War and terrorism: causes, impacts, and international responses

War & Human Rights Abuse: Parallelisms between Japanese-Americans in WWII and the U.S.-Iraq War (Gulf War II)

Among nations of varying cultures and societies, maintaining satisfactory political relations is a challenge. This is primarily due to differences among leaders and societies that make up this nation; thus, as a result of this diversity, it is inevitable that international relations among countries of the world may experience conflicts and antagonism with each other.

Declarations of war are one manifestation of conflicts and disagreements between two or more nations. Examples of these political conflicts are the First and Second World Wars, where devastation of the physical geography of countries and millions of deaths had occurred. Human history has, over time, illustrated how individual differences can potentially lead to bigger conflicts, thereby resulting to devastating, even deadly, results.

However, a far more important issue that should be focused on during times of war and political conflict is the welfare of human society in general -- where people experience human rights abuse simply because they are members of a society or culture perceived as "the enemy" or the antagonist in the game of war. This paper discussed and analyzes the history of human rights abuse and the call for civil liberty in the context of World War II and Gulf War II (U.S.-Iraq War). This paper posits that throughout history, intolerance to group diversity has led to the occurrence of human rights abuse, citing in particular the abuses against Japanese-Americans and Iraq prisoners by the United States military during WWII and Gulf War II, respectively.

United States has been accused by the international political community of committing crimes and human rights abuses against its prisoners-of-war (POWs) and groups and individuals it considers enemy or 'hostile agents' of the society. A case in point is the alleged discrimination of the U.S. government against the Japanese-Americans during WWII, where then President Franklin Roosevelt, in February 1942, signed the Executive Order 9066. EO 9066 covers the establishment of internment camps in particular states of the country, where Japanese-Americans are authorized to move out of their residences and asked to be detained in these internment camps. This order, according to Roosevelt, seeks to provide "regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas..."

Despite the neutral nature of the executive order, such as the provision of the essential needs of Japanese-Americans in the internment camps, many have expressed outrage because of the unfair treatment given to them, primarily because Japan was U.S.'s enemy during the time of war. Fred Korematsu, in a case to the Supreme Court in 1944, has expressed outrage at his imprisonment for 5 years because he was unable to comply with the President's order and report to an assembly center when the order was enacted. Because of his non-compliance, he was tried and imprisoned for 5 years, and later transferred to an internment camp after his parole. Korematsu's case illustrates the nature of racial discrimination during the period, where the ongoing world war between the Allied (U.S.) and Axis (Japan) coalition had resulted to hostilities between the American government and society against the Japanese-Americans. In sum, anti-Japanese-American sentiments during the world war resulted to discrimination and abuse of the marginalized sector's human rights.

Sixty years later, Korematsu's case is once again appearing, with the release of reports that allegedly accuses U.S. military as responsible for the torture and abuse of Iraqi POWs. Photos of Iraqi prisoners in various states of abuse and forms of torture are illustrated, serving evidence to the fact that indeed, U.S. is guilty of committing human rights abuse against groups and individuals that it considers as enemies or against U.S. policies and objectives in its attempt to "rehabilitate" Iraq and the rest of the Middle Eastern region.