WI: FDR orders that the interned Japanese-Americans be killed?

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You know, even Hitler did not publicly say "I'm ordering all Jews killed." (True, he did in his notorious January 30, 1939 Reichstag speech say that if the international Jewish financiers in and outside of Europe plunged the world into another war, the result would be the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." But even here he does not explicitly say how this result will come about or "and I will be the one to do it.") In the US an order for mass annihilation cannot be kept secret. And this is a nation where even the relocation and internment of the Japanese-Americans came before the Supreme Court--true, the Court (unfortunately) sustained it but at least it considered it, heard arguments from lawyers by both sides, etc. The basic problem with the OP is not "FDR wasn't that evil" (though indeed he wasn't) or even "FDR wasn't that crazy" (though again he certainly wasn't). The real problem is that even if (due, say, to some bizarre stroke) FDR does want to do this, he can't get away with it.

BTW, remember that even of the nationalities deported by Stalin (in an infinitely more brutal process than that of the US with Japanese Americans) the majority of the deportees survived. (E.g., "Estimates of the number of deported [Crimean] Tatars range from 180,000 to 250,000 and it is estimated that between 20 percent and 40 percent of the deportees died en route or within the first year after resettlement." https://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/russia/repatriation.pdf)

Excacty, FDR ordering the mass execution of Japanese nationals and Japanese-American US citizens is beyond ASB.

The mass internment of several hundred thousand people based on ethnicity is about bad as it gets in the 20th century US, but does not even approach the level of violence seen elsewhere.
 

Jack Brisco

Banned
Seconded.


No. You're seeing people standing up for what is right. If all the comments were in support, yeah, lock it and trash it.

But this scenario would not have happened. PERIOD. Retired senior officer here. Even back then, we knew not to obey illegal orders, and an order to kill innocent American civilians, especially women and children, is as illegal as it gets.
 
No. You're seeing people standing up for what is right. If all the comments were in support, yeah, lock it and trash it.

But this scenario would not have happened. PERIOD. Retired senior officer here. Even back then, we knew not to obey illegal orders, and an order to kill innocent American civilians, especially women and children, is as illegal as it gets.

At the same time, we shouldn't have to affirm that no, genocide is rare for a reason. Scenarios that would lead to mass death and destruction are kept out of the ASB section, and this is nothing if not an ASB premise that would lead to mass death, so the same rules should apply.
 
Yeah, J. Edgar Hoover actually opposed the Japanese internment IOTL (ironic, considering his antipathy for the Civil Rights Movement)…

If FDR did issue such an order, everyone in government would find some way to remove him from office (if he didn't die of "natural causes" first) ASAP and install Henry Wallace (who was VP in 1941), probably under strict monitoring, for obvious reasons...
 
No. You're seeing people standing up for what is right. If all the comments were in support, yeah, lock it and trash it.

But this scenario would not have happened. PERIOD. Retired senior officer here. Even back then, we knew not to obey illegal orders, and an order to kill innocent American civilians, especially women and children, is as illegal as it gets.

Strictly speaking, it’s not about the extermination of Japanese-Americans but the idea of the Commander in Chief giving such an order. If America is halfway sane, or even one percent sane, the order doesn’t get down to the people running the internment caps before it’s utterly disregarded and FDR is checked for sanity (and probably resigns for “health reasons.”) But yes, I agree with you although not for the same reasons.

I even have to ask if some underling well away from FDR giving such an order to kill everyone in the camps would be listened to, kind of like an internment camp equivalent of My Lai. No one blames LBJ or Nixon for My Lai; it was a rogue officer being a shitheel and ordering a village exterminated. And I hesitate to think that even something like this would fly with internment.
 

Jack Brisco

Banned
Strictly speaking, it’s not about the extermination of Japanese-Americans but the idea of the Commander in Chief giving such an order. If America is halfway sane, or even one percent sane, the order doesn’t get down to the people running the internment caps before it’s utterly disregarded and FDR is checked for sanity (and probably resigns for “health reasons.”) But yes, I agree with you although not for the same reasons.

I even have to ask if some underling well away from FDR giving such an order to kill everyone in the camps would be listened to, kind of like an internment camp equivalent of My Lai. No one blames LBJ or Nixon for My Lai; it was a rogue officer being a shitheel and ordering a village exterminated. And I hesitate to think that even something like this would fly with internment.


Same answer. No. Illegal order. Doesn't matter who gives it.
 
I seem to recall there was actually -- disturbingly -- a public opinion poll on this after Pearl Harbor. Don't recall what the support for it was, maybe low to mid teens at the most?

You do realize given human psychology that that's an incredibly good sign for no public support for massacring the Japanese-Americans, not a bad one. It's the same principle behind why a murder committed in a blinding, sudden rage gets a lower penalty than a premeditated or callous disregard of others type murder.

You've got a society with a a high degree of racism, explicit dislike of the Japanese already, and now utter treachery against American soil. Of course people are going to be hopping mad and will emote things they don't really believe or want to happen. Part of why you have leaders, statesmen, and slow-working organs of government is to allow these passions to die down and avoid anything catastrophic, though the internment camps were pretty far on the catastrophic.
 
I'm going to echo other commenters here and denounce this scenario as ASB.

Maybe far-right lunatics who despise everything about FDR (and who believe the Democratic Party is inherently evil) believe he would genocide Japanese-Americans. But there is no historical evidence that FDR or anyone in his administration even considered such a policy. FDR may have had some failings on racial/ethnic issues (e.g. internment of Japanese-Americans, opposing anti-lynching legislation, failing to provide asylum for Jewish refugees). But he would never have approved the murder of anyone because of racial or ethnic reasons.
 
The order will not be obeyed. As already stated, FDR will be declared insane and is sent to an asylum.

If I can elaborate a little, General Marshall wouldn't even transmit the order. If FDR went directly to LTG DeWitt, DeWitt would have contacted General Marshall immediately.

If FDR told the FBI to carry out the order, very much doubt J. Edgar Hoover would obey or transmit the order. My guess...Hoover would have called Marshall ASAP.

Then Marshall and Hoover would have contacted Vice President Garner. My guess...Garner contacts Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader. These three men see FDR and tell him to resign or be impeached immediately. In view of what's happened, Garner immediately acts as President. Marshall and Hoover publicly state they will follow Garner's orders. No 25th Amendment at this time but FDR can't stay.
Absolutely. Hoover regarded even internment as wrong. The most stupid presidential order I received, he said
 
No. You're seeing people standing up for what is right. If all the comments were in support, yeah, lock it and trash it.

But this scenario would not have happened. PERIOD. Retired senior officer here. Even back then, we knew not to obey illegal orders, and an order to kill innocent American civilians, especially women and children, is as illegal as it gets.

The replies themselves are okay, but OP has posted a lot of one liner low content threads recently.
 
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