Reply #54: This is an example of what unbridled fear can do to a population

[rasputin1952]

of normally rational human beings.

In the context of the time, what the Japanese had done in China and other parts of the Southeast Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, there was little reason to believe other than that the Japanese were essentially a vicious conquering nation. This was reinforced when the Japanese attacked the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor. There was panic across the nation, and the idea was perpetrated that the Japanese would find dedication to the Emperor the guiding principle the Japanese Americans would follow.

When Corregidor, the Dutch East Indies and other areas were conquered, there was little reason to believe that Japanese in general were to be trusted. War crimes were rampant, and just about everything the Americans were learning about the Japanese made them look like savages.

The vast majority of Japanese Americans were loyal to the US, some were not. Fear brought about Executive Order 9066. As the war dragged on, it became apparent that the Japanese leadership were fanatical in their pressing of the war. This rippled down to the American public and those in uniform. Fear, and then the knowledge that the Japanese would essentially die proudly for their Emperor rather than succumb to defeat made many decisions inevitable.

Was EO 9066 "wrong", in my opinion yes, but in the context of the time, it was used to assuage the fear Americans had at the time. Just as Lincoln's denial of habeas corpus was during the Civil War, (which, under the Constitution was validated).

The same fear brought us the "Patriot Act", something far more ominous, as we live under that miserable thing today and, it is far more reaching than EO 9066. While we don't have Detention Camps under the "Patriot Act", if something happens, far more Americans will be "rounded up" than Japanese Americans during WWII.