Hasan: “Secondary trauma;” political correctness
We’re now hearing about “secondary trauma” as a reason—even a sort of partial excuse—for Hasan’s killing spree at Fort Hood. Here’s the definition:
In medical parlance it is known as “secondary trauma”, and it can afflict the families of soldiers suffering from P.T.S.D. along with the health workers who are trying to cure them. Dr. Antonette Zeiss, Deputy Chief of Mental Health Services for Veteran Affairs, while not wishing to talk about the specific case of the Fort Hood slayings, explained to TIME that: “Anyone who works with P.T.S.D. clients and hears their stories will be profoundly affected.”…
At army hospitals dealing with P.T.S.D. patients, the staff is required to periodically fill out a ‘resiliency’ questionnaire that is supposed to gauge how well they are coping with the burden of their patients’ emotional and psychological demands. “It takes its toll on people,” says one officer at a Colorado military hospital. “You cannot be un-affected by the terrible things these soldiers have undergone.”
Secondary trauma exists. It is one possible reason for burnout, and it can cause helpers and therapists to quit their jobs. It most definitely can cause helpers and therapists to feel stress and depression.
But it most definitely does not cause helpers and therapists to become mass murderers.
So, what did cause Hasan to cross that line? We can start with his clearly-expressed ideological sympathy with jihadis. This editorial asks the very pertinent question:
Did 13 American soldiers die at Fort Hood because officers were afraid of appearing insensitive to Muslims?
The answer, I’m afraid, appears to be “yes.” There is little question that Hasan raised so many red flags, so often and so flagrantly, that he should have been relieved of duty long before he was able to go on his rampage.
Predicting violence is always a difficult task, but in Hasan’s case it wasn’t even the issue: loyalty to this country was. Even if he had not murdered thirteen soldiers, he could have been expected to represent a security risk in other less violent but still very damaging ways.
The bottom line is that there should be no place in the US armed forces for a person who has professed alliance with or sympathy for jihadists. This has nothing to do with purging the military of Muslims, and everything to do with a common sense case-by-case approach to the question of loyalty to this country versus loyalty to our enemies.
During World War II, this question was faced and “solved” in a maximally politically-incorrect way: detention camps for Japanese-Americans. It was a response to a very real problem: that of the potential for a fifth column in wartime due to divided loyalties. But it was a policy in which many innocents were punished and restricted in order to contain the guilty few.
Hasan and current military policy represent the opposite: a policy in which we refrain from punishing or restricting the guilty few in order to protect the many innocent. If we make that choice, we end up with a massacre of other innocents such as happened at Fort Hood, or even worse.
What about an approach that represents some sort of happy medium? How about responding appropriately to the potentially-guilty few who make themselves obvious— those who, like Hasan, have made it clear that their loyalty is to the enemy and who are therefore significant risks for betrayal and mayhem? If we can’t manage even that, I’m afraid that political correctness has morphed into a near-suicidal insanity.
[ADDENDUM: Red flags, anyone?]
The example of “the flying Imams” is there for all to see. Can you imagine the MSM response to this guy being forced out of the military prior to his actions? To what lengths would they go in their rage, given the absence of 13 dead innocent soldiers?
God help the careers of anyone taking action against this guy prior to the jihad, civilian or military. Liberals have no common sense in matters like this. It is amazing that the police officer who shot him has not been charged for a hate crime. Perhaps because she is female…however, she is white and that must be considered…
Do you think that I am being sarcastic? We are but a step away from nonsense just like this in the reporting of this jihad.
There, I have said it twice.
Had I been in the police officer’s place, I (hope) that I would have tried to kill him too. There, I have done it. In the insane liberal world I am a right wing fanatic bigot who wants to commit a hate crime.
God, what a world we have come to live in.
Neo, the bottom line for me is that the military is fundamentally based on fulfilling and supporting an oath to support and defend the constitution.
Muslims are forbidden by their religion from respecting any oath other than to God, so we have a disconnect that I am not sure an be reconciled.
” Under the concept of Takeyya and short of killing another human being, if under the threat of force, it is legitimate for Muslims to act contrary to their faith. The following actions are acceptable:
* Drink wine, abandon prayers, and skip fasting during Ramadan.
* Renounce belief in Allah.
* Kneel in homage to a deity other than Allah.
* Utter insincere oaths.
The implications of the principle of Al-Takeyya
Unfortunately, when dealing with Muslims, one must keep in mind that Muslims can communicate something with apparent sincerity, when in reality they may have just the opposite agenda in their hearts. Bluntly stated, Islam permits Muslims to lie anytime that they perceive that their own well-being, or that of Islam, is threatened.
In the sphere of international politics, the question is: Can Muslim countries be trusted to keep their end of the agreements that they sign with non-Muslim nations? It is a known Islamic practice, that when Muslims are weak they can agree with most anything. Once they become strong, then they negate what they formerly vowed.
The principle of sanctioning lying for the cause of Islam bears grave implications in matters relating to the spread of the religion of Islam in the West. Muslim activists employ deceptive tactics in their attempts to polish Islam’s image and make it more attractive to prospective converts. They carefully try to avoid, obscure, and omit mentioning any of the negative Islamic texts and teachings.
An example of Islamic deception is that Muslim activists always quote the passages of the Quran from the early part of Mohammed’s ministry while living in Mecca. These texts are peaceful and exemplify tolerance towards those that are not followers of Islam. All the while, they are fully aware that most of these passages were abrogated (cancelled and replaced) by passages that came after he migrated to Medina. The replacement verses reflect prejudice, intolerance, and endorse violence upon unbelievers
In conclusion, it is imperative to understand, that Muslim leaders can use this loop-hole in their religion, to absolve them from any permanent commitment. It is also important to know that what Muslim activists say to spread Islam may not always be the whole truth. When dealing with Muslims, what they say is not the issue. The real issue is, what they actually mean in their hearts. ”
http://www.islamreview.com/articles/lyingprint.htm
But wait, there’s more. Was there a change in poilcy that took place between November 2008 and February 2009?
