Assuming he had lived, should FDR have been prosecuted for the Japanese internment?

[CTLawGuy]

roughly 100,000 Japanese were ripped from their homes and lives and forced into camps on the say so of FDR for no reason other than their ethnic background. They lost everything - their homes, businesses, jobs. They were branded as enemies of their own country. If that's not a crime, I don't know what is.

Is Truman a coward and a sellout for not seeking retribution from FDR for this, again ASSUMING HE HAD LIVED? (No smartass comments about how he died in office - I am well aware of that)

Should FDR, had he lived, have faced prosecution by his successor?

[ZombieHorde]

1. I voted yes. Institutional racism is horrible.

FDR would have been a great President if not for this disturbing crime.

[boppers]

2. Truman for his War Crimes, as well.

FDR imprisoned civilians, Truman literally vaporized them.

[Clio the Leo]

3. Good question.

Nice avatar.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Is this your way of saying that you are giving Bush & co. a pass on war crimes

We didn't murder the Japanese internees. We murdered over 600,000 Iraqi civilians according to the Lancet Report.

[CTLawGuy]

9. so its not a crime if no one is murdered?

if you are going to have principles, you must be able to apply them even to presidents you otherwise admire or even love. That is what you and other persistent Obama critics constantly tell his supporters, at any rate.

I doubt arguing that Japanese internment was not a crime because no one was "murdered" is the way to go on this.

[totodeinhere]

20. A sitting president can only be impeached, not tried in a court of law.

The courts have ruled that a sitting president cannot be tried in a criminal court. He can only be impeached and removed by Congress. So the question should be, should FDR have been impeached, not should he have been tried. Yes, he could have theoretically been tried after he left office, but of course he was dead then.

[Mimosa]

38. True, Indiana

The Presidential system would break down if presidents were prosecuting their successors.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. FDR = Bush

Do you really want to go that route?

Japanese internment was a bad/stupid thing to do, but can you point out how it was illegal? Were people tortured, killed, or injured? Sounds like a civil issue rather than a criminal issue, and certainly not war crimes. What the "patriot" Bush and his posse did were war crimes, a much different thing.

[CTLawGuy]

10. not saying that at all

just saying that FDR did criminal acts as well, if you apply the same standard we apply to Bush.

Your argument is that if the government arrested you, causing you to lose your job, house, family and business simply because of your race, you wouldn't feel you were the victim of a crime as long as you weren't murdered, tortured or injured and therefore doing so is a "civil matter" and not a "war crime"?

My argument is that if we have principles we must apply them even to presidents we like. It seems like some people have a hard time with that....

[CTLawGuy]

14. as to the illegality

I'd like to point out that Iraq was not illegal UNDER U.S. LAW either. (Int'l law is a different story) The IWR authorized it.

[joe black]

32. Not illegal

Fucking Bush lied or do you remember.

[CTLawGuy]

37. yeah and?

a law is a law. A war authorization is a war authorization.

(not saying it was the right thing to do)

[geek tragedy]

19. Racist concentration camps is far worse than anything

Bush did in terms of civil liberties infractions--100 times worse than the FISA stuff.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Bullshit question.

What FDR did was a mistake, but it did not rise to the level of crime. How others enforced it DID rise to that level, in illegal confiscations of property, and they should have been prosecuted, and all detainees deserved MASSIVE compensation, but the fact is FDR did not lie about the threat potential of possible 5th columnists the way the Bushites lied about the danger presented by Iraq but simply made a very poor assessment of the potential threat. That poor assessment was rooted in no little bit of racism and cultural bias, but it was not a deliberate attempt to mislead the public about the danger.

The Supreme Court should have ruled it to be a violation of the detainees rights from the git go.

And, if there was any restitution - not retribution - it would come from the government, not from FDR. FDR was neither evil, nor stupid, and did what was deemed necessary at the time.

BTW, do you apply the same rule to the members of the pro-Nazi German American Bund who were also interred for the duration of the war? Yes, 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were interred, but so were 20-30,000 German Americans and Italian Americans who had Nazi or fascist sympathies.

[CTLawGuy]

12. yes I would apply it also to the German and Italian Americans

and BTW

Japanese American civic groups would vehemently disagree with you on your analysis of what happened to them.

PS: There's now a distinction between the government and the president now? I hope Obama gets the benefit of that distinction as well, but I doubt he will....

