A Review Of Michelle Malkin’s ‘In Defense Of Internment’

23 Aug, 2004 by John Hawkins

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There are at least two things that make it very difficult to accurately evaluate historical events. The first is that hindsight is 20/20. In other words, we tend to judge what happened in the past without taking into account all of the knowledge that we have acquired after the fact. For example, when we look back at WW2, not only do we know how everything turned out, but we have decades of extensive research to rely on that the actors on the world stage during that conflict did not have access to.

Furthermore, we as human beings often look at historical events through the prism of today’s conditions and standards. Put another way, it’s hard for those of us who live in the world’s most prosperous and powerful nation to truly imagine what it was life was actually like back in World War 2. We may THINK we know, but there are many things of import that we are wont to discount or shrug off simply because they’re no longer of concern.

Which brings us to the Japanese internment during WW2.

Until recently, there has scarcely even been any public debate about the issue. The Japanese Internment has been written off by most people as another sad, racist, chapter of our history that was wholly without merit.

However, Michelle Malkin argues in her new book, “In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War 2 and the War on Terror,” that things are not as black and white as we’ve been led to believe. To the contrary, Malkin argues that “the national security measures taken during World War 2 were justifiable, given what was known and not known at the time”.

In order to prove this assertion, Malkin paints a picture, quite effectively I might add, of a situation in which the Japanese internment is one of several not very pleasant options that Roosevelt had to choose between. Here’s what I consider to be the crux of the case that Malkin makes….(Cont)