Former U.S. Army General Wesley Clark suggested that “radicalized” Americans should be put in internment camps.
“In World War II, if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put them in a camp. They were prisoners of war,” Clark said on MSNBC late last week.
Clark proposed the idea after the Chattanooga shooting in which Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez allegedly killed four marines and a sailor. The violence may have been an act of terrorism.
Clark acknowledged that there would always be young people who feel “alienated” and that members of the community will reach out and “encourage them to look at their blessings here.” However, he said more needs to be done “on a national policy level.”
“We’ve got to identify the people who are most likely to be radicalized,” Clark said. “We’ve got to cut this off at the beginning.”
“So if these people are radicalized, and they don’t support the United States, and they’re disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine, that’s their right,” Clark said. “It’s our right and our obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”
Clark said that allies of the U.S. including Britain, Germany and France, should consider similar measures as well.