Rewriting History

In the Austin American-Statesman today, there is an opinion piece entitled "Learn how to get along." I don't know who wrote it. It is about a class on the September 11 attacks taught to the students at the apparently very pluralistic Centreville High School in Virginia.

Among the things said in the article about the events of September 11, 2001, and the days which followed, is this: "America, as a whole, was at its best right after the attacks. Our nation didn't repeat history's atrocities with another callous internment of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor."

Just because someone says it, does not mean it is true. Just because it is said often, doesn't make it true. That statement, literally, is true: we didn't inter Japanese Americans again.

But, the thing that statement is intended to get the reader to believe is ... well ... false. Because we interned Muslims, and, in some cases, Muslim Americans.

After the September 11 attacks, we arrested hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young Muslim men who were in this country legally and incarcerated them - in prisons - for months without charge and without any probable cause to believe that they had committed any offense against the United States or any of its citizens.

After the September 11 attacks, we arrested at least one American citizen, on American soil, and held him for years - in a military prison - without allowing him any contact with his family or friends or even with a lawyer. While he may have been guilty of something, he was never charged with the offenses of which the government claimed he was guilty which allegedly justified holding an American citizen in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer and without being charged with any crime. When he was finally charged with something - because the courts were at the point of ordering his release if he wasn't charged - the government charged him with some other crime than the ones for which they claimed they were holding him. His name is Jose Padilla. He "happens" to be Muslim. He is an American citizen. There may have been others, but we know about Mr. Padilla.

To say that we did not commit atrocities after the September 11 attacks, to say that we had learned the bitter lesson after interning Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, is ... simply ... false. We did commit atrocities. Things no nation should ever do to people. Things that, had they been done to Americans in any other country would have been immediately and vociferously condemned by our government as blatant human rights violations. We did them.

If we are ever to learn anything by our past mistakes, we must face those mistakes. We cannot rewrite history because it makes us feel good about ourselves. When we do that, we are condemned to do the same horrible, atrocious things, over and over again.