Why doesn't anyone ever talk about the Japanese American internment camps of WW2?

Because war is dirty and there are rarely ever any "good sides", just ones that are marginally less worse than the others. Wish that was remembered every "Remembrance Day".

The victors tend to have their indiscretions glossed over somewhat.

Cydoniac wrote: »

Well, from a Japanese perspective, I don't think they'd want the likes of Unit 731 brought up, which is a genuine dark mark in history. I haven't heard much about this before, must look it up.

Only heard of the unit when slayer wrote a song about it. Depraved.

Didn't the British come up with those type of camps during the boer war?

Both sides f**ked up, and thus both sides now want to forget it, and move on.

BetterThanThou wrote: »

In World War 2, the US put 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry into internment camps because they were afraid the Japanese were planning an attack on the west coast and had planted spies. 60+ percent of these people were American citizens.
Why is this unethical decision never talked about? You often hear about unethical decisions on all sides of World War 2, but this is something I've only heard of recently. Is this something that people try hide away to protect the name of the US?

No big secret at all and often talked about and pops up in popular culture from time to time - Just off the top of my head - The Japanese American guy on startrek has often referred to his own family being interned , there was an Ethan Hawke film about it a few years back and lots more.

A Japanese American regiment fought with great distinction in Europe even as their families were being rounded up back home.

The American Government has long recognised the injustice and paid reparations

The entire war in the East is almost ignored in Europe. Even the "starting dates" reflect this.

It is very rare for people to bring up any number of issues concerning the war for any other reason than the persons modern day politics. They are not "covered up" for any other reason than that a lot of terrible things happened during the war, and the scale of it all meant that even something as awful and immoral as the internment camps were but another drop in the ocean.

Rarely is any event in the war specifically studied for its brutality and scale alone - the atomic bombs being a good example of this. The death toll from them just breaks into the top 10, to give you an idea of the scale of the routine atrocities.

There certainly was a "better" side in the war, immeasurably better in almost every way. However they were far from perfect or even "good" in many cases - they did not win by dropping flowers on their enemies, the rampant racism (easily forgotten how mainstream it was EVERYWHERE) meant the war took on another sadistic dimension everywhere it was fought.

Total war and the nature of strategic bombing and its inaccuracy meant that "moral bombing" (terror bombing if the other side is doing it) was absolutely essential to winning the war, but incredibly immoral and destructive. The routine nature of this destruction means that I seriously doubt many people I know can name more than 5 cities where 50,000+ people were killed, despite there being literally dozens.

In short, no it is not an American conspiracy (given how many people make it their business to outright hate Americans, much less the country, the opposite would be more likely to have occured) that makes it less well known here. Instead it is a combination of Eurocentrism and the fact that, as awful as they were, they were a mere drop in the ocean of human misery at the time.

The opposite of what you said is more likely to be true - the scale of it would mean it was probably only known by history buffs if it were carried out by anyone but the US.

Links234 wrote: »

The problem is they're not taught about it in school, so really from a Japanese perspective they got ****ed in WWII and this is what they remember. I've been to the peace memorial and the museum in Hiroshima, it's pretty sobering, what I saw in the museum was some of the most harrowing things I've ever imagined. That's what WWII is from their perspective

Literally the first display in the museum in Hiroshima is a glass case with a whole load of history books from different countries inside, and a comment asking people to read them all, and consider history from different perspectives. The words 'genocide', 'massacre' and so on are used when appropriate to describe Japanese military behaviour in China before and during WW2. I don't really get what you're saying about the museum portraying WW2 from their perspective - I thought they did a very good job of situating the atomic bombs in the context of WW2.

What they learn (or don't learn) in schools though, is a very different story.

Anyhow, to comment on the OP, a couple of US representatives have been vocal about the issue, and George Bush (the first) an apology in the early 90's, I think. There have been numerous cases taken to the supreme court, and I remember reading an interview eith a retired supreme court justice who expressed the opinion that the then (1940's) supreme court's finding that the internment was constitutional was the worst decision that any supreme court justices had ever made.

KyussBishop wrote: »

Add to this, the extremely short timespan between the two atomic bombings (mere days), not allowing nearly enough sufficient time for the Japanese government to properly survey the damage, and come to a diplomatic agreement to end the war.

So even if you take the first bombing as a necessary evil, the second can't be justified whatsoever.