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11268
Hmmm…
I’m all for neo’s “happy medium” of focusing in on individuals who make it clear that their loyalties are with the enemy.
Still I understand Darrell’s point that Muslims are members of a supremacist religion in which deceit and violence are explicitly condoned, even mandated, if they serve to advance the cause of Islam.
It’s much like dealing with American Communists and their fellow travelers during the Cold War. Sure, some of them were just unwitting idealists, but others really were aimed at subverting and overthrowing the United States.
It’s more complicated with Muslims because they travel under the protected banner of religion and most Americans still have not read the Quran or studied Islam to understand that it is not just another religion.
What needs to be understood is Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization because of its inability to accept the separation of church and state, individual freedom, and equal treatment of women. That’s the bottom line. If Muslims are the majority in a state, they enforce their world view on the minority. Until then they work toward domination. Islam has bloody borders.
I went directly from commenting here to a right-wing political site and, lo and behold, there was an article by an expert that contained much common sense about this issue:
Here is a quote:
“For these critics to say that you can’t target jihadist ideology without targeting the whole of Islam is an acknowledgment on their part that the two are inseparable – a point I doubt they are ready to concede. Regardless, they can’t have it both ways: either jihadist ideology has nothing to do with Islam, as Islamic groups constantly represent, and thus it can be addressed without infringing on their freedom of religion; or they must admit, along with the “Islamophobes,” that jihadist ideology and the violence it promotes are part and parcel with Islam. The question for these critics is unavoidable: which is it?”
Now, we know that liberals have no problem holding the above two beliefs (and any number of other contradictions) in their heads at the same time, but isn’t it time to force them to face reality?
Andrew Sullivan explains how people like you are destroying America.
As for conservatism, if one will destroy a thing, first one must understand the reason for that thing’s existence. Thus, it is a philosophical exploration that is required, not simply the ambitious desire for power as exists in many political bodies and revolutionary movements.
Leftist revolutions exist based upon the real world premise, not the popularly accepted one, of replacing a working status quo that is not interested in exploiting the people with a non-workable status quo that exists by exploiting the people.
Exploitation will exist because of human nature, or Original Sin depending on various ideological preferences (and Original Sin for the Left is American slavery only). But that does not mean exploitation as a function of government must be a requirement.
If people understood the fundamental nature of revolutions and the purpose of what they sought to replace and what they sought to replace it with, they wouldn’t be so eager to set out to change the government, as Iran and Cuba did. And found out to their regret what a real systemic purge of the people was.
So first, undermine people’s understanding of the US Constitution and the status quo of the US government. Then seek to replace it with a system that, purportedly, is not designed to exploit the people. Obviously, given a choice between a current US government, Bush’s administration, exploiting the people for war and greed as a function of their government, and the administration of Obama which is the opposite of this, they would go for the opposite. But first people must be made to believe that the function of the status quo is not its real purpose, but a manufactured purpose.
In the end, if people understood the purpose of that which they sought to replace, they would not be so eager to replace it.
What about an approach that represents some sort of happy medium?
How about we get rid of the largest Fifth Column in America, the Left.
Hasan purchased at least one of his guns legally. Freedom-loving Americans insist that intrusive investigations of people who wish to purchase weapons is a violation of their Constitutional rights. Freedom-loving Americans should also insist that intrusive investigations into what people believe is also a violation of their Constitutional rights. Protecting Constitutional rights does occasionally lead to murder and massacre, but those rights are fundamental, and those adverse effects must be tolerated.
Here, courtesy of Robert Spencer’s excellent site Jihad Watch, is a link to Maj. Hasan’s little Powerpoint Presentation on “The Koranic Worldview as it Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/11/10/GA2009111000920.html)
On page 13, you can see that he wrote “Through” when he meant “Threw”. This is yet more evidence that spelling and grammatical errors in manifestos are reason to suspect their authors as potential mass-murderers. It’s because their fervid minds are so overflowing with poisonous thoughts that they just come spewing out, with no time for correction.
neo-neocon: During World War II, this question was faced and “solved” in a maximally politically-incorrect way: detention camps for Japanese-Americans. It was a response to a very real problem: that of the potential for a fifth column in wartime due to divided loyalties. But it was a policy in which many innocents were punished and restricted in order to contain the guilty few.
Just to add to the difficulty inherent in grappling with this historical fact, I note that in the wonderful WWII documentary The World at War (go buy it—I’ll wait here), we find an interview with… a Japanese spy who was a spotter at Pearl Harbor. So worrying about Japanese spies in America wasn’t obviously nuts.
With that said, we also find interviews with Japanese soldiers who were horrified to learn that their political leadership had not formally declared war on the United States prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, and felt dishonored as a consequence. Finally, we have a Japanese diplomat who refers to “the convulsive period” of Japanese history, reminding us that in years prior, Japan and America had had very good relations, even a fascination somewhat reminiscent of that among our anime-obsessed youth today.
My colleagues working at the VA tell me that gnashing of teeth about “compassion fatigue” is in many discussions down there this week. “Secondary trauma” from dealing with PTSD clients has been the flavor-of-the-month for several years running in that system. It’s crap.
I will not say that compassion fatigue and secondary trauma do not exist, but they are not remotely of the intensity necessary to induce cold violence. I have really about had it with this, because this is what I do for a living. I have done acute psychiatric emergency social work for three decades, day in, day out, dealing with people who have traumas even worse than combat. (Refugee camps, child torture). I have two adopted sons from Romania who underwent abuse barely known in America, and have been active in foreign adoption groups and the lives of many of these children once they get here. It does hurt and drain to even hear these situations. But it does not – can you hear me out there DOES NOT cause people to snap and want to off lots of people in a general protest against the injustice of the world. That response comes from years of nursed grievance, usually a personal and a group grievance combined – one for energy, the other for rationalization. It is not an illness or condition in any sense that we understand the word.
