America Does Have A History Of Torture
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-America does have a history of torture during times of war-

The Gainesville Times
Friday, March 3, 2006
By Emily Lund
Opinion
http://gainesvilletimes.com

On Dec. 6, 2006, Joan King wrote about our situation in the Middle East and our governments Justification of human torture in the name of war,

that historically, "Americans did not torture."

This is a fact she believed true during World War II.

As I read her article I tried to understand her belief in our country's humanity to man.

One of the greatest speeches, a speech I embrace as an ethos, in movie history belongs to Robert Duvall in "Secondhand Lions." He states,

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage and virtue mean everything. That power and money, money and power mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil...Doesn't matter if it's true or not, see, because a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in."

Powerfull stuff and in my romantic world, I agree.

However, in February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 ordering that all Japanese-Americans be evacuated from the West Coast.

More than 100,000 people, 70 percent of them American citizens, were ripped from their businesses, homes and schools and taken to Internment Camps.

The War Relocation Project sorted and shifted human beings of all ages from one makeshift prison to another.

This is a part of our country's history that, indeed, the Pacific Northwest is ashamed of, and never heard about in the South.

Just because we don't know about it doesn't make it untrue. hundreds of these
Japanese-Americans were murdered.

The method? They were tied to the back of a boat and pulled through icy waters of the
Puget Sound.

Our governments attitude does not change easily.

On Feb. 5, 2003, Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., who heads a Homeland Security Subcommittee, stated on public radio that he agreed with Japanese-American Internment Camps.

According to the Associated Press, Coble's opinon was,

"They (Japanese-Americans) were an endangered species. For many of these
Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street."

Apparently, it wasn't safe in the water either.

America does have a history of torture in the name of war.

Likely it will continue as long as we fight those wars.