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One thing is true that Malkin says on her site; we can’t criticize her book without reading it. The problem is figuring out how to read her book without paying for it. I agree with Malkin on one thing: a reasoned debate about the internment that settles the question of the meaning of MAGIC intelligence is necessary for the advancement of truth.
But I still can’t put money in the pocket of a woman who wants to convince the world that taking away my grandparents’ house and forcing them to live in a camp in the desert was a good idea, that the fact my family was of Japanese ancestry made it their duty to comply with this. And furthermore, that what has been done to innocent people I know because they’re Muslims is okay too. Without reading her book I know these are the points she’s making because that’s what she herself claims it proves.
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000337.htm
I think it’s vitally important to get the history right because the WWII experience is often invoked by opponents of common-sense national security profiling and other necessary homeland security measures today.
Yes Malkin, but those who are really qualified to get the history right, who qualified historians who have spent more than a few years writing a book, know your conclusions are off base. As long as people like Malkin can claim, as it appears she does in her book, that MAGIC intelligence justifies the wholesale uprooting and confinement of people of Japanese ancestry without a specific response from people who disagree with her, then she can continue to claim that she’s got some knowledge of history that’s been left out of the debate.
Unfortunately for her, qualified historians already know about MAGIC intelligence and have debunked its value as a justification for evacuation/internment. But I don’t know of any real historians on this subject who command anywhere near the massive media attention Malkin does. So we who have read David Loman’s book and come out of it still knowing the evacuation/internment was wrong have a lot of work to do. There is a bit of self-righteousness about some of the noise coming from the anti-internment side, and many of the loudest voices condemning the internment still don’t have a thorough understanding of what happened during that period.
