It all began with Michelle Malkin's post about her new book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror. It escalated into exchanges between Malkin and Eric Muller, guest-blogging at The Volokh Conspiracy. I've been commenting from the sidelines, and I thought I was through when I said
The ultimate word goes to Instapundit, because he agrees with what I've said about the Muller-Malkin exchange, namely, "most of the discussion has to do with things that happened 60 years ago, as opposed to what we ought to do now."But Malkin gets the last word because she has summarized her recommendations for the present emergency:
...I am advocating narrowly-tailored and eminently reasonable profiling measures such as:
...The post-September 11 monitoring of Arab and Muslim foreign students on temporary visas.
...Airport and travel screening measures that subject individuals of certain nationalities to heightened scrutiny; preventive detention of known illegal aliens, suspected terrorists, or enemy combatants; immediate deportation of illegal aliens from terror-sponsoring and terror-supporting nations; a moratorium on temporary visas to countries with large al Qaeda presences.
...Heightened scrutiny of Muslim chaplains and soldiers...serving in the military and in prisons.
In addition,...I discuss the need for “structural reforms that allow our country to better meet the potential threat posed by future Kenji Itos (he was a suspected intelligence agent for Japan who was acquitted of federal charges because prosecutors couldn’t introduce MAGIC into a civilian court), Jose Padillas, and Zacarias Moussaouis but that also allow enemy combatant designations to be reviewed by an independent board or court." I also draw lessons from the need to protect MAGIC during WWII and apply them to the current need for more secrecy in some vital national security matters today....
UPDATE:
Eric Muller and Greg Robinson are still trying to rebut Malkin. Click on this link to their most recent post, then scroll down to see more. I think they're just nit-picking and being smarmy because they've been kicked in the teeth (figuratively) by an intellectually tough opponent who (rightly) isn't cowed by their Ph.D. degrees. Judge for yourself.
