[Policy] STAY OUT OF IT
It is now time for my FINAL Action Project of the whole year! This is my second and final project for my final Humanities course of my Junior year, Policy. Policy has been an extremely interesting course where we have delved into the structure of our American Government as well as the wars and policy of our history. We have learned about the Legislative Branch, even visiting a City Council meeting. We have learned about the Executive Branch, visiting a committee dedicated to enforcing laws against hate crimes. And we learned about the Judicial Branch, visiting a federal courthouse and sitting in on a few cases. On the war side of things, we visiting the National Museum of Veteran Art, where we talked to a veteran names Ned Ricks, who was a joy to be around. We have learned about everything from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. For this project, we were tasked to take a war and explain why it was either justified or not justified and connect it to a Supreme Court case, tying in all three branches. I chose World War Two because I have a lot of existing interest in that war. I believe it is justified, and I think most people would agree. To give myself a challenge, I tried to explain why it wasn't justified, and I think it turned out pretty convincing! Without further ado, here is my final Action Project!
NPR, Japanese Internment Camp, 1942
World War II began in 1939 and lasted until 1945. As the name suggests, it was a worldwide conflict with battles happening anywhere from the Pacific, to Africa, to East Asia, to Russia. The United States entered the war in December of 1941. The US Entry into the war was a Congressional action requested by the president at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR had just won his third term. Both FDR and Wendell Willkie ran on the promise of staying out of the war, although Roosevelt kept in a small clause that amounted to “I will enter the war if I have to.” With his eight years of popularity, FDR won. The event that caused Roosevelt to enter the war took place on December 7th, 1941. The unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, in the then US territory of Hawaii, by Japan. The main two sides in WWII were the Allies, containing Britain and France, among others, and the Axis powers, containing Germany and Japan, also among others. The US had been supplying the Allies with supplies throughout the course of the war, while never getting directly involved. The Japanese were on a conquest of the Pacific ocean, and they were concerned that the US would get involved should the Japanese stray too close to Hawaii. Because of this, they launched a preemptive strike and killed over 2000 people, as well as destroying many US warships. Immediately after the attack, the US began mobilizing for war. The same day as the attack, a joint Congress session was held and they voted to declare war on Japan. It was nearly a unanimous decision in both houses, although one person opposed the decision. Jeanette Rankin was the only person in all of Congress who said no to war. Jeanette Rankin was the first woman elected to congress and she used this in her argument against going to war. Citing that “There can be no compromise with war. [I]t cannot be reformed or controlled; cannot be disciplined into decency or codified into common sense, for war is the slaughter of human beings, temporarily regarded as enemies, on as large a scale as possible.” This is the first point against the US’s involvement with WWII. The moral argument against war is a strong one. Over 2% of the entire world died in this war. America alone killed almost a million people (University of Hawaii), despite being less involved. War is nothing but slaughter, and the US did not need to bring more.
The US joined the war relatively late. By this point, the war was nearing the tipping point that would spell doom for the Axis Powers. Less than two years later, D-Day would happen, and Germany never recovered. Russia was beginning to invade south, through Japanese controlled China with plans to make it to mainland Japan. The US had the least casualties of all the major powers in the war, and they often made poor suggestions. Take Operation Anvil, a US plan to attack Europe from a second front. “but they were right to resist, because the military logic for Anvil was questionable and its results limited.” It is impossible to know what would have happened in the war if the US had not joined it, but it is clear to see that in the current timeline, the US’s involvement provided mixed results at best. A big part of WWII was the draft. In 1918, the Supreme Court received a few cases on whether or not it was constitutional to allow a military draft. These cases were titled the Selective Draft Law Cases. They used the precedent set in 1863 in a case titled Kneedler v. Lane. The US needed more soldiers, and the best way to do this was to draft, or force, people to join. This was true all they way back when this case was made, during the Civil War. “If it may, it may do so even when no war exists or threatens, and make this the regular mode ,of recruiting; it may disregard all considerations of age, occupation, profession and offi[i]cal station; it may take our governors, legislators, heads of State departments, judges, sheriffs and all inferior officers, and all our clergy and public teachers, and leave the State entirely disorganized…”. It is clear to see what the precedent was set as. Kneedler argued that the right of congress to “raise an army” applies only to the regular army, not the potentially unarmed militia. Lane argued, and the Supreme Court agreed, that Congress can at any time, even when there is no war happening, draft anyone and everyone into the army for any reason. It is easy to see how this is a completely unreasonable congressional action and the US had no reason to need this in WWII. We were a whole ocean away from either side of the conflict. We had no need to even be in this conflict let alone send people who did not want to fight to deal with it. The draft caused many people to die who did not believe in the war effort. 10 million, in fact. All those families who could have been, and all those families who miss their sons and husbands. The draft still looms over the heads of all male people today. All men still have to sign up when they turn 18 or face punishment.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor gave the American population a very prejudiced view against Japanese-Americans. Because of this, President Roosevelt gave an executive order allowing for the military to designate areas unfit for any and all people. They then used this power to capture all of the Japanese population of the US and force them to live in certain areas where they could be properly watched. Nevermind the fact that the majority of these people were American citizens and there was not a single case of a Japanese spy being in America, although there were at least ten caucasian spies sent by the Japanese government that were convicted. The treatment of these people is comparable to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. This is absolutely not justified and is frankly horrifying. This was not the only atrocity committed against Japanese people by the US. The US had been secretly developing a new type of bomb, and they now had a couple that they were able to set off. They did not drop them on military bases, however. They dropped them on civilian cities. Many, many innocent people died instantly and many more died later due to the radiation. The popular rationality is that this brought a quicker end to the war. However, with the Soviets closing in from the north and the US getting ever closer to mainland Japan from the East, Japanese defeat was almost certainly imminent regardless. Even if we had to enter the war, we did not need to go to such lengths. Those two Atomic bombs were the only two ever used during warfare, and such weaponry has since been made a war crime. This is absolutely unacceptable.
In conclusion, the US’s involvement and actions in WWII were unacceptable and in some cases, unconstitutional. The treatment of the Japanese people and Japanese-Americans as well as the poor war strategy and faulty use of American forces leads to the fact that the US should never have dug its fingers as far into World War II as it did, and war should be avoided if at all possible in future.
Sources
Justia. " Selective Draft Law Cases :: 245 U.S. 366 (1918) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center". Justia, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/245/366/. Accessed 09 June. 2023.
National Archives. "Executive Order 9066: Resulting in Japanese-American Incarceration (1942) | National Archives". National Archives, https://archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066. Accessed 09 June. 2023.
National Park Service. "A Brief History of Japanese American Relocation During World War II". Nps, https://nps.gov/articles/historyinternment.htm.
National WW2 Museum. "Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans". Nationalww2museum, https://nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war.
Roberts, Andrew. Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945. Harper Perennial, 2010.
Rummel, R.J. "Statistics of Genocide". Hawaii, https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP13.HTM#:~:text=In total, then, during World,democide during the Vietnam War. Accessed 09 June. 2023.
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