On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 02:41:13 GMT, "Peter D" [email protected] wrote:

"Tracy Barber" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:07:10 GMT, "Peter D" [email protected] wrote:

"Tracy Barber"

If compassions were a word that the Japanese knew and felt, an apology
would have been made by now - not a 1/2 arse one that we got sideways.

It seems that the U.S. did more to be compassionate / compensate than
the Japanese have done, but of course, I'm always missing the boat, so
I may be wrong. I may be right. I just may be the lunatic you're
looking for... :^P

If by "the Japanese" you mean the goverment (people) of that nation on
the
other side of the Pacific, then what does it have to do with the those
who
were interned and lost property? Those were not "the Japanese". The
point.
You appear to be making the same connnection that was what got the US
into
this mess in the first place.

OK, not all of them, but count the spies, the rogues, etc. Has anyone
ever done that - or were they all saints?

Dunno who were rogues, spies, or saint. Do know that they had a right to
presumption of innocence, the right not to have their goods siezed without
due process, the right not to be incarerated without an arrest, a stated
charge, and a trial by peers, etc. You know, the usual. And the least they
should expect from a nation that claims it fights to defend those same
rights for others. Not disputing the intent to fight, only the oddity of
suspending the rights of those at home while you fight for them abroad.
Seems conflicted to me.

As to my previous post, the govt. didn't know who were spies and who
weren't and couldn't take the risk.

YES, YES, YES - it was sad that this had to happen.

Unfortunately, a Jap spy was sending info to Tokyo about the
whereabouts of every damn ship in the harbor - and he did a good job
of it. To be fair, he wasn't the only thing that was goofy. Plenty
of other snafus (I really don't care what Stephen thinks of this
acronym) that caused enough damage in PH. Delayed messages, Churchill
knew, screwed up human error, wasn't there a radar problem?, the Japs
couldn't type in English, blah, blah, blah... too many to ponder.

One can only assume, when caught up in the (non?) hysteria (heh!) of
the day, that such a knee-jerk reaction would happen as a matter of
course.

Whereas, yes, the Germans had subs off the Atlantic sea walls, but
they weren't lobbing shells into Washington or sending those goofy
weather ballons across the Pacific to attack us. (Fortunately, only a
few people died because of those ballons - could have been worse with
their germ warfare crap.)

Germany and Italy only signed on against us AFTER Japan did. This was
part of thr tri-partite agreement. Plenty of German POWs housed in
Canada though...

Anyway, that was then. This is now. We have Guantanamo as a
reminder.

Tracy Barber