US/CAN Muslims face deportation or concentration camp

Great Debates
21

Who barely tolerates it? There have been no major protests against it in the US to my knowledge.

In any case, Guantanamo is something of a red herring. The releases from there, amd reports from people who have been there indicate that there are few terrorist suspects of any value there. The concentration camps are not in Cuba, they are further away than that, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

To be honest, it’s not that much of a step from actually having the camps and sending US citizens to them. If the US population can be convinced that it is ok to have these concentration camps and to keep people in them that are thought to be a threat to the US, why not US citizens who they believe to be a threat as well?

22

Zagadka

Sam Stone

[Moderator Hat ON]

Zagadka, Sam hadn’t even POSTED in this thread and you went after him; if you have a personal problem with him, take it to the Pit. Both of you (and Brutus), deal with this somewhere besides GD.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

23

Zagadka, no disrepect to you, but I have to call bullshit on that. Neither you or anyone else (including me) is going to join the “revolution” to defend 2% of the population. Are you really, really going to put your life and those you love on the line for people you don’t know that may or may not be a danger?

Do you realize that any organization attempting to defending the muslims will be immediately find itself subject to an investigation by the FBI? And that any attempt to get the information out on these concentration camp will be espionnage? And that any attempt to resist violently will be pointed at immediately as terrorist? Nobody is going to stand up for a spy or a terrorist.

Where’s your stockpile of weapons anyway?

The only thing that could work is mass peaceful protest, but with a guaranteed 50% supporting those measures and only a few percents of the remaining 50% ready to do anything, it will be a worthless effort.

Many in this thread are thinking that because some civil rights activists have fought the good fight in the 60s that this is all over. Let me tell you that you have a generation before you that has never been part of this fight and that have been psychologically traumatized by what happenned on 9/11. Once the hippies lose their position of power and die off, they’ll be replaced by people that haven’t learned from history.

Frankly, apart from knee-jerk reaction, nobody has arguments in this thread that concentration camps are so bad.

What will you say to convince people that will come to you and tell you that these camps (I’m sure they’ll find a non-threatening word to call them) are both for the safety of the general population and the muslims themselves?

Another september 11th is all it takes. If I were a muslim, I’d start packing my bags. I’m just praying that North America will not start a major conflict with China in my lifetime.

24

Thank you for speaking for me, I’m glad you know exactly how I feel and what I think well before I do.

Yes, I would. I would rather be in jail or dead than live in an America where people are rounded up and shoved into concentration camps because of the color of their skin.

I have a few rifles shrugs Nothing fancy.

Of course, the first steps to any revolution are public protests and education and the like. Any violent reaction is an absolute last resort.

Ah, like the Vietnam protests?

I think that is because it is taken for granted. That is like saying, “Hey, you know what? Hitler is evil.”

I don’t think it will get to that point. Maybe in some areas of the country, but not the whole thing shebang.

25

Sure, but will it be enough to counter-balance clips on the Internet of pieces of human meat hanging off bent metal when bombs go off in buses or trains (one of the most likely form of the next attack)? And maybe one or two Khadr-like news report of “America had it coming” or “I’d rather have my son in al-Qaida then becoming an homosexual or drug addict”…

Who’s going to make the association with the Germany circa 1940s? The ADL???

After all… It is not like we’ll have them executed right? It is going to be “for their own protection”. And WWII is so far away anyway, who’s going to remember?

I can tell you people I know are making the association between the widely shown clips of Iraqis kicking burned out bodies and Arabs here. They see them as “invaders” and whatever I say to them, they can’t be convinced otherwise. One person in particular had even married an asian so it is not knee-jerk xenophobia…

26

America was involved with Vietnam for 25 years and killed over a million vietnameses while those protests were going on. Did it really do anything? Or did you just get your ass kicked real good?

Wow. That’s a strong argument. I’m sure no one is going to claim Godwin law on me if I invoke this argument. Hey, didn’t the fact that Hitler have a few millions jews/gays and other people he didn’t like killed have something to do with the fact that we consider him evil?

27

shrugs It worked, eventually.

So, your argument is that Americans would sit idly by and watch fellow Americans herded into cattle cars to be taken away to Arizona and locked in a cage for no reason? We may be assholes, but we’re not totally evil. Part of the lesson we learned from Hitler is to not let that happen again.

28

Ummmmm, do you have any citation at all for this assertion? I, for one, did not know the Patriot Act did this, and I would be very interested in finding a reputable source for it so I can have concrete reasons to fight against the Patriot Act.

