More terrorists have been captured and killed under the current administration than the previous. The previous administration got over 200 convictions in Federal Court and just 2 in Military Tribunals. And those 2 have been released. Why can’t these people ever deal in facts? It’s because the facts don’t have a bias. They are what they are. By the way, wasn’t Peters the idiot who suggested that if we were attacked again it would be good for Republicans? The party of No has quickly become the party of Nuts!

Bill O’Reilly: Thought Police.

It’s Hank’s racism charge that has O’Reilly upset. Hanks is accusing this country and its military of being racist towards its enemies. Hanks seems to be ignoring that attack on us at Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks, as the reasons why we went to war with the Japanese and Radical Islam.

O’Reilly did an interview with an historian before the Ralph Peters segment, who, I think, said that Hanks was using “presentism.” Which is not the best way to describe an historical event.

Tom Hanks vs. Bill O’Reilly. And it’s Tom Hanks far and away and Bill O’Lielly doesn’t finish the race. As history and credibilty it was never a race anyway. O’Lielly is a bufffoon.

I’m just afraid it’s Andrea Mackris, again.

“O’Lielly is a bufffoon”

Stop being so charitable.

Drew, apparently, neither will you

Tom vs. Bill and Tom won? I must have missed that show. Last I heard, Bill had invited Tom on to discuss the issue and Tom had ignored the invite. Is there a video?

First, Tom Hanks is a very rich Hollywood actor who knows very little about history. For him to attempt to find commonality or a connection between the Pacific war and the current struggle against radical Islam reveals not only his ignorance but also his arrogance. He apparently believes that by participating in a television special he has somehow morphed into a historian. Sorry Tom, but that requires many years of specialized study and a Ph.D.

Second, of course there was white racism towards Asians in the United States during the early part of the 20th century. The Immigration Act of 1924, which excluded among others, Japanese from emigrating here is one example. There is still racism in the US today. For example, black racism is perhaps the biggest social problem this country faces.

However, there was also Japanese racism then and now. In 2005 an independent investigator for the United Nations expressed concerns about “deep and profound” racism in Japan and insufficient government recognition of the problem. Perhaps the most vivid example of this is the ongoing matter of Koreans who have lived in Japan for generations but have been refused citizenship.

Third, let’s focus on Japanese actions and attitudes prior to WWII, especially concerning the Chinese.
Everyone already knows about the Bataan Death March and the casual brutality towards Allied prisoners. But the Japanese conquests in China, and in particular Nanking, something Mr. Hanks is obviously unaware of, deserve special attention.

The “Rape of Nanking” occurred 1937-1938. We have eyewitness accounts, photographs, diaries and other written accounts. Of course the most famous book about this incident was written by Iris Chang.

From thehistoryplace.com: ” In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China’s capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city… Their first concern was to eliminate any threat from the 90,000 Chinese soldiers who surrendered…they looked upon Chinese POWs with utter contempt, viewing them as less than human, unworthy of life… Filmed footage and still photographs taken by the Japanese themselves document the brutality. Smiling soldiers can be seen conducting bayonet practice on live prisoners, decapitating them and displaying severed heads as souvenirs, and proudly standing among mutilated corpses. Some of the Chinese POWs were simply mowed down by machine-gun fire while others were tied-up, soaked with gasoline and burned alive.”

Tom Durdin, a NYTimes reporter in Nanking who was later expelled:
“I was 29 and it was my first big story for the New York Times…The car just had to drive over these dead bodies… And the scene on the river front, as I waited for the launch… was of a group of smoking, chattering Japanese officers overseeing the massacring of a battalion of Chinese captured troops.”

The Christian missionary, John Magee described Japanese soldiers as killing not only “every prisoner they could find but also a vast number of ordinary citizens of all ages”.
“Many of them were shot down like the hunting of rabbits in the streets,” he said

From nanking-massacre.com: The Japanese troops were encouraged by their officers to invent ever more horrible ways to slaughter the Chinese population of the city. When the bodies of murdered Chinese choked the streets and the gutters ran red with their blood, the Japanese were forced to refine their methods of slaughter in the interest of preventing the spread of disease. Batches of Chinese civilians were rounded up and herded into slaughter pits. Here the grinning Japanese soldiers would either bury them alive, hack them to death with their swords, use them for bayonet practice, or pour petrol on the victims and burn them alive. The bodies of thousands of victims of the slaughter were dumped into the Yangtze River until the river was red with their blood. After looting Nanking of anything of value, the Japanese started fires that gutted one third of the city.

