In a perfect world, what you suggest would be awesome.
Guess what? Its not a perfect world and it wasn't back in the 40's either.

I am somewhat of a military history buff, from ancient times to present. I have gone to at least a dozen WW2 conventions with both of my grandfathers who served in Europe and the Pacific. I have spoken to so many different Vets that I couldn't count and there is one thing you are missing in your point of view that I have heard over and over again from these heroes.

The Italians and Germans did not attack this country, we declared war on them after we were forced into WW2.
The Japanese directly attacked our country, by surprise, in a well thought out plan of attack.
Obviously there is a clear difference between the two that I hope you can see.

Far be it for me to speak for that whole generation of Americans but you may need to accept the fact that, by and large, the country viewed this attack as personal and that is the main reasoning behind the different handling of German/Italian Americans and Japanese Americans. I am not even asking you take my word for it, go speak to the people who fought in that war and lived during that time. Shake their hand, thank them and then ask them for an opinion. You can still find them at sporting events, grocery stores or simply walking down the street. A lot of them wear hats and/or jackets that say WW2 Veteran or what unit/ship they served on.

Lock thread this is unbearable

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/193/128/993.gif

this kid deserves a free helicopter ride

stalin killed 100 millions of peoples and fidel castle was a furious dictator

i am fairly certain it was 200 million, educate yourself.

I heard he's still killing people to this day. Stay woke.

Japanese internment was necessary in the context of what was happening in WWII.

The Japanese codes had been broken in 1942 by the US.
Imperial Japan had connections to the Black Dragon Society that was established in the US similar to how the US used the US based mob's contacts in Italy to disrupt the Italian war effort.

The US had three options:
1. Do nothing and let the Black Dragons sabotage and spy on us.
2. Identify and arrest all members of the Black Dragon Society operating in the US.
3. Put all Japanese into internment camps.

Option 1 was out immediately. Option 2 would have alerted Imperial Japan that the US knew exactly what they were doing and who they were in contact with. This would lead to Japan changing their codes and the US having a significant disadvantage during the war.

Option 3 was the only solution. Despite it being unpleasant, it would prevent members of the Black Dragon Society from disrupting the US war effort without alerting Japan that their codes had been compromised.

Yes it sucked that so many peoples lives had to be disrupted, but unpleasant things happen in times of war. They were taken better care of than many comparable camps across the world during the war, and they were given reparations after the fact.

All in all, it could have been much worse, but the claims that it was done because of "evil racism" is ignorant of all the facts.

it was literally just racism. japanese-americans were targetted because they looked different from white americans.

of course tensions were high and we had just been attacked but let's not pretend like what the US did was par for the course or even remotely based in reasonable fear of counter-attack

wtf are you even talking about? What "counterattack"? I know you hate America and blame "white people" for everything that happens in this country because you go out of your way to post about it over and over but for someone who seems intelligent, you literally talk out of your ass sometimes.

It was fear of Japanese sabotage. It was fear of Japanese invasion on the west coast, which was a real and very possible reality if the Pearl Harbor attack had achieved all it was planned to achieve. After Pearl Harbor, the US military options were bleak at best and Japan was a juggernaut.

Ever hear of the Feb 1942 Japanese attack on Ellwood California? That happened 2 months after Pearl Harbor and invasion fears were escalated ever more a few days later when Los Angeles thought it was having an Air Raid.

US Pacific defenses were in no position to stop a full-scale Japanese attack on the west coast and our Army wasn't in much better shape. After this small attack, it was obvious the country was at risk and action need to be taken.

If the Japanese had plans for invasion the very last thing you want is hidden agents or groups that can support that invasion already ashore, just ask the German's before D-Day. France exploded with resistance fighters attacking everything of value and made a significant impact.

