrality. One thing is for sure, they were treated much better than the holocaust victims or the Native Americans during the Trail of Tears! At least they had food clothing and shelter, medical care (something many Americans today don't have!) AND they were transported, not forced to walk and fend for themselves like the trail of tears. I don't think it was racial at all! They were reacting to an unprovoked attack! Military measures had to be taken. I also don't think screening aliens that want to enter the US is a bad thing either. We need to make sure they are not coming here to start trouble. And it has nothing to do with religion, race, location, or color. It has to do with protecting American lives. You don't know how many of those people lived because they weren't free to roam the streets during a time of war hysteria and racial tension! Many might have been killed by mobs! Being interned may have saved their lives for all we know.
    • Linda Joy
      As for the description, I don't believe in reparations. People have their entire lives destroyed all the time. They don't receive reparations if they loose everything in a fire or hurricane or a tornado. Your still just as devastated, everything you've worked for all your life is gone! So what!? No one is guaranteed their work will get them anything but older and more worn out! Shit happens, life goes on! You either rebuild right away or you wallow in your sorrow and blame everyone else. But guess what? If you want anything in life you have to work for it. You will rebuild or sit in your sorrow going nowhere. What about women who have sacrificed their entire lives to advance their family only to have their husband leave them for someone else when they get done establishing themselves and the woman is left destitute? Who pays them reparations? What about a man who works hard to build a business only to have someone embezzle it all from him? No one pays him reparations. And I don't think we should rebuild someone's country because we bombed it either! If they had to struggle to rebuild maybe they'd spend less time trying to figure out how to attack you again! No one pays you for nothing. If you're getting something for 'free' someone else is paying for it. Don't ever doubt that! How much of YOUR future tax money do you want the government to spend now to pay for someone else's loss you had no part in? YOU and your generation are the ones who will have to pay for it!
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      The USA was far from neutral during WWII. We tried neutrality during WWI, but were secretly supplying the British with munitions, which was actually what was on the Lusitania when it was sunk by the German Navy. The Germans even warned US passengers that they were going to attack the Lusitania by placing an ad in the newspapers in the USA. Pearl Harbor, sad to say, was orchestrated by the US government to get into the war. I know it sounds preposterous, but when you actually look into what we were doing, it's fairly plain to see. Hawaii was not a state at the time, just a territory, and almost 1/3 of the population there was Japanese at the time. If we were neutral, we would have no reason to dock such a large fleet there. Even if we were not neutral, we had too many ships there to make full use of the ports - the ships were gridlocked in the harbor on purpose, because the US government knew that the Japanese would see the US fleet as sitting ducks and organize an attack. Note that even though aircraft carriers were known to be extremely valuable by WWII, not one was stationed in Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack. Note that we had already broken the Japanese radio code prior to the attack, and that US intelligence was aware of an almost inevitable Japanese attack prior to moving the fleet to Hawaii, yet they forwarded none of that information to fleet commanders. In fact, fleet commanders initially refused to move the fleet from California to Hawaii, because it was a strategically stupid move. In the end, thousands of American lives were lost in order to embark on a war that would costs tens of thousands more, all in the name of political gain and economic progress. Lt. Commander McCollum said, in 1940, "If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better."
    • Linda Joy
      I don't know what propaganda you've been reading but no one forced the Japanese to attack. It was THEIR CHOICE. And we had officially not engaged in the war when they attacked, so I stand by what I said. Selling supplies is not the same as attacking Navy ships in port not causing anyone any trouble! As far as I'm concerned they got what they deserved when the bombs were dropped, and if we weren't afraid to win a war nowadays and bombed the crap out of anyone that attacks us (without reparations) there would be a lot less attacks and bull crap going on in the world! And we should leave other people alone and stop meddling in their affairs! Everyone hates us anyway no matter what we do! I don't think its the responsibility of our government to take care of the world! I think its the responsibility of humans to provide humanitarian aid. I think its the responsibility of Christians to walk the walk and truly love one another. But men love to make war! And so it is... "Only the dead who have seen the end of war"
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      Not physically attacking =/= neutral. Otherwise, I agree with everything you said.
    • Army Veteran
      You really should learn something about history. 1) The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was provoked by FDR. His "New Deal" policies were failures and he began stirring up conflicts in Europe to get America involved in a war (war creates employment). Because of America's neutrality policies, Congress wouldn't support him going to war in Europe. So, he devised a plan to make Japan attack the United States, thereby forcing Congressional approval to go to war. FDR was a traitor because he provoked an enemy attack on his own country. 2) You also missed the mark on the Trail of Tears. To begin with, the Indian tribes were well-paid for their land in the Southeast - $6 million (in today's dollars, that would be around $180 - $200 million). It was claimed that the march caused the deaths of around 3,000 Cherokee who were buried in unmarked graves along the way..."unmarked graves" is another way of saying "it didn't really happen but we want you to think it did - go ahead and search all you want." In the Cherokee nation's own files, now on deposit in the Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa, the number of Indians departing the East in 13 main parties is recorded at 12,623, the arrivals West at 12,783. Some stragglers joined on the way. American military counts are almost the same. The Cherokees were being paid per Indian moved. What about the "3000 who died and were buried in unmarked graves"? And if they were "forced" to move as historians claim, how do they explain the Cherokee people living in North Carolina? Some of these were among the stragglers who joined the Florida tribes, but clearly, the majority of Cherokee in North Carolina chose to stay. The phrase "Trail of Tears" is attributed to a remark by a Choctaw Indian to a Baptist preacher about an Indian Territory road. It reached print for the first time in 1908, 70 years after the exodus when all the participants were dead.

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