Excuse me, Newsweek, but who was ultimately responsible for establishing the Manzanar internment camp along with the other such camps which interned Japanese U.S. residents along with Japanese-American citizens during World War II?
If you read this February 15 article by Newsweek senior writer Alexander Nazaryan you would think President Donald Trump who was born a year after that war ended was somehow responsible rather than the real culprit, President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In fact, Nazaryan mentions Trump 26 times in the story while FDR appears only 3 times. Most bizarrely, FDR is compared favorably to Trump in the one time Nazaryan really focuses on him:
<<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>>
During the presidential campaign, Trump called Syrian refugees a “Trojan horse,” implying that terrorists lurked among them. Most refugees, in fact, are women and children.
The image, however, comes from FDR. He used it during one of his “fireside chats,” in 1940, to warn “a nation unprepared for treachery” and thus ripe for exploitation by “spies, saboteurs and traitors.” He invoked, as counterargument, the strength of the American project, to which “the blood and genius of all the peoples of the world” had contributed.
“We have built well,” Roosevelt concluded.
Um...Alexander, you didn't really come out and say it but Roosevelt also built the internment camps, including Manzanar. Although you have shied away from that reality, it is a very inconvenient fact as you can see at this history site:
FBI head J. Edgar Hoover told President Roosevelt that the West Coast was secure, and he recommended that the Japanese American communities be watched, but he did not recommend any mass arrests of Japanese.
U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle warned President Roosevelt that the forced removal of American citizens was unconstitutional. Although the U.S. was also at war with Germany and Italy, there was no mass detention of German-Americans or Italian-Americans.
...President Roosevelt considered the matter. He asked an expert at the State Department, Frank Schuler, his opinion whether Japanese in the United States were a danger. Schuler replied that some were a danger and some were not. "But how," he asked, "can you separate the good from the bad." Roosevelt decided to err on the side of security. He issued executive Order 9066 to relocate all Japanese on the West Coast to detention camps inland.
Although FDR authorized the internment camps, Nazaryan lets the good liberal off the hook and uses Manzanar to bash, bash, bash Trump. His article is just chock full of Trump bashing and here are a few examples:
THREE DAYS BEFORE I went to Manzanar, President Donald Trump had ordered a halt on immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. He did so via executive order, numbered 13769. Manzanar was created via Executive Order 9066, which will turn 75 years old on February 19. The order did not mention the Japanese, but its intention was very clear.
And your article did not mention who issued Executive Order 9066 which created Manzanar but your intention was clear...bash Donald Trump. Sorry for interrupting. We now return to Nazaryan's extreme obsession:
A FEAR OF ESPIONAGE was the reason given for Japanese internment, just as a fear of terrorism is the reason Trump cites for his travel ban. But there were no spies among the Japanese confined during World War II. And there has never been a terrorist attack committed by a refugee on American soil.
Really? Tell that alt.reality to the terror victims in Boston, San Bernadino, and St. Cloud, Minnesota:
The people who have come on a Tuesday morning in the middle of winter seem to be acutely aware that Manzanar has an even more ominous significance today than it did on November 7, 2016. Now you come here and pretend that this was long-ago ugliness we’d never replicate.
For Trump Derangement Syndrome liberals such as Nazaryan, November 7, 2016 was the last day of freedom in America since You-Know-Who won the election the next day:
TWITTER HELPED ELECT Trump, but it’s also the site of strong anti-Trump sentiment.
Interesting that Nazaryan mentions Twitter since last year he posted a tweet comparing Ted Cruz to the Nazis. He later deleted that tweet and apologized. Yes, he learned his lesson and will now focus his derangement on only Donald Trump.
