Written by Claire Bernish at theantimedia.org
Former U.S. General Wesley Clark made headlines recently for an absurdly disquieting solution for citizens who “don’t support” the United States: Lock them up in internment camps as prisoners of war. Yes, seriously.
In fact, in the MSNBC interview, Clark even advocated a pro-America, pro-nationalist, Kafkaesque neighborhood watch program to root out America’s problem “radicals” and urge their return to the happy fog of unquestioned patriotism.
“We have got to identify the people who are most likely to be radicalized,” he warned. “We’ve got to cut this off at the beginning.” Get ‘em while they’re young, right? “There are always a certain number of young people who are alienated. They don’t get a job, they lost a girlfriend, their family doesn’t feel happy here and we can watch the signs of that. And there are members of the community who can reach out to those people and bring them back in and encourage them to look at their blessings here.”
Clark’s apparent love of Orwell didn’t end with the Thought Police. This creepy pro-nationalist propaganda campaign bears a striking resemblance to 1984’s Ministry of Truth. He explained:
“I do think on a national policy level we need to look at what self-radicalization means because we are at war with this group of terrorists. They do have an ideology. In World War II, if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put them in a camp. They were prisoners of war. So, if these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States, as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”
Clark’s egregiously flawed thinking belies astonishing arrogance considering the historical context. He essentially said: America imprisoned the innocent before so why should we bother with an ethical precedent now? To hell with what’s right. Why correct past mistakes when we can just use them as a blueprint? Why pretend to learn from the past when repurposing grievous errors is so . . . easy?
Why?
Because we should be beyond such idiocy and ashamed to the core at the mere suggestion we aren’t. Appalling violations of human rights propagated through a cheapened facsimile in a flippantly vile response by a paranoid ex-military official does not an acceptable proposition make.
Lest we forget as time imparts erasure in the collective memory that internment camps—as deplorable in concept as fact—were actually called concentration camps in President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which brought them to fruition. Though genocide was not the stated function of these camps, the interned citizen-prisoners—whose only crime was ancestry—would have had amply confirmed arguments that the camps’ underlying purpose was death.
Surely Clark, as a valedictorian-graduate of West Point and former NATO commander, has a firm grasp of this rather obscene black mark on America’s historical report card. Surely he realizes his loutishly frivolous remark was less than covertly profane—not to mention laughably void of fact.
Those of us feeling less than ardently patriotic toward the corrupt machinations of the fascistic, corporatized oligarchy impersonating American government should certainly hope so.
While fighting the Nazis overseas, the U.S. government instituted a parallel regime on the homefront in fearful response to the attack on its fleet in Pearl Harbor. With a simple signature, Roosevelt transmogrified Japanese heritage from genetic happenstance to State enemy. FBI agents descended en masse at the government’s behest, wresting heirlooms and valuables as contraband from the clutches of the newfound enemy in their midst. Assets were frozen and over 1,200 perfectly law-abiding Issei—first generation Japanese immigrants—were abruptly arrested.
And that was just the beginning.
Mandatory registration for Japanese-American citizens on the West Coast preceded their evacuation to internment camps—most received little, if any, compensation for the homes and businesses they were forced to flee. Racetracks and fairgrounds functioned as concentration camps. Prisoners lived in stalls previously occupied by animals, where lack of privacy rivaled lack of medical care as disease flourished and death commonly followed. Over 120,000 legal residents and American citizens had been forced into the degrading camps by the time it was over.
Compounding this affront to human rights and dignity, the U.S. government not only held off in its compensation to survivors for 42 years, but only managed to cough up an opprobriously insulting $20,000 per person as a one-time payment for time served.
Perhaps the suggestion to repurpose internment camps as a solution to the nuisance of dissenting speech is far more dangerous, radical thought than Clark cares to acknowledge.