Maybe it’s not Islam, per se. Hasan might have found a half-dozen other groups which encourage violent resentment and had some overlap with his personal history. Fine. People who want to be violent will eventually find some rationalization. (I do hold Islam responsible for being one of the few groups that provides this rationalization, but it’s not the only possible one.) Hasan is responsible. There is nothing in his history so far which suggests any special vulnerability that would undermine his ability to make moral decisions. He chose. He embraced pathology.
Do not let anyone throw this compassion fatigue or secondary trauma by you as even a partial explanation. They are real, but irrelevant to this situation. What he had to go through wasn’t so f-in’ bad. People get through much worse.
Hy Rosen, that’s actually true about the spelling and grammar being overlooked in the feverishly overexcited. There are just too many false positives – probably a 100K-to-1 – to be of much use.
The United States has welcomed many Muslim immigrants into the country, immigrants who practice a religion which is innately hostile to all non-believers, to our way of life and to democracy. The most active and hostile among such Muslims would gladly kill as many non-believers as they could, if they could, in line with the hatred of non-believers that most of the Saudi-established and funded and Wahabi run mosques in this country teach. No matter how the MSM tries to ignore or cover up Muslim Jihad attacks in the U.S., such incidents seem to be increasing.
One possible tactic the U.S. may eventually have to employ to combat Jihad attacks is to deport some Muslims and intern others. I see the mantra about how horrible our internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans was in WWII always comes up when the possibility of internment of the more radical Muslims in our midst is suggested as on tactic to help deal with the threat.
Let it be said from the outset that prior to WWII there were many people in the U.S., particularly in the West, were opposed to immigrants from the Orient and Oriental immigration and since the 19th century there had been several laws passed to prevent Japanese and Chinese emigrants in the U.S. from acquiring citizenship, owning land or bringing their wives over from the Orient.
That said, prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor the U.S. government was tracking a number of people and groups sympathetic to fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The biggest, most visible organization was the German American Bund, backed by Hitler, which was a big enough organization to eventually hold a Nuremberg type rally at Madison Square Garden on February 19, 1939 that was attended by 20,000 people.
There were several Italian-American patriotic societies, particularly on the West coast, that were strong supporters of Mussolini and published newspapers with a pro-Mussolini slant. There were also many Italian-American fishermen who worked in the areas of the West coast where U.S. naval bases were located. As a result of Pearl Harbor many of these Italian-American fishermen were prohibited from working in these West Coast waters during WWII.
The government was also keeping an eye on Japanese in the U.S. who supported the Emperor, particularly members of the ultranationalist right-wing Black Dragon Society. Federal authorities had also cracked the Japanese diplomatic code and were able to read the encrypted cables (The MAGIC Documents) in which Japanese diplomats in the U.S. told their superiors in Japan about an intelligence network that had built in the U.S. to spy on U.S. military activities.
When Pearl Harbor happened the government rounded up the key people it these groups and interrogated them. Some were deported and some ended up in internment camps.
Many Japanese and Japanese-Americans lived on the West coast and the Hawaiian Islands in areas with concentrations of U.S. military bases. If you will look at newspapers from the days after Pearl Harbor, as I have, you will see that there were increasing numbers of Japanese being refused services at grocery stores and restaurants, being harassed, dragged out of their cars and beaten by citizens angry over Pearl Harbor. It got so bad that the head of the Japanese American Citizen’s League at the time, asked the government to find some way to protect Japanese from retaliation.
The government had evidence that Japanese spies had been active in scouting U.S. naval bases and dispositions and knew the name of at least one of these spies who had informed the Japanese Embassy that he had destroyed his code books and was leaving for Japan just before Pearl Harbor. The U.S. government also had knowledge that a Japanese Zero pilot who made an emergency landing in the Hawaiian Islands after attacking Pearl Harbor had been able to persuade some local Japanese to hide him and help him to escape; he and they were eventually killed in battles with other Japanese on the island loyal to the U.S. but, this incident was troubling. There may well have been much more information that they had that we, today, don’t know about. Then, of course, there were all sorts of rumors flying in the jittery days after Pearl Harbor.
Given what they had in the way of intelligence, given the catastrophic losses at Pearl Harbor and the early successes of the Imperial Japanese military, I believe that U.S. authorities acted correctly in interning Japanese, Japanese-Americans and other likely enemies of the U.S.
The federal government proposed an exclusion zone, which included the West coast, from which Japanese would be barred. Japanese living in the Hawaiian Islands were not interned, Japanese who voluntarily moved out of the area were not interned, nor were most Japanese who lived in places other than the West coast interned. Approximately 120,000 internees–composed of around 65% Japanese-Americans and approximately 35% Japanese citizens–who did not move out of the exclusion zone were rounded up and sent to 7 internment camps. Camps in bleak areas, yes, but not “concentration camps” as today’s Japanese American Citizens League and others would have us believe. Efforts were made by the War Relocation Authority put in charge of the internment camps to make things as bearable as possible; not Disneyworld but, certainly nowhere near to what the term “concentration camp” has come to mean. There was barbed wire and armed guards at the exits but families were not split up, there was no forced labor, food was plentiful, high school and grade school continued and college students were allowed out to attend college; a quarter of those initially put in camps were eventually allowed to leave as long as they did not move back into the exclusion zones. There was routine medical and dental care, camp newspapers were published, groups based on common interests and hobbies formed and some attempt was made to carry on some semblance of normal life inside the camps. However, there was skirmishing in the camps between those loyal to the U.S. and those loyal to the Emperor.
Many of the internees were Japanese citizens and a few exchanges of Japanese held internees for American held internees were made in the early days of the war. The remaining Japanese and Japanese-Americans were asked to sign loyalty oaths: those who said their loyalty was to Japan and the Emperor were put into a higher security camp. This camp was always in turmoil with riots, beatings among inmates, etc.
