Why doesn’t FDR get more flak for putting Japanese in camps?

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Some things in history just are forgotten over time or straight up ignored. Ghandi being surrounded by naked girls almost all the time in private, MLK pretty much screwing prostitutes constantly. People seem to ignore smaller terrible things if the end result was good.
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It was. But now that nazi pearl clutching is so back in vogue they can't talk about it because in their tiny brains if you say something bad about the allies or praise even the tiniest thing about the axis, you are a Hitler worshipping fascist.
 
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Okay so now that I’m not fucking around at a bar and just winding down I can complete my thoughts from my previous post.

Despite all the bravado about Samurai being these Super Brave Warriors (and in some cases they were), Japanese Sailors had sort of a reputation for being total opportunists from basically the beginning. Some of this is unfounded but most of it is true. The Wakou Pirates were really notorious for raiding Chinese, Dutch, and Portuguese Ships. Lets also now compound that with how Japanese Catholics were just suddenly told “You can’t follow this religion anymore or I’ll kill you”. This puts a really bad taste in a lot of Westerners Mouths. Toyotomi Hideyoshi also betrayed a lot of people which even the Japanese themselves documented and then tried to sneak attack Korea. Not exactly the best reputation. Then the various daimyo before Oda and Toyotomi unified things were notorious for sneak attacking each other, again even documented by the Portuguese. When Japan did fully unify under the Shogunate it was under another coup. The Tokugawa however did preside under a relative period of prosperity and peace (besides the pirates I mentioned, they kept it going) but…..

There were other daimyo who didn’t like the Tokugawa especially in the South and Central Regions of Japan. Well they themselves sneak attacked the Shogunate. The Shogun mustered an army and tried to fight back but the hostile Daimyo used the Emperor to blackmail him into standing down. He wanted to negotiate, but then the Hostile Daimyo said “No fuck you we want you gone” even the Emperor actually didn’t and Japan had very complex clan loyalties at the time that would have made this hard. So the Shogunate allied with France and naturally tried to build an Army. The idea was that the Emperor would be kind of like “Head of State” the Shogun would be Prime Minister but not elected, there would be another sort of of Vice Prime Minister that was elected, and the Upper House would be all Daimyo and the Lower House would be all Elected from landowning men. Oddly enough Japan did evolve into almost this without the Shogun but….

Well the hostile Daimyo with Dutch and British help attacked the Shoguns forces by surprise again. And this time they decisively won. The Shoguns still had holdouts in the North (who also did their own share of sneak attacks) and then they lost. Well now the Imperial Court was modernizing and trying to catch up to the West which made a lot of their support base angry. So of course, they did another sneak attack. Only this time they lost and there were more Westerners there to document it. Then Japan sneak attacked China, and then there’s the Boxer Rebellion and the Japanese were known for using sneaky tactics. You’d think this was all just Western or Chinese hyperbole but no even Japanese writers commented on it.

Well then they saw Russia gobbling up lots of East Asia and so they decided to go to war and at first they thought “Okay this time we’ll do it right” just kidding they claimed they sent a telegram too late and had already attacked Russian ships before war was declared. Virtually every tactic they used im the Russo-Japanese War involved being sneaky. They ended up winning but had a damaged reputation abroad.

I can’t comment much about Japan in WW1 because I tend to focus more on the War in Europe but I do know they invaded Germanys Chinese concessions with little warning.

Finally it comes to the 1920s and 1930s in China. The Japanese were sneaky there and everyone took notice. That’s not to say the Japanese were bad soldiers or had inferior equipment. It was that sneak attacks were considered the name of the game. When they seized Imdochina from France Roosevelt, a big student of history and his relative Teddy had facilitated the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War really started mistrusting Japan. There had also been suspicion for years they would sneak attack the Philippines so, embargo time.

Well without steel and oil Japan couldn’t continue its war in China. Like there’s literally no way. The sensible thing to do would be negotiate a peace with China and go beg to the US and ask for trade deals back, In fact that was the best option. Maybe they lose Manchukuo and have to give Indochina to De Gaulle but they hold on to Korea and a lot of the Pacific Islands.

No they decided to sneak attack the US at Pearl Harbor. The theory was this would cripple the US fleet, they’d have no time to respond while Japan once again sneak attacked the Philippines, what’s now Malaysia, and Indonesia and of course Tojo called on “All Loyal Japanese to fight against the common enemies”.

So as you can see, all these sneak attacks. That was the final straw. Roosevelt basically didn’t think we could distinguish friend from for and thought it would be a good idea to put them all into camps until the war was sorted out. It was also partially for their own protection though. A lot of Americans were pissed after Pearl Harbor. In the American South there were a sizeable number of Japanese rice farmers who changed their family names after Pearl Harbor but to things that sounded utterly un-Japanese out of fear of retaliation and emigration to there has more or less stopped since then.

Okay sorry. I just like to sperg about History.

EDIT: Also sorry for the errors. I’m still on mobile.
 
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There's also the fact that Families would frequently pass information back to the relative in the old countries which could be very valuable if they were so inclined to use it. It's a tactic the U.S. used against Italy by have I think it was negotiated with lucky luciano but effectively weaponized the diaspora of a nation to disrupt and spy on the other country to some effect. So they did know it was a viable vector of attack as they were using it and that as said above would not be out of line with Japans previous actions of being sneaky.
 
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z0mb0 said:
There's also the fact that Families would frequently pass information back to the relative in the old countries which could be very valuable if they were so inclined to use it. It's a tactic the U.S. used against Italy by have I think it was negotiated with lucky luciano but effectively weaponized the diaspora of a nation to disrupt and spy on the other country to some effect. So they did know it was a viable vector of attack as they were using it and that as said above would not be out of line with Japans previous actions of being sneaky.
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Well the other problem with Italy was something Mussolini stated from the beginning, that the war in Ethiopia proved just how poorly prepared Italy would be for war.

