Tom Hanks—actor, producer, featherweight thinker—has made some very silly comments regarding his understanding of World War II in order to flack The Pacific War, a miniseries he produced for HBO.

“…it really represents a war that was of racism and terror and it seemed as though the only way to complete one of these battles on these small specks of rock in the middle of nowhere was to– I’m sorry– kill them all,” Hanks told MSNBC. “And does that sound familiar to what we might be going through today? So it’s– is there anything new under the sun? It seems as if history keeps repeating itself.”

The most cursory reading of the subject matter that Hanks pretends to know something about would contradict him on every point.

Culturally, the Japanese believed that all foreigners were sub-human. They didn’t think any better of Koreans and Chinese than they did of Americans and Australians. The Japanese hated without prejudice, and some today still believe that foreigners are just a cut above monkeys. The word for foreigner requires a facial contortion similar to the reaction of stepping in dog you-know-what. When Imperial Japan was spreading its “Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” in the 1930s and early 40s, political and military strategy included the wholesale rape and murder of civilians, and the draconian subjugation of cities like Nanking and Shanghai, Singapore and Seoul.

Americans called them Japs and Nips and little yellow bastards, and undoubtedly harbored prejudices, but we did not go to war because of racism. We were forced into hostilities because of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

“Those small specks of rock in the middle of nowhere” referred to by Hanks had names ennobled by American blood—Midway, Guadacanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, The Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa. We didn’t “seem’ to kill all our enemies on those places. We came pretty close to doing it and weren’t sorry because the Japanese had been ordered to fight to the last man. Only a few dishonored themselves, their ancestors and their Emperor by surrendering to the American dogs. They expected the same treatment they had dished out to Allied prisoners, treatment that made the Nazi SS in charge of POWs in Germany look like choir boys. On 22 April 1943 Japan made reality official, announcing that Allied pilots would be given “one way tickets to hell.” Months after the atomic bombing of Japan forced her warlords to do the unthinkable and surrender, camp commanders were ordering prisoners to be beheaded or burned alive. After the war Lord Mountbatten who served in the Royal Navy and knew Japanese atrocities all too well had a codicil in his will: when he died, no Japanese official should be allowed to attend his funeral.

Tom Hanks feels (I almost used the word “thinks”) that what happened in the Pacific is similar to the War on Terror. Kind of. But not in any way that someone so politicalyl correct and historically ignorant can imagine. Islamic fascists started the current war. They think all infidels are dogs, and make no distinction between killing soldiers and civilians. They are hell bent on converting us, by the sword or otherwise, and then expanding Sharia law so that…

…Well, the star of Philadelphia Story wouldn’t be given long to finally grow up.

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