It is so weird to hear all of this. I feel like I’ve learned about World War Two a million times throughout my time in k-12, but never like this. What was really eye-opening that the United States claimed to have entered the war to uphold the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness while also being seen as the defender of helpless countries. When in fact the United States only entered the war when Germany and Japan threatened US world interests, and to seek out an “open door” policy in the Middle East for oil. They were also trying to look like the supreme world power, and they wanted to make sure that the winning nations were friendly with them.
It is interesting that they try to claim that they entered the war because of morality, but what was happening within the borders was immoral. They put Japanese- Americans into camps, and then claimed it to be a mistake when it wasn’t a mistake, they did it because they’re racist and have always been racist. I am not surprised that the US acted the way they did. It is sad that we have been manipulated into thinking of the US as a hero.
I think that it is important to keep in mind that Zinn does have about as far opposite of a bias as what we are typically taught in our United States education, but just being aware of this other side had been huge for my development of understanding of United States history. For example, I thought it was very ironic, as you mentioned that The US was advertising how they were freeing the Jews, but also enslaved blacks and some Japanese as well.
The US interment of Asian Americans during WWll was extremely racist and unfair during the time it was taking place, and the discovery of the Nazi concentration camps creates an unbelievable link between the US and Nazi Germany. The US using Hitler’s Final Solution as a justification for the war after its completion exposes the hypocritical way in which history is often taught in the United States. While nowhere near as horrific, the US still placed an entire subset of the populations into camps based on nothing other than cultural heritage just as the Nazis did. It is so easy to be confused as to how the American people could have ever let such atrocities happen, but, like Dr. Bezio pointed out in the podcast, detainment camps still exist at the border today. Hoe could we let this happen?
I also am shocked about how the war was not centered around the protection of those who could not protect themselves. The intentions of the United States when entering the war was not pure, but they did still achieve some sort of peace because of the war. The Japanes-American camps are just as bad, if not worse than so many of the things we learn about other countries in history class. This should not continue to hide in the shadows, because if we do not confront our failures we will repeat them in the future.
What is surprising to me most is the amount of history that is taught wrong in the United States. However, it is not shocking anymore for me to see the actual reason behind the interference of the American leaders in the War. I think that this issue of America always seeing itself as a great nation and not realizing the mistakes the country committed will continue to affect us in the future and worsen social problems we see nowadays.
There is no such thing as a perfectly moral war. Even a just war is still a war and people die. The Japanese Internment camps prove that America is no exception to this rule. Even though it was not the only country to exercise Japanese Internment (Canada also used internment camps in order to lower the risk of Japanese spies, more or less), it was incredibly wrong.