Why Japanese Internment Still Matters
Philadelphia
or years, it has been my posi-
tion that the threat of radical
Islam implies an imperative to
focus security measures on Muslims.
If searching for rapists, one looks
only at the male population. Similarly,
if searching for Islamists (adherents of
radical Islam), one looks at the
Muslim population.
And so, I was encouraged by a just-
released Cornell University opinion sur-
vey that finds nearly half the U.S. pop-
ulation agreeing with this proposition.
Specifically, 44 percent of Americans
believe that government authorities
should direct special attention toward
Muslims living in the United States,
either by registering their where-
abouts, profiling them, monitoring
their mosques, or infiltrating their
organizations.
Al so encouraging, the survey finds
the more a person follows television
news, the more likely he supports
these common-sense steps. Those who
are best informed about current issues,
in other words, are also the most sen-
sible about adopting self-evident
defensive measures.
That's the good news; the bad news
is the near-universal disapproval of
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum and author of 'Miniatures"
(Transaction Publishers). His e-mail
address is Pipes@MEForum.org
this realism. Leftist and Islamist
book, bearing the provocative
organizations have so success-
title In Defense of Internment:
fully intimidated public opin-
The Case for Racial Profiling
ion that polite society shies
in World War II and the War
away from endorsing a focus on
on Terror, starts with the
Muslims.
unarguable premise that in
In the United States, this
time of war, the survival of
intimidation results in large
the nation comes first."
part from a revisionist interpre-
From there, she draws the
DANIEL
tation of the evacuation, reloca-
corollary
that "civil liberties
PIPES
tion and internment of ethnic
are
not
sacrosanct."
Special
Japanese during World War II.
She then reviews the his-
Commentary
Although over 60 years past,
torical record of the early
these events matter yet deeply
1940s and finds that:
today, permitting the victimiza-
• Within hours of the
tion lobby, in compensation for the
attacks on Pearl Harbor, two U.S. citi-
supposed horrors of internment, to
zens of Japanese ancestry, with no prior
condemn in advance any use of eth-
history of anti-Americanism, shocking-
nicity, nationality, race or religion in
ly collaborated with a Japanese soldier
formulating domestic security policy.
against their fellow Hawaiians.
Denying that the treatment of eth-
• The Japanese government estab-
nic Japanese resulted from legitimate
lished "an extensive espionage network
national security concerns, this lobby
within the United States" believed to
has established that it resulted solely
include hundreds of agents.
from a combination of "wartime hys-
• In contrast to loose talk about
teria" and "racial prejudice."
"American concentration camps," the
As radical groups like the American
relocation camps for Japanese were
Civil Liberties Union wield this inter-
"spartan facilities that were for the
pretation, in the words of Michelle
most part administered humanely." As
Malkin, "like a bludgeon over the War proof, she notes that more than 200
on Terror debate," they pre-empt
individuals voluntarily chose to move
efforts to build an effective defense
into the camps.
against today's Islamist enemy.
• The relocation process itself won
Fortunately, the intrepid Malkin, a
praise from Carey McWilliams, a con-
columnist and specialist on immigra-
temporary leftist critic (and future edi-
tion issues, has re-opened the intern-
tor of the Nation), for taking place
ment file. Her recently published
"without a hitch."
cannot vocalize.
PETA is well known for the passion
it brings to the issue of animal rights,
but it is an organization devoid of
objectivity. PETA's comparison of the
killing of chickens to the Holocaust
is, at a minimum, morally obtuse. So
to whom should we turn for an
objective view about the situation at
AgriProcessors and about kosher
slaughter in general?
Here are the opinions of some
experts:
1. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture
Patty Judge inspected the plant. She
found the handling of the animals to
be humane and commendable. She
said, after viewing the shechitah, that
the animals were unconscious within
two to three seconds. She also said
that chickens were handled more
carefully by the rabbis than by her
own "grandmother on the farm.
2. AgriProcessors is under constant
USDA inspection. Dr. Henry
Lawson, the USDA veterinarian at
the plant, told me that he considers
the treatment of the cattle at
AgriProcessors to be humane and that
the shechitah renders them uncon-
scious within a matter of seconds. He
determines this by certain physiologi-
cal criteria related to the eyes, tongue
and tail of the animal.
3. Earlier last week, Rabbi Dr. I.M.
Levinger, a veterinarian and one of
the world's foremost experts on ani-
mal welfare and kosher slaughter,
called the shechitah practices at
AgriProcessors "professional and effi-
cient," emphasizing the humane
manner in which the shechitah was
handled. Dr. Levinger was highly
impressed with the caliber of the ritu-
al slaughterers. He issued his evalua-
tion following a thorough two-day
on-site review of shechitah practices
and animal treatment at the plant.
He viewed the kosher slaughter of
nearly 150 animals.
4. AgriProcessors has hired an ani-
mal welfare and handling specialist to
evaluate the plant processes. The spe-
cialist was recommended by both Dr.
Temple Grandin, a foremost expert in
animal welfare, and also by the
National Meat Association. In review-
ing the shechitah process the week
before last, the specialist made the
following observations:
• The shechitah process was per-
formed swiftly and correctly;
• The shechitah cut resulted in a
rapid bleed; and
• All animals that exited the box
were clearly unconscious.
Torah Bound
The O.U. and AgriProcessors are
committed to the Torah principles of
humane treatment of animals. At the
O.U., we constantly review our pro-
cedures, evaluate them and, if neces-
sary, improve or correct them. We
don't want ever to be wedded to a
mistaken procedure.
AgriProcessors has been completely
cooperative in working with the O.U.
• A federal panel that reviewed
these issues in 1981-83, the
Commission on Wartime Relocation
and Internment of Civilians, was,
Malkin explains, "stacked with left-
leaning lawyers, politicians, and civil
rights activists — but not a single mil-
itary officer or intelligence expert."
• The apology for internment by
Ronald Reagan in 1988, plus the
nearly $1.65 billion (U.S.) in repara-
tions paid to former internees, were
premised on faulty scholarship. In
particular, it largely ignored the top-
secret decoding of Japanese diplomat-
ic traffic, codenamed the MAGIC
messages, which revealed Tokyo's
plans to exploit Japanese-Americans.
Michelle Malkin has done the sin-
gular service of breaking the academic
single-note scholarship on a critical
subject, cutting through a shabby,
stultifying consensus to reveal how,
given what was known and not
known at the time," FDR and his
staff did the right thing.
She correctly concludes that, especial-
ly in time of war, governments should
take into account nationality, ethnicity
and religious affiliation in their home-
land security policies and engage in
what she calls "threat profiling.
These steps may entail bothersome
or offensive measures but, she argues,
they are preferable to "being inciner-
ated at your office desk by a flaming
hijacked plane." 7
"
"
and shares our philosophy.
As Torah Jews, we are imbued with
the teachings that require animals to
be rested along with people on the
Sabbath and fed before the people
who own them, and that the mother
bird must be sent away before her
young are taken to save her grief.
These and similar statutes make it
clear that inhumane treatment of
animals is not the Jewish way.
Kosher slaughter, by principle, and
as performed today in the United
States, is humane.
Indeed, as PETA itself has acknowl-
edged, shechitah is more humane
than the common non-kosher form
of shooting the animal in the head
with a captive bolt, for reasons noted
above. The Humane Slaughter Act,
passed into law after objective
research by the U.S. government,
declares shechitah to be humane. For
Torah observant Jews, it cannot be
any other way.
12/31
2004
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