America does have a history of torture during times of war

Gainesville Times
Mar. 03, 2006

On Dec. 6, Joan King wrote about our situation in the Middle East and our government's justification of human torture in the name of war, that historically, "Americans did not torture." This is a fact she believed true during World War II.

As I read her article I tried to understand her belief in our country's humanity to man. One of the greatest speeches, a speech I embrace as an ethos, in movie history belongs to Robert Duvall in "Secondhand Lions." He states, "Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage and virtue mean everything. That power and money, money and power mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil. ... Doesn't matter if it's true or not, see, because a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in."

Powerful stuff and in my romantic world, I agree. However, in February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 ordering that all Japanese-Americans be evacuated from the West Coast. More than 100,000 people, 70 percent of them American citizens, were ripped from their businesses, homes and schools and taken to internment camps.

The War Relocation Project sorted and shifted human beings of all ages from one makeshift prison to another. This is a part of our country's history that, indeed, the Pacific Northwest is ashamed of, and never heard about in the South. Just because we don't know about it doesn't make it untrue. In fact, it is taught in the Washington state school system that hundreds of these Japanese-Americans were murdered.

The method? They were tied to the back of a boat and pulled through the icy waters of the Puget Sound.

Our government's attitude does not change easily. On Feb. 5, 2003, Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., who heads a homeland security subcommittee, stated on public radio that he agreed with the Japanese-American internment camps. According to the Associated Press, Coble's opinion was "They (Japanese-Americans) were an endangered species. For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street." Apparently, it wasn't safe in the water, either.

America does have a history of torture in the name of war. Likely, it will continue as long as we fight those wars.

Emily Lund

Gainesville

Originally published Friday, March 3, 2006