Tuesday, February 19, 2008
This Day in the History of Regrettable Actions Made Necessary by War
On this day in 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving the U.S. military the power to relocate and intern "any and all persons." The order was mainly used to detain around 120,000 Japanese-Americans, most of them U.S.-born citizens. This action is often criticized as unnecessary, wrong or racist, but it was absolutely necessary and right, as the cracked Japanese codes revealed an effort by the Japanese to recruit would-be saboteurs and spies from the community. Any time the Japanese complain about racism, I have to laugh, in my gaijin way, which laugh sounds, no doubt, like monkey calls to most Japanese ears.
Labels: Japanese Internment, WWII history; Pacific theater