Ms. Chang says that for many Japanese soldiers, murdering a “sub-human” Chinese was akin to squashing a bug or butchering a hog. Religion also played a factor, she believes. The Japanese imperial army considered itself to be on a holy mission–that it was Japan’s destiny to control all of Asia.

(And in a special message for Tom Hanks)
Chang also believes there has been a tendency on the part of some Americans to view the Japanese as victims of World War II. “It’s hard for people to see them as aggressors because we have such compelling images of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Those images are so gripping that they occupy more space in the public consciousness than images of Pearl Harbor,” she says. Relocation camps, which were set up within the U.S. during the war and held Japanese-Americans against their will, further contribute to their “victim” status, she says

I have intentionally left out the most appalling acts by the Japanese. But it is available online for anyone with a strong curiosity and stomach.

I hope this comment ends this silly discussion about whether or not Tom Hanks knows what he is talking about. He does not.

Az, as usual, props. And yes. The U.S. was so racist, that after the war we helped rebuild Japan into one of the world’s economic powers. But we need to leave that part out, as that might (gasp) actually put the U.S. in a good light.

And, we did so without the slightest self-interest on our part.

Yeah, we’re evil bastards. Wonder how Imperial Japan would’ve treated us if they’d won? Just peachy, I reckon.

TRRK, why in the f%ck do you even live here in this wretched cesspool of a country?

Seriously? Why?

I may be writing into the wind, this is a Leftist site after all, but, if at least some of you could “actually” read yourselves, you might just catch the whiff of hate, disdain and dismissal in your words. The fact is that Tom Hanks may be a superb actor, but that does not have anything to do with the man. In that respect, this gent is showing his hatefulness towards Fox news. I’ll bet the revered Hanks and most of you, have never actually watched Fox , but it doesn’t make any difference. When I try to watch MSNBC, it turns my stomach to encounter so much hate from so many people. I wonder if that was what the people in Germany or Japan were about during World War II….just a thought. Mr. Hanks needs to understand context. He needs to know that what he is saying is false. Good lord it hasn’t been even two hundred years since so many Jews came to America to enjoy what no other place on earth had ever offered them: freedom. So, I am ashamed of him and to tell you the truth I will find it difficult to watch him in his movies. Too bad for me and him too!! This is not a contest between Bill or Hank…if Hank doesn’t have the cajones to go on Bill’s show, that is his problem..

I’ve wondered the same thing, tim. Royal can’t stand to have anyone say anything good about the U.S. So why is he staying? He says he’s always going to Europe on business. Why not pack up the family and get one way tickets? It’s almost like that old joke where the guy complains about his sack lunch. When someone says he should ask his wife to pack something else, he says he’s not married. It doesn’t make sense.

writer, there must be a sef-loathing component involved with him. It appears to be common amongst his type.

I’m going to ignore for the most part, the stuff spouted by the author because he’s not an authority on the subject, he was just there to pimp a book and he likes appearing on Fox News.

O’Reilly on the other hand, it was his segment, so he doesn’t get the same pass.

Okay… I can see from the previous post, where Hanks assigned some degree of racism toward the World War II response, which seems to be somewhat justified because of the “detention camps”, the press reports and pop culture at the time. Not to mention the fact, O’Reilly says that we “had to kill the Japanese… because the Japanese wouldn’t surrender… they would kill you”, while as he accurately states, the jihadists aren’t a race.

Maybe Tom Hanks has said something that I haven’t seen clipped, but it seems a bit of a stretch to take his (obviously somewhat accurate) characterization of the mindset in the Pacific theater half a century ago and then say that by using the word “different”, he’s putting all the focus on race in this modern war.

It’s good Hanks has lefties here to defend his views. Since he seems to lack either the ability or the integrity to defend them himself. But I would suggest that those who want to follow the Olbermann approach — namely, dish out cheap shots and then hide when questions are raised — really shouldn’t set themselves up as political pundits.

Magister: “I’m going to ignore for the most part, the stuff spouted by the author because he’s not an authority on the subject, he was just there to pimp a book…”

And what is Tom Hanks an authority on and what is he pimping? He is an authority on Hollywood (maybe) and he is pimping a TV show.