After the war the federal government took several actions over they decades compensate internees for property losses, give them social security and civil service credit for time in the camps and to apologize.
Many of the internees themselves viewed what had happened to them as the fortunes of war. However, the succeeding generation, born in a more confrontational time, pushed for compensation. In the decades after WWII Japanese-Americans grew into a savvy and potent political force and the Japanese American Citizen’s League, now representing the descendants of internees, lobbied hard in Congress for compensation.
The 1988 Congress authorized the Commission on Wartime Relocations and Internment of Civilians to investigate what happened and to make recommendations. Looking at the people directing and staffing the Commission and their views, affiliations and, especially actions, it is obvious that the overwhelming number of directors and staff believed, going into their “investigation” of this issue, that internment was unjustified and that compensation was due to the internees. In that spirit, the Commission and its staff ignored, downplayed or blew off any evidence that contradicted their preconceived conclusions; they didn’t even want to look at the intelligence information available to government officials at the time of Pearl Harbor and they just declared it irrelevant. Nor did they want to hear, in the increasingly politically correct times, from those with opposing views.
The war was ancient history, there were votes to be had, a totally different mindset was now prevalent and ultimately the Commission recommended payment of compensation to those interned. The resultant compensation program paid $20,000 to every surviving internee or his immediate survivor, including payment to those Japanese citizens who had declared their loyalty to the Emperor and hostility to the U.S., this policy resulted in a payout of approximately $1.65 billion dollars.
Freedom-loving Americans should not advocate for preventative detention of people who have not been found guilty by due process of crimes for which detention would be warranted. Americans who do advocate for such detention are a foul stain on our Constitution, our flag, and our foundational beliefs.
Protecting Constitutional rights does occasionally lead to murder and massacre, but those rights are fundamental, and those adverse effects must be tolerated.
A total red herring , of course. Any murder or massacre has already automatically resulted in a failure to protect Constitution rights by somebody.
Background checks are approved and supported by all law abiding members trained in firearms. Nobody wants their neighbor with a sex offender, felony, assault rap, or a Democrat Sandy Berger conviction owning any firearms of any type.
Freedom-loving Americans should not advocate for preventative detention of people who have not been found guilty by due process of crimes for which detention would be warranted.
Freedom loving Americans shouldn’t pay more attention to hypothetical cases of injustice than actual cases of injustice.
Americans who do advocate for such detention are a foul stain on our Constitution, our flag, and our foundational beliefs.
When you can start naming those ‘Americans’, then you can speak. So far, you’ve been making demagoguery sound like patriotism.
I can name Hassan. There are 2 other Muslims in US uniform. As well as some others that belonged to Islam here in the US.
But, indeed, let’s talk about your Americans that are a ‘foul stain’.
Sorry, “Hy”, to disagree with you. But taqqiya absolutely requires we distrust Islam. To allow Muslims the unfettered benefits that they as a matter of course deny us, the “dogs and pigs”, is the triumph of hope over reality.
I find them guilty. Maybe not good enough for you, but works just fine for me.
I believe that U.S. authorities acted correctly in interning Japanese, Japanese-Americans and other likely enemies of the U.S.
There is no question of whether they acted correctly or not.
The US government had no power to restrict a citizen’s life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness without due process.
Like most Democrat and Leftist overreaches of power, excuses can be made, especially because somebody else suffered, but there was no legal basis for it.
If you want to trust Obama with that power, go right ahead. But don’t act surprised when there are armed rebellion in the decades to come.
I recommend tertiary trauma for Hasan, caused by a blunt instrument applied to the cranium repeatedly.
Dablo, surely if you’re suggesting detention camps were the answer then, surely they are the answer now with much fewer numbers I’d imagine.
All for it, say “aye”
Considering how long gitmo is taking to wrap up, I’d say, back when they rounded 120,000 Japanese Americans, looking Japanese had to be about enough of a reason.
By any chance, are we doing it by engaging in perversion and spreading disease?
Couple points. First, actually, it was extremely sensible to worry about the loyalty of the nisei. Many Japanese came to the US simply to work (especially as farmers in the Salinas Valley), and as not uncommonly happens in Hawaii to this day, sent their children back to Japan for education. Wondering where their loyalties lay was simply prudent.
Second, as pointed out above, many of the nisei lived in sensitive coastal areas, where even a small number of fifth columnists could have a devastating impact. If they’d lived in Kansas, no problem, but living near naval bases, from which the war against Japan would be fought is another story.
Third, sure, most of the nisei were loyal Americans. But how many disloyal ones would it take to have a catastrophic impact? Look at the Rosenbergs and their spy ring — half a dozen people, maybe.
Fourth, note carefully how internment of the Japanese is described. Who interned the Japanese? “Americans.” “America.” “The US Government.” Do you ever see anyone say that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democratic President of the United States, personally originated and signed the Executive Order mandating internment of those of Japanese descent? That little detail always seems to get lost, somehow. For my part, I’m not making a partisan point; I think it was a tough but sound decision, made without the benefit of hindsight, and I would hope that an American President in equally dire straits would take the same decision, if he thought that the country were at serious risk, and apologize later.
Turn it around: suppose Roosevelt hadn’t interned the Japanese, and we’d lost a lot of Americans as a consequence? Sorry – that’s unacceptable.
It was a regretable but probably prudent decision, given the information at hand at the time, and in those respects probably of a piece with the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and suppression of freedom of the press by Lincoln. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Are we in such desperate times now? No. And I hope we never are again.
Sure it does. What about declarations of martial law? Or the draft? Would you like to drop in on a sensitive military facility? Can’t do it. Hell, want to board a plane without going through screening? No can do. Why not? Because the elected government has decided that the security of the nation takes precedence over your what you want to do.