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If everyone is done being pussies with “oh human rights, and its a free country”. Wanna know what a human right is, “to defend what you hold dear and what brings you happiness”. So if locking these future/current terrorist to preserve my happiness, and defend my country, family, friends from them ill do it. The oh its a free country all right, but freedom comes at a price and that price is heart,limb, body, and life of those who have died for our country. My brothers and sisters have died for this country because they love it. And would die again if it meant keeping it safe one last time. My brothers and sister didnt die so you can say oh its wrong to defend the country if someone gets hurt. If we weren’t defending this country since before it was our country do you think we would have lasted, no we would have been destroyed. You wanna know why other countries hate the US its because pricks like you don’t show respect for those who die for you. Instead all you do is say oh its wrong don’t do that.
Return the country the way it was years ago. Or soon those of us who are truly loyal to her will rise up and take what belongs to its people and that’s a country where if you threaten the country you die.
I assume you’ve been watching Fox News your life but I have to tell you that in the rest of the world, the US’s doings are criticised immensely. You have been fighting endless wars since 1945 to further your own economic interests, just as is being done currently. 1 million civilians were killed in Iraq as a result of the 2003 war, even though no link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden has ever existed and the International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iraq had no nuclear weapons (which where the two reasons given for the invasion). Coincidentally, Saddam Hussein had just announced that he would begin trading oil in Euros, not Dollars anymore. Imagine if an outside force came into the US and killed 1 million people for its own economic benefit. I’m pretty sure you would want the citizens of the country attacking you to speak out against this violation of human rights and to possess the right to do this. Not even two years ago the US was funding Syrian rebels fighting against the Assad regime. Note that at this point they were still being called rebels. They then formed the Islamic State, now being referred to as terrorists, as people heard of the many atrocities that they were committing. The US then began funding other rebel groups who were fighting ISIS, calling those rebels as they are the ones being supported. However, since the start of the year almost 50 people have already beheaded by those groups. Sounds quite similar to ISIS right? Can you still say that taking the rights of freedom of speech away from those few Americans who have managed to not be brainwashed by Fox News and question what the government is doing, is fair?
And I’m really sorry to tell you this but the real reason other countries hate the US (I’m speaking from a personal experience) is because you guys wage wars all over the world killing people for your own interest. If you want a list of US military interventions since 1945, read here: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html
I’m very sorry for you to find this out and since you’ve lost two siblings in wars the US has fought, I understand that you want to feel the sense that they died for a purpose. Even though this will make their deaths seem less worse to you, just remember that they died thinking they were fighting for a purpose and that is all that matters. Now that you know that it was your own government’s fault, you should speak out against your government, exactly like these people who would be sent to Internment Camp are doing.
Well said, said the rest of Earth.
And I think richard just found his way on to the list of names all of us current/future terrorists intend to put in a camp.
Hey Richard, I believe the real pussies in this country are in fact people like you. If you really want to help America out and protect your family, I suggest you get yourself an education and open your eyes and see the real evil and I promise you, it isn’t what you think you know. As for your family that died for this country, I guarantee if they were alive after what they saw and learned, they would choose to stay home and not go to war for nothing more than lies and scams. Or maybe, you’re in bed with the real enemies too. Either way, you need to really look deep and find the truth because sorry to tell you, you are so far from the truth you make your family and those of your family members that died serving look like a bunch of fools. Man up turn off the media and truly search for facts that you are ignorant to. They are all out there. Just take your time and find it instead of running your mouth when you obviously are one very clueless ignorant person that no one should have to listen too.
This guy is a murderer and a war criminal. The real human bloodthirsty scum.
I can only assume you’re referring to the generals involvement in the former Yugoslavian civil war where,dare I say it,Christians attempted to ethnically cleanse half their territory of the so-called “Muslim scourge.” Remember please that General Clark was NATO’s commander for boots on the ground for the entire region. Had General Clark used all the tools in his chest, and not been hog-tied at every turn,said conflict should have been much shorter. Please, also recall that through dozens of negotiations with the “Christians”, Wesley was mislead,lied to,repeatedly berated for his efforts, and that his superiors within NATO had no cohesive plan to deal with such a group. Miroslav, if Mr. Clark is indeed guilty of the things you say, it was only because he was negotiating with the devil himself. Wesley Clark was sent to deal with Evil Incarnate, and I for one not being an American, can only applaud the General for how he represented the rest of the civilized world. Not for how I’m sure he spanked the shit out of a bunch of hudlums.