Once again, I’d like to see a cite for this. Perhaps there are people being held for immigration reasons, but, other than Padilla, I have not heard of this happening.

I hope you don’t disappear, because I’d like to see your response.

29

For no reason? I think a large majority of Americans are going to think that a bunch of terrorists within that community is going to be good enough reason. We’re at “war” buddy, anything can be justified.

Hmmm, when I talk about concentration camp, I’m not talking about the Nazi-kind one, I’m talking about the WWII/North-America ones. You have yet to put forward a convincing argument as to why they are so bad so I assume that they would be a pill quite easy to swallow for most. I didn’t see that many effective protests for Camp X-Ray for example…

To go farther, what makes Americans so different then Germans anyway?? They were quite easily manipulated into letting a few millions burn without much resistance, I don’t see why Americans can’t be convinced to do the same with time, a built-up of hatred and enough spin. We can keep jumping up and down on these boards about how that that would be so Hitler-like, it won’t make a difference. The capacity for “evil” is in everyone.

30

That could be in part because the protests in Camp X-Ray have nothing to do with what you’re suggesting in the OP. The people being detained in Camp X-Ray were not placed there simply because of their race and/or religion. They were unlawful combatants engaged in a military campaign in a foreign war. They were not Muslim Americans going about their everyday business.

Someone else brought up Jose Padilla. I think he’s a perfect example of why the WWII detention camps would never be allowed in modern day America. Both the District Court for the Southern District of New York and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Justice Department’s detention of Jose Padilla was unconstitutional, and that the Justice Department had to either charge him or release him within 30 days.

Plus, Korematsu – the Supreme Court decision that allowed the Japanese-American detentions to take place in WWII – has been roundly criticized in legal circles.

So I think the biggest argument as to why that wouldn’t happen today is because the rule of law would not allow it. And even if the rule of law would allow it, I find it hard to believe that public opinion would allow it.

31

Some of them may have been. Kinda hard to tell though, what with the lack of any evidence or anything.

Not in the US, but that’s not where the concentration camps are. The question is whether the transfer of actual US citizens to the camps would be possible. My gut feeling is still no, but we are not a huge distance away.

32

How do you think the Nazi ones started out?

Other than the obvious legal issues involved and the mass international media, international law, international human rights organizations, United Nations, etc?

Depends where you live, I guess.

Americans in 1937-1945? Not much. However, both Americans and Germans in 2004 are in a slightly more civil rights oriented position.

33

Sure, while things are peachy. If there is a nuclear or biological attack on US soil, a lot of people will think differently.

If it actually happened, very few but Muslims would stand up for Muslims with physical force. Why would people risk their lives to defend those whom they do not perceive as their own - and in many cases, feel antipathy toward? Like it or not, if the White House and a big chunk of the legislature feels like doing it, it’s gonna happen, and no number of waving signs will change that.

My reaction would be entirely irrelevant. I’d probably get the hell out of the country after the kind of the attack that would prompt such a response.

34

Right off the bat the Nazis advertised that they wanted to eliminate Jews. I see a big difference (hopefully…)

Since when does a superpower have to follow international law? Didn’t your country do a pre-emptive attack on a non-threat country? Isn’t Camp X-Ray in violation of POW international consensus?

So we should pin our hope on it not happening on the organized protests in a few liberal cities on each coast? It is going to be too little too late.

The message I’m reading is that Americans are ready to sacrifice any of those rights for more security… Again, I hope it doesn’t happen but I think we are at the level of historical inevitability. For those that think the legal system will magically prevent this, let me insist that laws can be changed if people put enough pressure on the legislative branch…

Once that happen, Zagadka will be shot by SWAT snipers 30 seconds after picking his rifle for the glorious revolution! :wink:

35

Going back to the OP, I take issue with the idea that concentration camps or deportations for muslims in the US are “inevitable”. I see nothing of the sort.

  1. The basic premise of the OP relies on “few more attempted or realized terrorist attacks”, presumably on the US mainland. Where are they? Whatever one may argue, the fact is there have been none since 2001, nor has there been a massive wave of discovery of domestic terrorist cells, and/or prosecutions for attempted attacks. I think we can see by recent terrorist actions alsewhere that if one organization or another could have conducted operations in the US, they would have done so by now. This suggests that very few, if any muslims in the US are in fact terrorists, and that current measures are relatively effective, does it not? If current measures are effective, what is the need, even amongst the most rabidly fascist, for greater suppression of muslims?