Consider this scenario: suppose a contagious potentially lethal disease broke out in some city. Would the US government have the power to prevent people from leaving and spreading the disease? Of course. What if residents want to pursue happiness somewhere else? Sorry, ain’t gonna happen — or it shouldn’t.
I’m not advocating any of this, but merely being realistic and pointing out that extreme circumstances can arise when business as usual is a luxury we cannot afford. There’s a balance to be struck between national security and individual civil rights. That balance point is not at 0/100 or 0/100.
Sorry, make that “0/100 or 100/0.”
We cannot willy nilly start deporting Muslims who are US citizens.
However, there is one solution that could be used that would limit their population growth in the US. Except it would have to be applied to all groups equally.
Put a stop for about 20 years on all Legal and illegal immigration into the country FOR ALL Groups, Muslims and non Muslims, etc.
And we would need to seriously curtail the welfare state so those people at the bottom rung would have to do the jobs the illegals do.
But it does not appear it is going to happen. Neither Republicans (in large enough numbers) nor Democrats really have the will to actually put the resources to both secure the border and deal with those here illegally already.
Occam slipped by me…
Dablo, surely if you’re suggesting detention camps were the answer then…
The Japanese internment was an answer and not one I would care to second-guess.
Perhaps Wolla D. supplied too much exposition. Cutting to the chase, 28% of draft-age Japanese males refused to foreswear their loyalty to the Japanese Emperor.
Thus many thousands of Japanese, mostly on the West Coast, were potential spies and saboteurs of every move made by the US military in the Pacific Theater.
If you were FDR what would you do? Much of the US fleet had been knocked out at Pearl Harbor. Without the victory at Midway, which depended on our codebreakers and luck, we would likely have lost in the Pacific.
Interning the Japanese was regrettable but understandable. Perhaps we could have beaten the Japanese without it, but there was no way FDR could have known. He did know that some of the Japanese would have been working against us, and maybe some of those could have made the crucial difference so we lost.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
We cannot willy nilly start deporting Muslims who are US citizens.
Just to be clear, in case this comment was in response to mine, I wasn’t advocating that, but rather speaking to the general proposition that civil rights are never and should never be abridged.
I lived in Europe for many years, and when this nisei issue came up I used to joke that if the Europe ever declared war on the US, the Europeans would be extremely well-advised to intern my ass! /g
Huxley, Occam’s Beard, and Dalbo,
Thanks for the excellent historical review and analysis of the Japanese internment. I think it is important to emphasize it was a military decision requested by a military commander. It was limited to Japanese living in California, Oregon, and Washington. There was a rational fear of saboteurs coming ashore and hiding among the local Japanese population. Also, there were many critical military installations on the coast.
I suspect when some jihadi sets off a small nuke in New York City that we will get serious about security. Until then we can continue to promote Muslims with bad records to major to meet a quota and demonstrate our tolerance.
On the other hand, you have the Hawaiian nisei soldiers of WWII’s 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team – one of the most decorated groups in US military history – who fought bravely in Europe. It’s from these soldiers that we get the phrase “Go for Broke,” a Hawaiian pidgin term meaning to risk everything. As they did.
Hy,
If you have been making contact with you know who… I hope your butt is arrested.
Put the hate literature down. Step away from the keyboard.
Absolutely true, absolutely irrelevant, and absolutely predictable that it would come up.
I was only going to suggest we lock up a limit of 5000 American Muslims (which is much better than what they did back then), and not ones who already swore oaths in the military who are to be trusted if we are considering oaths. Who forces U.S. citizens to swear an oath of loyalty outside of the military and some government jobs, anyway? It’s not in the Constitution. Anyway, surely we can round up 5000 in “hot spots” and where lots of neighbors think they’re up to no good, that is, if we run out of people on the FBI watch list.
That’s way better than WW2.
We’ll put them in Motel 6s and throw some barb wire around. Give them fresh towels and maid service. NO true American, if any are in there would complain We’ll keep them there for the duration of the war on terrorism.
Oh, controversy on the loyalty oath.
Again many people said no. They believed that it was a trick question because “forswearing” to the Japanese Emperor admitted they once had an allegiance with him (Kashima).
http://library.thinkquest.org/trio/TTQ04160/Complete%20Site/loyalty/nonoboy.htm
Stupid comment.
log,
You are a hater ! Good luck with that… You will not see 77 virgins btw.
If they put you in an interment camp, you might find the government untrustworthy in asking questions too. Everyone has a right to be suspicious, you know.
logern: You are not really answering the question.
Hindsight, moral purity and moral preening are wonderful, but the defeat of the Japanese in WWII — surely one of the most horrific military forces in human history — was not a given.
The internment of the Japanese was a terrible thing but nothing — nothing — like what the Japanese did to their internees, American and otherwise.
It was vitally important for America and the world that the Japanese were defeated.
This is not a question with a right answer. If FDR had not interned the Japanese we might have lost or we might have won but at a far higher cost.
It’s a good thing we didn’t lose the war because of my sort of thinking though, as we didn’t lock up enough of the proportionally larger groups of German and Italian Americans.
I mean, Germany wasn’t all that fanatical about their ideas like the Japanese. It was just relatively more mild extermination stuff and world domination
What is with the commenters here? We have to displace the discussion to WWII in order to speak our minds?
This issue, more than most, is here and now. Other soldiers (and presumably, civilians) are at risk as we speak. It is a time for action, not discussions of Hiroshima and Cemetery Ridge.
I don’t remember the term (displacement?) but talking about gun control and WWII internment camps is…avoidence?
Must we rely on UK media to discuss the real issues here?
What are you people thinking?
Everyone has a right to be suspicious, you know.
Everyone has a right to be stupid, too, but you’re abusing that right.
I was at least responding to some other comments rather than just diverting the conversation, as accused last time.