The counter-argument usually claims that x million lives were saved through shortening of the war, which IMO is complete bullsh1t. The Japanese were on their last legs, air and sea blockades were effective and would eventually have surrendered regardless. There were two principle reasons for deploying the bombs.

1) The US military had spent billions on developing an expensive new toy and needed to justify the cost.
2) The Soviets were fast approaching.

The Japanese were guilty of some of the worst war crimes during WW2 (think Nanking massacre), certainly as bad as anything from the Nazis or the Soviet Union but at least (aside from a few ultra-nationalistic types) they've expressed contrition for their actions.

KyussBishop wrote: »

Recommended this on another forum, but if anyone wants to get a good idea precisely how horrible these events were, read John Hersey's 'Hiroshima' - quite tough going.

Add to this, the extremely short timespan between the two atomic bombings (mere days), not allowing nearly enough sufficient time for the Japanese government to properly survey the damage, and come to a diplomatic agreement to end the war.

So even if you take the first bombing as a necessary evil, the second can't be justified whatsoever.

The timespan was two days, the extent of the damage was known well before they surrendered (a week+ after the second bomb). The lag was not some misconception of the power of the weapon (more destruction had already been caused on multiple occasions in conventional cases, but did not cause a surrender) but because many still wanted to fight on. In fact there was an attempted coup even after the surrender. The knowledge that they would be completely annihilated (albiet with fire bombs, though why that would make a difference with regards to surrendering are not you would have to explain) existed for a very long time at many levels of the military and the government - the means of that annihilation was immaterial. Matters of honor and religion is what prolonged the ultimate end.


There were 50,000 casualties everyday at that point on the mainland. That is to say it would take another 4 days for the casualties to be made up elsewhere had they not been used. The only way people can come to the "conclusion" that less suffering could have been caused is if people make the assumption that within a week the Japanese government would have quickly come to their senses and surrendered without the bombings. Which is just complete bull****.

The rate of casualties would have continued to climb (as they had been since the beginning, despite Japans near zero chance of victory) had any of the other proposed strategies been used.

I have absolutely no doubt that had the US not used the bomb and instead invaded the Japanese mainland, or began starving them (both with casualty projections well into the millions, or even 10's of millions) the very same people who think the bombs unnecessary now would accuse the US of unnecessarily prolonging the war to teach Japan a lesson/ for whatever other reason. It is easy to see the accusation "They knew Japan had no chance, why did htey not just destroy one small city and they would have surrendered and it would have been over!"

The fact is there was no "good" or "nice" way to end the war, not for a very long time before they were used. The very continuation of the war at its "normal" rate would have meant vastly more suffering within weeks. Normal bombing runs routinely killed more people.

It is very telling that the revisionism that something else could/should have been done did not start appearing until 20-30 years after the end of the conflict. That is to say long enough so that people could make the statement without addressing in any real way the realities of continuing the war for an unspecified period of time.

Jimoslimos wrote: »

The counter-argument usually claims that x million lives were saved through shortening of the war, which IMO is complete bullsh1t. The Japanese were on their last legs, air and sea blockades were effective and would eventually have surrendered regardless. There were two principle reasons for deploying the bombs.

Wrong. Look at the casualty rates of the war at the time in the areas Japan was still fighting.

Jimoslimos wrote: »

1) The US military had spent billions on developing an expensive new toy and needed to justify the cost.
2) The Soviets were fast approaching.

The Japanese were guilty of some of the worst war crimes during WW2 (think Nanking massacre), certainly as bad as anything from the Nazis or the Soviet Union but at least (aside from a few ultra-nationalistic types) they've expressed contrition for their actions.

Wrong again, the Japanese are famously uncontrite about their crimes during the war. It is a commonly held belief that they were "tricked" into attacking america. Just the other day their Prime Minister visited a shrine that celebrates dozens of Japanese war criminals.

The Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and other South East Asian peoples would straight up be disgusted if you were to imply this. The politics of the region is pretty much defined by Japans intransigence when it comes to its crimes during the war.

This is pretty common knowledge, the Japanese themselves don't bother debating it so I'm guessing that you just completely pulled that out of your ass.


On point 1), Very doubtful to the point of just being a vague point with no evidence. especially considering that most powerful weapon that has ever been developed remains so whether it is used or not. There is no indication that people before or after the program were demanding to see some bang for the money they had spent. The implications of th weapon are and were pretty clear to everyone.