  2. I have yet to see a statement, even a veiled one, from the White House or any other government authority, claiming a need to incarcerate or deport muslims en masse, for any reason. The statement about the Patriot Act allowing the government to take any action it wishes against terrorist suspects is, so far, just so much hand-waving. There is certainly the potential for abuse of the Patriot Act, and some abuses apparently have already occurred, but I see no pattern of frequent and systematic abuse directed specifically at muslims, as yet.

  3. Anecdotal, but I submit relevant nonetheless. There are dozens of people, of all political stripes, who I speak with regularly. Not a single one has ever made a statement to me that could be interpreted along the lines of “Let’s round up all the muslims”. Show that a large proportion of the population actually is considering some sort of final solution to a hypothetical “muslim problem” and I’ll consider revising my opposition to the OP’s premise.

  4. Any administration that would attempt to carry out such draconian measures had better have very good polling data showing that a majority of the electorate agrees, or a means to protect itself from being voted out of office should the electorate disagree. I don’t think even our fairly odious current administration believes that they have some implied mandate from the people to lock up or deport persons simply for being muslim. The OP is welcome to refute this with specific examples if he can find some.

36

And you have yet to produce anything other than your gut feeling and the messages being filtered through your tinfoil hat that such changes to the law are “inevitable.”

The rule of law is about as far from “magic” as you can get. It’s plain and reasoned and process-oriented and boring as all get out.

So it’s possible that the laws can change, but not any time soon. Of course, it’s also possible that the laws will become more protective of the rights of Muslim-Americans. But I think it’s much more likely that drastic changes won’t occur.

37

Wow…a lot has been said and I’m still trying to figure out what was meant by this in the OP: “…against Germany and Japan, pre-war immigrants of those countries were either deported or more often sent to conentration camp.”
Where can I find out about this? I was under the impression that only the Japanese on the West coast were sent to internment camps. Any from anywhere else in the country? Any Germans at all? And how many out of the population were actually deported? Any cite for this?

38

There were about 11,000 German Americans or German aliens living in the US that were pickup, arrested or deported. At US bequest, about 4,000 were captured in various Latin American countries and sent to the the US for similiar treatment. Italian Americans met the same fate, I assume their numbers were smaller.

In addition to the Western states, there were relatively small numbers Japanese from Hawaii, Alaska and other states sent to the camps.

I dislike the term concentration camps although it may be correct. The unjust loss of freedom and humiliation and weather conditions at the camps were much worse than any physical abuse which was not common. In general, the Japanese internees were not forced to work or deprieved of food, and some were paid a small amount if they worked. The conditions and treatment were undoubtedly very unpleasant, but far far from concentration camps in Germany, Japan or Russia.

39

Excellent dissection of the issue, Kabonger. That really ought to put the issue to rest.

40

Not unless they are in open revolt against the constitution. Internees during WW2 were interned because they were part of an alien nationality during a time of war. When all pre-war propaganda such as the rape of nanking or other atrocitys , all America had to go on ,was news reel footage in movie theatres and hearing about the roll over of Europe by the Nazis.

And here you have this population , numbering around 12 million i believe that are strange and have different customs and beliefs , instead of the normal every american man and woman.

We have enough news coverage of the world , for the paranoic reaction to happen.

You would have to remember 1979 , to realize that it did not have to involve terrorism, the pictures of Iranian nationals being kicked around , after the embassy take over , was enough to prompt people to think it could happen again.

Second , in oklahoma , the murtagh building bombing by McVeigh , up here in Canada , all the talk radio shows were filled with Arab Canadians , who were quite frankly scared shitless , because of the situation , no matter that they lived in another country, in some ways we are not that different from the States according to them.

This only passed once the perps were established.

The lowest common denominator , comes down to an oath that the President , states ,to protect and defend the constitution from foreign and domestic enemies.

IF what is required to do that , is to imprison for probably transportation back to nation of origin, is 40 million people go behind the wire , then thats whats gonna happen. Will it , I doubt it , as I said for that to happen , enough of them would have to be in open revolt , and thus beyond habeus corpus anyways.

The internment camps were not a bad thing for America , if only 10 percent of the japanese population was pro tojo , they could have tied up divisions of troops needed else were , in the end we found out that they were “good japanese” and thus innocent, in another time , it may have worked out quite differently.

Declan