I’ve noted you think they’re stupid comments, Occam. Just in case you think I didn’t notice.
A step in the right direction, but still a stupid comment.
But yet you keep making them.
Psychologists judge the intelligence of animals by how many repetitions it takes them to learn something.
Word to the wise…also to you.
You and young Rosen can have a competition, a dumb-off, kind of the stupid version of Ali-Frazier.
If you want to tell people what to say, go start your own totalitarian state. Or blog.
If you want to tell people what to say, go start your own totalitarian state. Or blog.
And the fuss people make about DiMaggio’s 56 game streak.
Will the thoughtful, smart, tuned in commenters on this blog please check in?
Occam’s Beard Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Snort.
Hy Rosen Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Um, you just described about half the people commenting on blogs.
to, too
lose, loose
no one, noone
all right, alright
And so forth. Do they not teach this stuff in school any more?
huxley, logern doesn’t know how to answer the question. It is beyond him.
O.B., did you ever come across people who were just unteachable? I mean, people who might have presented the simulacrum of thought, but when faced with new ideas, the lights were on but no one was at home?
In my experience, the failure to learn comes from the ability to avoid the consequences of one’s position or decision. It strikes me that both logern and Hy Rosen don’t really come to grips with what responsible decision-making is when all the outcomes are undesirable, albeit to a greater or lesser degree. This is the height of irresponsibility and unfitness for leadership.
Our President is a jumped-up version of these two who still can’t seemed to make up his mind how to execute his own strategy in Afghanistan. Not too surprising since, to paraphrase Jesse Jackson, Obama has never run anything but his mouth.
O.B., you should ease up on E. Her point was that there could be valuable allies across ethnic and cultural lines even when a conflict is believed to break along ethnic and cultural lines. This was clearly the case for a young Airborne Captain I just talked with, who was embedded with a mixed Sunni/Shia Iraqi Army unit in Baghdad. Ditto a Muslim friend of mine, whose great-grandfather raised a regiment to police the Northwest Frontier. Ditto the vast number of harkis of the Algerian War, whom the French ultimately betrayed.
O.B., did you ever come across people who were just unteachable?
Yes, of course, routinely. It’s why I commonly apply the shibboleth/pons asinorum, as detailed on another thread. Those who fail it just met with bland agreement, or terse dismissal. Life is short, after all. No point wasting it on fools.
yes, I know about the gamesters who live in their mother’s basement. I have a grandson who is … well, let’s not get into true confessions.
Perhaps I am wrong, but some issues really don’t lend themselves to the ivory tower treatment. I believe that this is one.
Good heavens, commenters. I am about to abandon my daily perusal of your comments here.
If you don’t “get” this one…
Yes, I know that you don’t care about me.
Neo has been special to me since… a long time.
If this crap -“you didn’t cross your t’s” is the best of the commenters she can attra
And no offense to Neo, she cannot pick you.
What are you people thinking?
Where are the intelligent, discerning commenters that I come here to view?
I am really bummed.
What is it that I am missing?
Thanks there, Oblio, for bloviating on high from your lofty perch of enlightenment.
It’s not just the left weighed down by pompous elitism.
What question did you answer that I haven’t? Not that I even remember claiming to answer something, but whatever. Just curious.
I’m sorry I’m spamming your thread, or site, notherbob2. Seriously, I’m a defective lefty and can’t help it. But what are these other guys excuses?
Occam says No point wasting it on fools.
Dumb comment. (if that passes for commentary, and I guess it does)
Well, then, let’s see how long it takes you to contradict your own claims then. Bah ha.
notherbob: logern is a troll, but a fairly polite one, as trolls go. He doesn’t usually cross any lines to result in outright banning, as some trolls do. Ignore him if he bothers you. And Rosen likewise; I believe that his statement about grammar was meant to be his idea of the type of argument he thinks we’re mounting against Hasan. I think logern and Rosen are good examples of the emptiness of the arguments on the other side.
It’s not all that productive to engage them. However, I don’t like to ban people without extremely good cause, although I certainly do so with great regularity when they cross the line. But if a commenter becomes a regular annoyance, I have no hesitation to do so.
Here are the rules for when I decide to ban someone.
Notherbob, this is a classic dichotomy, what we are discussing goes against core beliefs of individual freedom to worship who you wish, one of the reasons this country was founded was to escape persecution as I remember. Islam is a conflict cloud on conservative core values.
We believe in religious freedom but if that religion wants to kill you if you don’t believe as its core value, it doesn’t fit, like gears that don’t mesh. Hard to fathom for many, kind of causes a short circuit, besides political correctness, I think that is why people cant come to grips with what happened. And it will happen again, because it is a foreign concept. I think that is why we are jumping around all over the place as you mentioned. In a discussion yesterday with a poor person stuck in the MSM bubble, the response I got was “well in the crusades Christians….”
I stopped it with who is doing it today? Lets not go back 500 years to try to justify a group that is doing it today, I missed the Jewish and catholic suicide bombers lately, ended the argument…
Responsible decision making avoids outcomes preferred by freedom-hating bigots who want to abuse all members of a group because of the actions of a vanishingly small number of them, and who further want the government to have and exercise the power to so abuse.
Given that today is just a day past the anniversary of Kristallnacht, I will risk Godwin’s Law to point out that the triggering event was the assassination of a German diplomat by a Jew. This is what the freedom-hating bigots are asking for – American pogroms against the new undesirables. Were I not a freedom-loving American, I would suggest that we would all be better off if they could be shipped away to camps to seethe in their own bile and not be permitted to spread their poison. Since I am, though, I believe the best way to counter them is to expose their evil clearly so that no one is misled. Fortunately, the commenters here do a good job of showing their true face to the world.
