As I mentioned, I was going to talk about the internment camps and the Dresden bombing when I got home. Well, I'm home now, so let's talk about them. First of all, the internment camps. Let's get some music while I write this up:
Now, I'm sure we all know the story. In 1941, Imperial Japan attacked the US on the naval base of Pearl Harbor, and America was pulled headlong into the war. In response, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized regional military commanders to designate parts of America as military zones from which they could exclude just about anyone they wanted - and they did, declaring pretty much the entire west coast off limits to Japanese-Americans. And what did they say was a Japanese-American, these evil people who had to be put into cramped camps with soldiers watching them and nearly their entire net worth taken away? Well, simple: anyone who had a Japanese grandparent or closer. Over 130,000 Japanese-Americans were put into these cramped internment camps and kept until the end of the war.
I do want to note something here - despite being at war with Germany as well, no action was ever taken against German-Americans, or even pro-Nazi groups in America. Isn't that strange? It's almost like the internment camps were motivated more by racism than by actual concerns about national security. In fact, the United States government admitted as such, over forty years later during the administration of Ronald Reagan:
(3) There was no military or security reason for the internment;
(4) The internment of the individuals of Japanese ancestry was caused by racial prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership
Here's the source of that quote for ya.Where does this fall in the definition I gave above? That's principle one - the deliberate targeting of civilians, in this case even American civilians.
So how about Dresden? I've already heard a couple of explanations here - that it was done because those people in Dresden were on the side of the Nazis, and that's how war was fought back then. Very well. It doesn't make it right or righteous to deliberately firebomb entire cities, killing over twenty thousand people - and not even making the barest attempt to minimize civilian casualties. Indeed, even at the time people looked at the bombing of Dresden with unease. Even Winston Churchill was quick to distance himself from the bombing, saying:
It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land… The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforward be more strictly studied in our own interests than that of the enemy.
The Foreign Secretary has spoken to me on this subject, and I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.
Here's a source for that quote, by the way. It only took him a few weeks to distance himself from the firebombing that he had ordered... a classic sign that he knew what he was doing was immoral, and did it anyway.
By the way, that's a violation of principle two in the definition I gave above, for those of you keeping score.
So with these two examples, I make the claim that the United States and Britain cannot claim themselves as morally righteous in World War II. We were not the "good guys". All we were were the "significantly less bad guys".
