Friday, February 07, 2003

Coble redux

A little more on Rep. Coble's continuing remarks:
"I can see why he (FDR) made that decision," he said. "Fifty years later, looking back, maybe you would say: 'Perhaps, he shouldn't have done it.' "

Actually, there were numerous important voices that questioned the internment contemporaneously (see the earlier discussion of Ralph Carr), and more within a matter of only a year or two. The subject became a national topic of discussion particularly in the wake of the return of the 442nd Regimental Combat Unit -- the all-Nisei fighting team that was the most decorated battalion in the war -- from the front lines in Europe to widespread acclaim, notably by President Harry Truman.

You didn't need fifty years' hindsight to see that it was wrong.

[A tip o' the Hatlo hat to Is That Legal?, which is doing a marvelous job staying abreast of the Coble matter.]

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