Instead of cheap fulminations like those of Hy Rosen, it might be more productive to discuss the real world and real solutions–however unpalatable a real world choice that has to be made among several doable but bad alternative solutions might be–instead of moral preening and declarations about unrealistic, morally pure solutions that, while they may be comforting to those declaring them from the “moral high ground,” are not realistic answers to real world problems; it might be better to look at the situation that a decision maker has to deal with, the “facts on the ground” and how they can be dealt with in a way the protects the American people.
Such a case is that of the Muslims among us. If you look at the media output of the Muslim world on MEMRI.org, study the historical record of how Islam has behaved toward unbelievers in the past, and read some of the discussions by current day Muslim ideologues and Imams about how Muslims should view and deal with unbelievers, and what Islam and Muslim’s strategy and tactics should be, Muslims have made it crystal clear what their goal is and described in detail the steps of their Jihad–violent and “peaceful,” overt and covert–to conquer the world and all its peoples.
This is the context of the fight between fear-based PC and willful ignorance on one side vs. a clear-eyed, resolute, realistic assessment of the facts and concern for legitimate issues of national security that is playing out before us in the case of Maj. Hasan.
This resolute, realistic approach has precedent in our shared cultural mythology.
The mythology goes on to tell us that things did not end well for the resolute, realistic actor, who as it happened, favored your approach of disfavoring a large group (Israelite male children) for fear of a single one.
Hy Rosen: You are using a straw man argument, and what’s more you know it. “Freedom-hating bigots asking for – American pogroms against the new undesirables?” No. Freedom-loving realists asking for common sense investigations of actual people in the military—of any race, religion, or creed, even protected ones such as Islam—who are in league with terrorists.
There is nothing wrong with ‘numbers’ Hy.
What ends up happening is people get hung up on equal outcomes or privileges.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/prof_busted_in_columbia_gal_punch_JmsXQ3NzaAt8uG6uUySGTN
Whites are below 50% here in CA. While “illegal” immigrants are an issue. There is NO issue with respect to ‘numbers’ of ‘legal’ immigrants except with those who thing there need to be equal outcomes.
Freedom and equal opportunity do not mean equal outcomes.
It is easy to mock calls for vigilance and action, when the alternative of doing absolutely nothing, or at most perhaps a little hand-wringing, is so easy, but the fact of the matter is that we have had, by one count–which I believe is conservative–at least 14,363 (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/) terrorist attacks by Muslims worldwide since 9/11, have a growing and accelerating number of such attacks here in the United States (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/AmericanAttacks.htm), and have just buried 13 victims and have 29 wounded from the latest such attack on U.S. soil, done by a Muslim shouting “Allahu Akbar.”
Obama & Co.’s approach is to blame the victim, and pretend that Islam was not involved, except as the cause for discrimination against Maj. Hasan which made him do the “inexplicable” and “snap,” surely a reason to redouble our efforts to make ever more accommodations to the practitioners of “the Religion of Peace”; that policy paves the way for even greater attacks and more dead Americans.
And, I think we can all live together no matter race or religion.
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2632
and even laugh… 🙂
But what isn’t a laughing matter is the CLEAR RED FLAGS of this jihadi.
No we couldn’t have put him behind bars for life for glorifying jihad. But we could’ve monitored him better and at least NOT promoted him (rewarded) him – when he didn’t have the temperment of being an officer in the Army.
∅bama is speaking right now.
He spoke of the blessings of freedom.
I liked his speech writer’s speech.
Hy Rosen, should be investigated for aiding the enemy and all that… after all, by his calling for similar, he shows he is a troll that is just trying to say whatever gets anyones goat.
sad little man/woman…
man attacks representational groups to put pressure on them to remove the ones in their midst that cause the problems.
that is how reputation in culture works. if islamics do not stop radicals from doing what they do, there is going to be very little anyone can do to prevent them being lumped together.
after all, when commnuists blew up houses with blacks in them, and lunched them in the south… (this is after the tilden election much later), and even set bombs to put blame on the JDL, they understand what hy and others conveiently work from the OTHER end.
in the absence of the islamics policing their own, totalitarianism is the only other choice.
in this way, the problem is set up in such a way (by hy and his ilk), that only huge state control will work, because hy doesnt like the biolobical mechanisms that do the job.
he denies humanity in favor of homunculous thinking.
this is a classic example of controlling an issue by controlling both sides, and leaving no acceptable out because the side that WOULD do that is copted not to allow that answer. you can ahve any color you want as long as its black.
hy thinks he is clever…. but he isnt
clever is the ones that can see what he is doign without being taught… copying and applying a methodology that is beyound your ken, is not a matter of clever…
its a matter of being a good homunculous.
Humpf; well, OK. Now you’re cookin’! Excellent. Excellent. Please carry on.
Maj. Hasan is symptomatic of a much larger problem; we have–through ignorance, lack of vigilance, excessive and crippling political correctness, and naiveté–let the Enemy pass through the gates into the city, and they are now among us. Islam–really a totalitarian, military-politico ideology dressed in religious garb–is unique as a “religion” in the impenetrable centrality and absolute dominance of its totalitarian and deception based approach, its religious sanction for lying and deceiving all “unbelievers,” its ultra violent xenophobia and misogyny, and its imperative, supremacist, Allah-given orders for the conversion, enslavement or killing of all non-Muslims, and the conquest and subjugation of all men to Allah, Islam and Shari’a law.
How do you deal with such an unprecedented threat, such a dangerous, subversive group of people, and, especially, how do you deal with Muslims in a democracy featuring religious freedom, where they use that freedom to cloak and protect their subversion of, their preparations for, and their actual violence against the state, especially when many of such Muslims are apparently peaceful and law abiding? Immensely complicating this problem is our current situation, in which we are enslaved to PC, afraid of and deep in denial about the problem, and have a President who is partial to Muslims (and I believe something of a crypto-Muslim himself). Wrote Obama on p. 261 of “The Audacity of Hope,” “I will stand with the (Muslims) should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” Then, there was Obama, before the election, demonstrating for New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof –despite his denials of any substantial connections with Islam, or having had any Muslim education or indoctrination–how he could chant the Muslim “call to prayer” in perfect Arabic, and, further, Obama’s declaration in that interview, that the sound of the Muezzin calling Muslims to evening prayer was “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset,” (http://select.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/opinion/06kristof.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin). This is a President who will not take a hard approach towards Muslims in order to protect the vast majority of Americans. That is the complex, real-world issue we grapple with.