Your reasoning is ridiculous. I suggest you stop before you turn yourself into a complete fool.

@Azarkhan: I didn’t say Hanks was any more qualified than the author. Basically, I said that the word “different” doesn’t necessarily mean racial and that O’Reilly didn’t make a distinction between Japanese soldiers and Japanese people.

Magister,

Below is what Mr. Hanks said. Google Morning Joe if you want to listen for yourself.

On the Morning Joe, Tom Hanks on the Pacific War: “It represents a war that was of racism and terror, and when it seemed as though the only way to complete one of these battles in these small specks of rock in the middle of nowhere was to, I’m sorry, kill them all. Does that sound familiar to what we might be going thru today? So, is there anything new under the sun? It seems as though history keeps repeating itself.”

Mr. Hanks does say it was a racial war and he does make a connection to the current struggle with Islam. As you can see from my first (and long) post above, I’m not hung up on the racial aspect (I view racism as a commonplace in human society) so much as his simplistic explanation for was in reality a very complex matter and his linkage of WWII with Al Qaeda.

I’ve seen the film footage of Okinawa where the Japanese were jumping off cliffs rather than surrender. Not to mention the Kamikaze attacks. For the most part in fighting them, the only way to win was to ‘kill them all’. What this has to do with racism escapes me.

Is Tom Hanks the one trying to kill Bill O’Reilly’s Christmas? Because ever since Tom Hanks put down Fox News, I could almost swear that he must be the serial Christmas killer.

writer-

“….The strength of the Japanese Army lay, not in its higher leadership…but in the spirit of the individual soldier. He fought and marched until he died. If five hundred Japanese were ordered to hold a position, we had to kill 495 before it was ours–and then the last five killed themselves. It was this combination of obedience and ferocity that made the Japanese Army, whatever its condition, formidable.”

Field Marshall Lord Slim, British commander in Burma

Billo is something else! For more on Billo and the rest of the Faux Noise lovers, come to our site for smart political talk on Faux and the Dollars

http://rangerbobfriends.blogspot.com/

Tom Hanks is right and Falafel O’Reilly and Ralph Peters (who called for the assassination of American journalists) are morons. Racism had a lot to do with how the war was fought in the Pacific. My grandfather was in the 1st Marines and fought on Guadalcanal, Cape Glouster and Peleliu. He said Marines were shown cardboard photo cut-outs of “Japs”, depicting them as sub-human monsters. They were also told that you could tell a “Jap” from a “Chink” because “Japs” had thicker body hair. Mutilating the bodies of dead Japanese (collecting ears and scalps) was commonplace. For more detail, read John Dower’s <War Without Mercy. This sort of thing was not done against the Germans or Italians during the war.

Racism also plays a major role in how the US slaughters Afghans, Iraqis and other Muslims. For example, the US never tortured British troops or spies, never tortured Germans or Italians either. But when the enemy has darker skin, they are tortured, murdered and mutilated. The reason Middle Easterners are tortured and murdered in places like Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo (aside from sadism) is that they have dark skin. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols weren’t tortured.

So Tom Hanks is right and O’Reilly can go Cheney himself.

Hey Jelperman, take your FACTS and your HISTORICAL CONTEXT and GET TO STEPPIN!!!1 We don’t deal with that kind of NONSENSE around here!!1 We deal with PARTISAN ATTACKS, TALKING POINTS, and SNIDE INSULTS!!!1 So shut up, NERD!!!1

My late father in law was a POW of the Japanese in Burma and actually worked on the bridge over the river Kwai. (The reality wasn’t like the movie) He entered the service weighing 200lbs. and when he was liberated he weighed 90lbs. Ninety percent of his troop died of disease, starvation, or being worked to death. He didn’t really give a shit whether we were racist against the Japanese or not.

Rent EMPIRE OF THE SUN

Liberals like Tom Hanks, forget that when Japanese occupied a country in South East Asia the Japanese would round up ALL Australians, British and American civilians and put them into CONCENTRATION CAMPS where they were starved, and forced into hard labor, and many died, and some were murdered.

Compare that to how the Japanese were treated in the U.S. is totally different. Here they were well fed and were not forced to do any hard labor and had medical care. Liberals should learns some history.