[SemiCharmedQuark]

13. The difference being that having Nazi sympathies is rather different than simply being Japanese.

One you can help and one you can't. One you choose and one you don't.

[Number23]

21. Since when has rounding people up based on their ethnicity, sending them to "camps" and taking their

personal property without their consent NOT been a crime??

[joeglow3]

27. When you are faced with a tough question

[grantcart]

23. The German Bund was supported directly by Nazi funds and was

an extension of their war effort.


There was no Japanese espionage in Washington and California (we had broken the codes and knew who the spies were)>



There was a large active Japanese espionage spy ring in Hawaii and about 2,000 suspected Japanese sympathizers were interned. These 2,000 are roughly equivalent to the Bund internees. Another 100,000 Japanese residents and Americans of Japanese descent living in Hawaii were not interned, unlike their relatives in CA and WA, even though the danger was much greater in Hawaii.


And for the record of the German and Italian POWs that were placed in camps in the US a very large number had such a good time and learned so much about the American political system that they requested to stay in the US and did not return to Germany. I wish we could have sent the Bund traitors back instead.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

29. Indefinite detainment seems like a habeus corpus violation to me.

[depakid]

7. Not according to the Supreme Court at the time

nor international law as it existed when the actions were taken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States

Quite unlike the present situation.

Nice try with the strawman though... made Obama's failures in this regard look even worse.

[dkf]

8. Doesn't compare to what Truman did.

[CTLawGuy]

11. maybe the question should be whether Truman should be

prosecuted?

[dkf]

16. I think so.

I went to the Hiroshima Memorial on a school trip. Very sobering indeed. When I saw the movie the Fog of War I cried. It wasn't necessary but just that they needed a demonstration of what this bomb could do.

[phleshdef]

24. Obama should prosecute Truman, otherwise he is guilty of the same crime!

...at least according to professional left logic.

[Onlooker]

15. Yes, he should have been ...

... FDR was a progressive relative to the era in which he governed, but that doesn't mean he should have been let off for such a grave human rights abuse. He also turned back a shipload of refugee Jews fleeing Germany, another disgraceful act of his administration.

[NJmaverick]

17. Interesting and thought provoking question

[totodeinhere]

18. Should the Emperor of Japan have been prosecuted for his war crimes?

And remember the way it works. Only the losers get prosecuted. We won the war, so we didn't get prosecuted.

[DemocraticPilgrim]

22. Had they lived at the time it would of been in the 90s against impeachment. The Japanese ...

were wronged, but the overall good made him the longest serving President. Whether it was wrong or right the poll would of looked favorable to FDR, you had to of been there. In hindsight it's seen with more dim view.

[yurbud]

25. so you're equating the Iraq War with a World War?

[CTLawGuy]

26. no I'm talking about

imprisoning a hundred thousand Americans based on nothing more than their ethnic background, and branding them enemies of the United States on that basis alone.

I guess when FDR does it, it's ok. I mean there's no angle for attacking Obama, so why complain about it, right?

[yurbud]

30. It was wrong, he's dead. It is a different category of sin than Bush authorizing torture

and invading a country that could not possibly be any threat to us and killing over a million people there and salting the earth with depleted uranium.

[joe black]

31. Nice

Trashing FDR to make Obama look better. I'll have to look at the history of the camps and see how bad it was. Someone hear called them concentration camps like FDR was really Hitler in disguise. Major fail.

[hayu_lol]

33. FDR was badly advised...

enormous pressures were brought against him by the Secretary Of The Navy Frank Knox with help from a nutty general in CA and the organization: Native Daughters Of The Golden West.

Executive Order 9066 was issued on February 19, 1942.

Michi Weglyn
YEARS OF INFAMY: The untold story of America's Concentration Camps
Intro by James A. Michener
William Morrow and Company
New York
1976

Frank Knox had worked at the Hearst papers in CA at one time. The Hearst papers ran an almost continuous and vicious campaign against the 'Yellow Peril.'

Final nail in the imigration policies of the US against Asian immigrants was the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924.

FDR had a lot on his plate. He had to rely on his advisors, not all of whom were what we today would call decent people.

[Teaser]

36. but what's your answer?

should he have been prosecuted?

As far as I can see, you have been pwned on this one.

[Steely_Dan]

34. Of Course, You Are Aware...

...that those interred received reparations?

[impik]

35. The professional left would have bash FDR almost as much as they do to Obama. The only

thing that would make it easier for FDR would be his skin color.