Much as some commenters here would like us to go along singing a song, and do nothing in the idealistic and trouble free land of sunshine and lollipops, I would say that a rational, humane approach would involve first, an immediate and permanent halt to immigration by Muslims. Second, deportation of those Muslims involved in any kind of illegal activities–visa and immigration fraud and general criminality–the huge Muslim/Palestinian population and crime nexus (among other things identity theft, credit card scams, counterfeiting and tax evasion schemes that generate money to support terrorism) around Detroit & Dearborn Michigan come to mind–and particularly terrorist activities of any sort. Next, since we cannot determine who is a Jihadi, or who might become a Jihadi at some future date, a purge of Muslims who–with delight at our politically correct, clueless naiveté, I am sure–we have often recruited into and allowed to infiltrate our military (perhaps honorable discharges as CO’s might be possible here), intelligence and government structures. Next, all sorts of incentives–as other countries in Europe have initiated–for Muslims to return to their home countries in the Muslim world. Finally, very close surveillance of the remaining Muslims.
These steps–obviously very unpalatable in a democracy, but essential if we are to survive Islamic subversion, terror and Jihad–would, I believe, greatly reduce the problem to more manageable proportions.
You have only to look at how things have progressed in Europe–in France, England and Sweden in particular–to see the fate that awaits us if we do not take these draconian steps to combat the Muslim Jihad–be it overt or by stealth, violent or apparently “peaceful.”
in the impenetrable centrality and absolute dominance of its totalitarian and deception based approach, its religious sanction for lying and deceiving all “unbelievers,” its ultra violent xenophobia and misogyny, and its imperative, supremacist, Allah-given orders for the conversion, enslavement or killing of all non-Muslims, and the conquest and subjugation of all men to Allah, Islam and Shari’a law.
waht your saying is that deep down, it cant even hold onto its own values.. that after hitlers games, the religion took on a harder structure, and the tenets became more of a convenience for leaders who have alternative ajendas other than their people. it facilitates using peoples beleilves against them to attack others with them.
while the catholic church has its own bad periods. it never ever went to this level of low as a matter of doctrine… expedience maybe… temporary need maybe… fall from its own grace maybe…
but it never made central the tenet of genocide through religious means of the western white oppressors…
do note that for a racist, hitler killed almost only whites… how does that jibe? he didnt kill north africans, he didnt march islamics and arabs into ovens… only whites. [soviets consider themselves asians, and so they are not killing whites, they are killing another race and that race thinks wrongly that they are the same and so neo liberals think that stalin was more equal… because they cant tell the diference between whites as a group, or even asians!]
How do you deal with such an unprecedented threat, such a dangerous, subversive group of people, and, especially, how do you deal with Muslims in a democracy featuring religious freedom, where they use that freedom to cloak and protect their subversion of, their preparations for, and their actual violence against the state, especially when many of such Muslims are apparently peaceful and law abiding?
for real?
easy… you remove the social stigma against social stigma. all one has to do is compare groups that are ‘bad’ today with their representation in the past under social stigma.
social stigma kept a cap on fringes who were too off center and harmful to be left acting without any restriction… the fringe is the fringe for a reason.
ie… they are not a bunch of darwinian superiors waiting for their genes to diffuse through the population.. (see why they control birth?)… they are throwbacks, mistakes and errors, and only about 1% of 1% are superiors…
like all mutations… the vast majority of them are harmful…
the very effort of the elite to use hegel to remove all alter cations and play favorites with the winners is what this is about.
islam good for totaltarians..
islam when alone after the fall, would be easy to exterminate.
christian, horrible for totalitarians
christians after the fall, would be a force to rekon with
ergo ipso facto….. 🙂
> During World War II, this question was faced and “solved” in a maximally politically-incorrect way: detention camps for Japanese-Americans. It was a response to a very real problem: that of the potential for a fifth column in wartime due to divided loyalties. But it was a policy in which many innocents were punished and restricted in order to contain the guilty few.
The biggest ugliest issue, of course, was the racist element of it — there was no such effort when it came to Americans of German or Italian Descent.
“Ah, those inscrutable oriental types, you can never tell what goes on in their minds. They don’t think like Us.”
Ohbloodyhell–Well, in fact, those “Orientals” really didn’t “think like us.”
The U.S. captured and put many hundreds of thousands of Nazi soldiers in over 600 POW camps spread all over the U.S. (mostly in agricultural areas where they often worked on U.S. farms), where they were treated quite well, indeed, so well, in fact, that many return here for occasional reunions, and many elected to immigrate to the U.S. after WWII. Conversely, the Nazis treated their almost 94,000 U.S. POWs reasonably well–not anywhere as well as we treated the Nazis–but reasonably well. Percentage of U.S. POWS who died in German captivity = 1%.
How did we treat our Japanese POWs? Well, we didn’t have any. Almost to a man Japanese soldiers–steeped in Bushido–refused to surrender, and were killed in battle or by suicide. The few Japanese prisoners captured, because, say, they were unconscious when found, soon managed to find some way to commit suicide before they got to the U.S. So, we basically had no Japanese POWs. Conversely, the Japanese behaved towards their 27,500 American POWs in as deliberately a malevolent and barbaric manner as you can imagine, and tried their best to kill off as many of the U.S. POWs they held as possible, because they viewed them as “subhumans,” without “honor,” since they refused to fight to the death as Bushido commanded. Percentage of U.S. POWS who died in captivity by Japan = 40%.