That’s not to say Italy didn’t want to go to war. There were a lot of Corsicans asking Italy to invade France in the 30s at least. It’s that Italy had terminally bad equipment. Mussolini focused on modernizing industry and infrastructure. Turns out he also hates the Organized Crime Networks and Italy is kind of known for those. Besides that, the Italian army was heavily politicized. You’re not a Fascist? You’re getting no big appointments. I’m not exactly sure Italo Balbo was killed by the Party (can’t say one way or the other honestly) but hey you disagree with the party on something? You disappear or have an accident. Italy was a whole other thing than Japan, the Japs had really good tech and tactics but no resources. The Italians had resources but no real way to utilize them.

How this does relate to Japan isn’t terribly different in a way. Before the outbreak of World War 2 a lot of the Army was under the influence of the Kodoha or “Imperial Way Faction” which itself didn’t want war with China, and wanted to fight the Soviets, they were essentially the Japanese equivalent of Fascist Italians but with a strong live of Monarchy and they really weren’t as friendly to foreigners. Well see the other faction who’s name escapes me was mainly in the Navy and strongly supported Capitalism and trying to colonize Asia. They were just more ambiguous as the Kodoha were all about war with the Soviet Union and not China or Europe. The. They had a failed coup and most of the members died and the Emperor denounced them as traitors after they killed a bunch of politicians.

They had a precedent though. See since the Meiji Restoration, assassinating politicians and statesman (often sneakily heh) was kind of common. Japanese citizens also kind of applauded you for it. This is not me being racist at all, I can actually say the Boxers, even though they killed Christians and the Mongols who…. Well slaughtered millions were some very brave warriors. I defend North Viet Nam more than I do any Commie country even if it’s a fucked system of government and I have family who fought the Viets. I’m saying there’s some cultural factor about being sneaky in Japanese society and it does translate to modern economic and political models. McArthur saw this and basically never wanted them to have a military again.
 
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It's because theres a lot of stupid Americans out there that think the US operated their camps with a level of decorum and treated their imates with dignity and there isn't a lot of documentation on what really happened. There's stories or rapes, indiscriminate murders that were collected by independent sources post war and the whole issue of mass theft of property but Americans mostly think it was a humane relocation and nothing happened as they get force fed a diet of holocaust films and mandatory classes in highschool. I recall there being a survey run by Time or another media piece during the war and the majority of Americans wanted the Japanese Americans liquidated. The US lucked out at picking a ethnic group that isn't known for bitching for gibsmedats and reperation money. Part of me feels like the US (and their lauded Solviet allies) really had to milk holocaust post war in order to overshadow their own atrocities.
 
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MG-34 said:
It's because theres a lot of stupid Americans out there that think the US operated their camps with a level of decorum and treated their imates with dignity and there isn't a lot of documentation on what really happened. There's stories or rapes, indiscriminate murders that were collected by independent sources post war and the whole issue of mass theft of property but Americans mostly think it was a humane relocation and nothing happened as they get force fed a diet of holocaust films and mandatory classes in highschool. I recall there being a survey run by Time or another media piece during the war and the majority of Americans wanted the Japanese Americans liquidated. The US lucked out at picking a ethnic group that isn't known for bitching for gibsmedats and reperation money. Part of me feels like the US (and their lauded Solviet allies) really had to milk holocaust post war in order to overshadow their own atrocities.
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While I'll agree full on the camps were awful, Japan as a nation did get to skate on some truly horrific shit. everyone's heard of Auschwitz but next to no one knows about the things the Japanese did. Hell even nan king gets glossed over. I'm a bigger believer all the powers involved in the war were differing flavors of fucked not even levels when you get down to the nuts and bolts but i don't think that the Japanese would have the social capital to ask for reparation's.
Alex Krycek said:
They had a precedent though. See since the Meiji Restoration, assassinating politicians and statesman (often sneakily heh) was kind of common. Japanese citizens also kind of applauded you for it. This is not me being racist at all, I can actually say the Boxers, even though they killed Christians and the Mongols who…. Well slaughtered millions were some very brave warriors. I defend North Viet Nam more than I do any Commie country even if it’s a fucked system of government and I have family who fought the Viets. I’m saying there’s some cultural factor about being sneaky in Japanese society and it does translate to modern economic and political models. McArthur saw this and basically never wanted them to have a military again.
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You can't fault them for using a proven winning strategy style. sneak attacks work. They wanted to win. Your already killing people so why not maximize impact when you strike.
 
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You can always fall back on the flimsy defense of "it was justified," but that doesn't work for the even more forgotten Aleut internment that was going on at the same time. In that situation the federal government kicked about 900 people out of the Aleutian islands in anticipation of more Japanese invasions, but then they forgot to do anything with them after that and about 10% of them died of pneumonia in an abandoned logging camp. That one's been memoryholed because no one cares enough about Aleuts.
 
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Un Platano said:
You can always fall back on the flimsy defense of "it was justified," but that doesn't work for the even more forgotten Aleut internment that was going on at the same time. In that situation the federal government kicked about 900 people out of the Aleutian islands in anticipation of more Japanese invasions, but then they forgot to do anything with them after that and about 10% of them died of pneumonia in an abandoned logging camp. That one's been memoryholed because no one cares enough about Aleuts.
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it's not justified just understandable from the view of the people making the call. The fact is the federal government does not give a shit about losses of people they don't have to for political expediency and the only saving grace is that incompetency is what keeps them from doing worse with their indifference.
 
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