Power Pros Forum

I think I exagerrated, but I meant the U.S. We've done worse, ex: Wipe out Native Americans, Dealayed Entrance into World War 2, Vietnam. Do you mean what occured or what am I comparing it to? As I just edited this, Wyl has a very good explanation below . Considering the fact that we live in the U.S., the failures and times where we have abused power or acted corrupty are rarely if ever taught. I know a few British high schoolers who know very little if anything about our Revolutionary War. History is written by the victors.

It's something that American history books generally ignore, but in World War II we were paranoid about Japan attacking the west coast of the U.S. to the point where for "national security" we began rounding up Japanese-American citizens living in the western states and forcing them to live in internment/concentration camps built in the interior U.S. states (and in Canada). We actually rounded up some people of German and Italian (our other enemies at the time) descent and imprisoned them as well, but nowhere near to the degree we did with the Japanese. Going from memory, but I think something like 3/4 of the Japanese people forced out of their U.S. homes and businesses into internment camps were actually full American citizens. It was during this period of time that the terms "Jap" and "Nip" were used pretty much exclusively as a derogatory slur towards Japanese people (American citizens or now).

It's easy in hindsight to denounce what was done, but to me the lesson is that restricting freedom under the guide of "national security" is a dangerous road with a very slippery slope. And that the above was done under a Democrat run administration (FDR was the president who signed the order) shows that neither party is immune to horribly abusing power and exercising horrifically bad judgment.

The Japanese hit us first. We were neutral at the time in WWII

What we did to Japanese in America is nothing compared to what they did to American, and all other soldiers in WWII. That's not something I will soon forget, I've lost to many to Japan. That's why I still call them that, I don't mean todays Japan but I mean WWII Japans, their's so much I could call them.

The only thing I could say that makes me feel better. They made the biggest mistake EVER making us go into to war. I guess Germany almost turned on them for what they did. Hitler did against that though.

That and,

They failed their mission at Pearl Harbor really.

Yes, but that certainly does not justify what we did. The goverment of that country attacked us, not the Japanese by Race citizens of the U.S. They were not citizens of Japan but U.S Citezens who happened to have a Japanese backround. It was illegal by the constitution and was a severe and fatal flaw in FDR's Presidency and it did not call for the imprisionment and the seasing of all property and assets of every citezen of Japanese decent who supposidly had some connection to Japan and were spies. They never recieved any of their property or money back. Imagine losing everything because you had some family connection to someone who lived in another country that attacked us. It was racist and certainly wrong.And Dr. Mario, you are compleatly wrong, the Japanese or Germans did no such thing. The Germans did treat others much worse then we did, but not Americans. How does that justify anything? Two wrongs certainly doesn't make a right. I can understand, as shameful as it was, how people were caught up in the moment, but I can't understand how you think it was justified looking back with hind sight.
Now that you edited your post, let me add something:
You are in theory 19, you have not lost anyone to Japan because you were supposedly 58-59 years from birth.

So what they did to my grandfather and all the others was not wrong? That was racist and against the law of war. They killed medics, hurt prisoners, the list goes on.

And you mean to say they didn't force prisoners to march 70 miles with little food and water making them drink their own blood killing prisoners for enjoyment breaking the law of war?!?!?!?!?! THEY DID NOTHING! NOTHING MY.......


I lost a grandfather and an uncle. Maybe another Uncle, he was MIA.

You are talking about the Germans, if you are talking about the Japanese then I don't think your grandfather ever died there unless he was a soldier attacking them. I'm not trying to justify Japan's actions in attacking us, but the goverments actions are not the people's fault and certainly not any U.S. citezins fault.

I'm not talking about the GERMANS! They actually treated their prisoner MUCH better, Ever read about the Bataan Deathmarch??!?!?!? You think they were GERMAN!

Obviously neither of us are convinving each other and I don't think we're going to agree on if this was justified or not. Rather then continue fighting and having the poor mods break it up for us (notice a mod created this thread haha), lets just agree to disagree and part ways. I think the consensus that we can agree on is not to use the term Jap anymore. Sound Allright?

No, I don't, you have offended me that you think all this was done by Germany.

If you want to argue take it to the chat box please, stay on topic.

This kind of is on-topic.... Kind of not.

I had actually not heard of that march before and I did look it up. While it was certainly disgraceful and revolting, I personally don't believe it was as bad as what we did in the U.S. because we did it on such a huge scale where only 10,000 died there. I also believe that the Germans had done much worse things and also on a much larger scale. The way they tortured, gassed, and basically treated the Jews and other minorities like cattle was revolting and one of the biggest if not the biggest genocides of all time. They were focusing clearly on the "clensing" of people, "exterminating" all who were not of the same race as them. Don't get me wrong, that trail was distrubring, but that was more so the way people so often act in those positions of power. Its sycology, look up the Stamford Prison Experiment to see what I mean. What the German's did is almost ungraspable. I'm sorry to have offended you and I admit I did not know what I was talking about nearly as well as I thought I did. But I still don't think that it matters what was worse, what we did to the Japanese citecins who had nothing to do with that march was not right.

I'll give my two cents about war and let the opinions fly:

A definition of war given by MW is a state of usually open and declared "armed hostile" conflict between states or nations.

War is carried out amoung militaries of a country or nation, not by the civilians of that nation. If you are part of the military, then you are subject to the actions that occur during a war.

To me when war is declared and an attack occurs then nothing is held back, no consideration on how one is killed or how the opposition is handled or treated. It is a war!!!!!! The reason it doesn't matter how the opposition is treated is because the intent is to kill, eliminate, and take control. Therefore if you are part of the military you are subject to the WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am glad that there are rules set forth for POW, but again it is WAR; therefore, anything goes in my opinion. I believe trying to sugar coat with some code of conduct for the war and present some sort of civility is ridiculous. You are killing people, there is no civility in that. Civility went out the window when by talking nothing could be accomplished.

Now, any attack on civilians is "Terrorism" and is not part of war. This is a totally different subject.

I've also heard another spin on this and that is it was done for the Japanese Americans own protection because hostility was so high toward the Japanese American population. I think this was just a cover up for the fear that the bombing of pearl harbor created in the non-Japanese American people.

Very similar to the fear that most people had towards those Middle-Eastern Americans after the events of 9-11. My boss definitely felt uncomfortable with going out in public.