No! Japanese Interment Can Never be Used as Precedent for Any Policy

The other day the Kelly File was on, and Megyn was interviewing President-Elect Donald Trump supporter former Navy SEAL Carl Higbie on the legality of registration for immigrants from Muslim countries. He then mentioned Iran as an example of this being done in the past, along with the Japanese during World War II.

When pressed on the morality of Japanese Internment, Higbie did some fancy word dancing saying, There is precedent for it, and I’m not saying I agree with it…Look the President needs to protect America first, and if that means having people that are not protected under our constitution have some sort of registry so we can understand, until we can identify the true threat and where its coming from, I support it.

I think Higbie is dead wrong and off his rocker. Japanese Internment was nothing short of unjustified incarceration of multitudes of innocent people. It is a moral outrage. The only precedent it makes is what not to do! It would be a mistake for President Elect Donald Trump to make such a policy.

What good would having a registry of a select people group? Will it really help us solve or prevent crimes? Is not the registration of Muslim immigrants a presumption of guilt until proven innocent?
Nevertheless, we can never turn a blind eye to the real threat Islam poses to people the United States and the world as a whole. The 2015 San Bernardino attacks were committed by radical Islamic terrorists, who lived in the USA but were inspired by foreign terrorists. The January 2015 attacks in Paris targeting Charlie Hebdo offices followed by subsequent attacks in November in the Saint-Denis suburb were acts of Islamic extremists. But, these are the tip of the iceberg.

Something that is rarely mentioned in the USA, as it is not deemed “politically correct,” is the reality of an Islamic war against the infidel. Raymond Ibrahim notes,

From one end of the Muslim world to the other, Christians are suffering under the return of Sharia. Often translated as “Islamic law,” Sharia simply means the “Islamic way” of doing things. Accordingly, wherever and whenever Muslims are in power or getting more power, churches are outlawed, burned, and bombed, while Bibles and crucifixes are confiscated and destroyed. Freedom of speech—to speak positively of Christianity or critically of Islam—is denied, often on pain of death. Born Muslims who wish to convert to Christian out of sincere religious conviction are denied this basic freedom, also on pain of death. Christians are deemed to be less than second-class citizens by many Muslim governments and Muslim populations. They cannot get justice against their Muslim oppressors, Christian women and children are routinely abducted, raped, and forced to convert to Islam. Increasingly, Christians are able to justify their very existence only by paying large amounts of ransom—money extorted in the name of “jihad,” Islam’s “holy war” to subjugate or eliminate non-Muslims.¹

Some might suppose that Muslims living in the USA are very patriotic and they would never resort to such evils. This may be true. But the Devil is in the details. There are elements within historic Islamic beliefs and practices which can never be ignored. David Wood has observed,

According to the Qur’an and the example set by Muhammad, Muslims are to adapt their message and tactics to their status in society. When Muslims are completely outnumbered and can’t possibly win a battle against non-Muslims, they are commanded to promote tolerance as a means of protecting the Muslim community. When their numbers grow sufficient for military action, Muslims are told to defend themselves, through terrorism if necessary, from both persecution and criticism. If Muslims come to dominate a society, they are ordered to subjugate the non-Muslim population actively.²

Muslims in the minority can be prompted to enact stealth jihad, once more established they can engage in defensive jihad—fighting against unbelievers, employing terrorist tactics—and those in the majority can take on an offensive jihad, violently subjugating non-Muslims.

I doubt there would be any effectiveness of registries. (No! We cannot use Japanese internment to justify the practice.) Neither do I think we should perceive every Muslim in America as having something to hide. Still there is nothing that would preclude a number of those faithful to the teaching of the Qur’an and Muhammad, along with the interpreters of Islam’s prophet, from engaging in stealth jihad, until the moment is right for defensive jihad, and then offensive jihad. It would be a mistake for our nation’s leaders to ignore these elements of Islamic theology, which have profound socio-political implications. Syllogisms like “fearmongering” are inapplicable in this context. Myriads of people cross the US border daily, it is wrong to think all are taking in some kind of contraband, we cannot make the presumption of guilt policy, but we still need to be on watch for the smugglers, for smuggling contraband does happen.

—WGN

1. Raymond Ibrahim, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2013), 8.

2. David Wood, “Jihad, Jizya, and Just War Theory,” Christian Research Journal, 36, 1 [2013]: http://www.equip.org/article/jihad-jizya-just-war-theory/