NC Rep. Coble: internment of
Japanese-Americans during
World War II was appropriate

Compiled by Kendra Sarvadi

Feb. 10 (AGR)-- Representative Howard Coble, chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said on Tues., Feb. 5 that he agreed with the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Rep. Coble, (R-NC), made the remark on a radio call-in program on WKZL-FM in High Point, NC when a caller suggested Arabs in the United States should be confined. While he did not endorse the confinement of Arab-Americans, Coble said he agreed with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to establish internment camps for Japanese-Americans.

"We were at war. They [Japanese-Americans] were an endangered species," Coble said. "For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street."

Like most Arab-Americans today, Coble said, most Japanese-Americans during World War II were not America’s enemies. However, he said that, "some probably were intent on doing harm to us, just as some of these Arab-Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us."

The Japanese American Citizens League asked Coble to apologize and said he should be removed from his committee chairmanship.

"We are flabbergasted that a man who supports racial profiling and ethnic scapegoating" chairs the subcommittee, the group’s national executive director, John Tateishi, said in a statement Wednesday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that Coble explain his remarks. Spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said the comments were "particularly disturbing."

During World War II, more than 110,000 persons of Japanese descent ­- US citizens as well as non-citizens ­- were removed from their homes on the west coast of the United States and confined in relocation camps for three years. In 1988, the United States formally apologized and later made reparation payments to all Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II, or to their heirs.

Sources: Associated Press, Human Rights Watch

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