The thing that clearly demonstrates that Japanese internment was purely racism and served no actual purpose other than to destroy the lives of a racial minority - is that the territorial governor of Hawaii (Hawaii then not being a state) REFUSED to participate in internment. Note also that a huge proportion of the population of Hawaii at that time was made up of Japanese immigrants. They did ship some Japanese persons to California to be interned, but it was because they were found to be in contact with the Japanese government (IE had actually done something threatening). But the territory/state with the highest population of Japanese persons, which had *actually* been attacked by the Japanese, did not intern the vast majority of its Japanese citizens, and they presented no threat/did nothing unusual.

Also spacecadet you have to look at the context of WW2.

The Japanese had ABSOLUTELY no way to land troops in California - their merchant marine could never have supported such a tremendous undertaking, not to mention that the entirety of the US Navy could quickly make their way to the Pacific if need be through the Panama (Sal's) canal. Not to mention that majority of the Japanese army was engaged elsewhere - they were still fighting a very much active, very costly war, in China, they were still garrisoning Manchukuo's massive border with the USSR, and they also invaded Singapore and the Philippines shortly after Pearl Harbor (almost at the same time really), as well as garrisoning Vietnam (which was actively resisting them as the Vietnamese do). There simply aren't enough Japanese people in the world to then also execute an invasion on the continental US, nor did they have enough long-range merchant ships to support such an imaginary invasion - and the US was very much aware of this.

In fact their original "pie in the sky" plan was to knock out the Chinese (get a peace deal with them of some kind) and then invade the USSR along with Hitler - but the Sino-Japanese war was absorbing too much of their army so that was deemed impossible - so they went for picking up lightly defended islands instead and relying on the navy and air forces to win enough big victories to convince the US and UK to simply leave them alone, which they also failed to do.

imagine believing this

http://i.imgur.com/pWcGkFs.gif

So what you're saying is that in a time of war the US government decided to waste resources, time, money, and manpower just to ruin the lives of Japanese citizens for no reason other than because they felt like it?
Hawaii didn't refuse to intern Japanese citizens at all. In fact, over 2,000 Japanese citizens were interned in multiple camps across all the Hawaiian islands.
The reason Hawaii didn't intern their entire Japanese population was because they literally made up 1/3 of the island's population and it would have seriously crippled their economy, something that they couldn't afford during a time of war.

It's easy to say this when looking back on WWII 70 years later with declassified records and the information we have now. Making assumptions like that in a time of war is exactly how you lose wars.

In 1941, we had no idea of the full capabilities of the Japanese Navy. What was widely known was the Japanese Navy was the strongest Naval Power in the world. Any assumption's made saying they "can't do" things is exactly why we were fucked at Pearl Harbor. Our military was confident the Japanese could not launch an attack over that distance from Japan. The fact that Japan hid the entire strike force from all detection and then crossed half the Pacific Ocean is statement enough that we knew nothing about Japan's capabilities.

Japan did occupy islands in Alaska a mere 6 months after Pearl Harbor. To say there was no threat at all would have been idiotic. That threat is exactly why we kicked their asses off our islands

Enlighten me on what the "entirety of the US Navy" was in the Atlantic in late 1941 and 1942?
Let me save you some time. We were lending Destroyers to the British to protect convoys from German UBoats. The rest of our Atlantic Navy was patrolling our eastern borders from UBoats as well and those ships were not Aircraft Carries. To contest an invasion fleet, you need Carriers and Battleships and there were very few of them in the Atlantic.

Additionally, how fast do you think ships of this size can get from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the canal? It doesn't happen over night and those ships will need to dock and refuel at destination before they are battle ready. This whole process can take months and the very essence of another "sneak attack" means this option is unrealistic unless you know the attack is coming in advance.

This might be the only thing you said that makes any sense. However, the situations you mention in China, Philippines, etc are a direct result of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese knew the attack did not achieve it's goals and was a failed strategic plan. Pearl Harbor was simply a tactical victory as Japan won the battle.

In turn, Japan did not want to devote more military hardware to following-up on that attack so they focused on securing valuable resources in Indonesia instead. Let me indicate again that we know all of this now because of hindsight. In 1942, it would have been beyond dangerous to assume anything you are taking for granted now that you know how history played out.

Also Marxist, Refer to my #89 post question

Well that explains everything.