Hanks was talking stupid again:
“Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?”
Hanks ignores many truths from the past to try and highlight an untruth today.
Hanson takes him to task:
Despite Hanks’ efforts at moral equivalence in making the U.S. and Japan kindred in their hatreds, America was attacked first, and its democratic system was both antithetical to the Japan of 1941, and capable of continual moral evolution in a way impossible under Gen. Tojo and his cadre. It is quite shameful to reduce that fundamental difference into a “they…us” 50/50 polarity. Indeed, the most disturbing phrase of all was Hanks’ suggestion that the Japanese wished to “kill,” us, while we in turn wanted to “annihilate” them. Had they developed the bomb or other such weapons of mass destruction (and they had all sorts of plans of creating WMDs), and won the war, I can guarantee Hanks that he would probably would not be here today, and that his Los Angeles would look nothing like a prosperous and modern Tokyo.
In other words… Tom Hanks should be glad we won, and should hope we win against fascist Islam. After all, what would your typical jihadist mullah do with a guy who dressed like this:
I’ve set the DVR to record “The Pacific”. Not cause I like Tom Hanks, but because I’d really like to see two of my favorite books – “Helmet for My Pillow “ (Robert Leckie) and “With the Old Breed” (Eugene Sledge) set to film.