To Jelperman, I am sure you grandfather is proud of your traitorous arse…lol

…and how do Jihadist treat any non-Muslims they found? They gouged their eyes out, burn them, and cut their heads off.

Latin2, my OLD FRIEND!!1 It is SO GOOD to see you’ve found your way here… you bring to the table a SPECIAL kind of CRAZY that this comments section has been MISSING!!1 I can’t WAIT to hear the kind of TRUTH you’ll be spitting in the days to come!!1 You’re right – liberals SHOULD learns some history!!1 Jelperman is not only a NERD who believes in NONSENSE like “historical context”, he is also a TRAITOR!!!!11

I’m not afraid of much, but I never dared to ask my father in law if he hated the Japanese simply because they were ‘different’.

The Japanese also tortured U.S., Australian, and British solidiers. They used them for firing practice, forced them to do slave labor, starved them, and cut their heads off.

They did worse to the Chinese and Koreans. They mass murdered hundreds of thousands of Chinese and forced Korean GIRLS to service their military with sex. They murdered hundreds of civilians through out South East Asia.

Also if the U.S. and Australia had not engaged the Japanese like they did the Japanese would’ve attacked Russia along it’s eastern flank and Russia would have to pull half of it’s forces away from the Western front against Germany’s advancement. The war would’ve lasted longer and dragged out for years causing more deaths on both sides.

You Liberals are the most traitorous bunch I have ever known, and I am a Democrat. You are so spoiled, like Sean Penn, you would turn against your own country. That is why Jihad Jane and Sharif Mobley were LEFTISTS because only the Left would be that traitorous to their own country and side with the enemy.

He is a traitor, like you.

I guess you forgot that the Japanese during WW II took Australian, American and British civilians living in Japanese occupied territory and put them into concentration camps where they were starved, beaten, forced into hard labor and hundreds died. These were civilians, not soldiers.

Also Japan was RACIST toward Chinese and Koreans and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of them and forced Korean girls into sexual slavery for their soldiers.

Japan’s massacre of Chinese in China;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz8QylbWPxs&feature=related

Japan’s treatment of Korean women;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxSepm1A0lg

Sooo you crazy traitor Karl Spensen There is the TRUTH ^^^;

“Jean-Marie Faggiano was just a little girl living with her family in the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the beginning of WWII, the Imperial Japanese Army began their occupation of the Philippines, and non-national civilians — mostly American and British businessmen and their families — were forced into internment camps. Jean-Marie and her family, along with over 3,600 other civilians, were forced to surrender to the Imperial Japanese Army and live as civilian prisoners of war at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila from January of 1942 until February of 1945.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id8jERF_ZSs

The Japanese was shooting everyone into the camp as the U.S. military was advancing in.

He is a traitor, like you.

I guess you forgot that the Japanese during WW II took Australian, American and British civilians living in Japanese occupied territory and put them into concentration camps where they were starved, beaten, forced into hard labor and hundreds died. These were civilians, not soldiers.

Also Japan was RACIST toward Chinese and Koreans and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of them and forced Korean girls into sexual slavery for their soldiers.

Japan’s massacre of Chinese in China;

Since the scenes of Japanese artorcities are so vile and my post is waiting for moderation ANYONE can go see for themselves what the Japanese did to the Chinese, whom they considered an inferior race by typing in

“Massacre by Japan army in China during WW2: in youtube search.

and their racism towards the Koreans who they see as lower human beings in WW II;

“Problem of Comfort women / Sex slave in Japan #2 慰安婦問題はなぜ国際問題化したか” in youtube search

and see for yourselves what the Japanese did to those races they thought of as inferior to Japanese. THAT is racism.

YES YES YES!!!!1 Your crazy, it is like a beautiful VOLCANO of TRUTH than cannot stop ERUPTING!!1 I BASK in your words as if they were LIFE-GIVING rays of beautiful, crazy SUNSHINE!!1 Keep it COMING!!1

I have shown proof that the Japanese were:

Racists towards:

Chinese

Australians

British

Americans

Koreans

…and were not blameless.

The Japanese actually attacked the U.S. first, where aligned with Nazi Germany, and also put thousands of civilians of concentration camps.

So there is your history lesson for today Karl…lol you crazy traitor you. You can actually say you learned something, but knowing you…it didn’t sink into thick skull…lol

So KKKarl when are you going to take shahada and try to kill a cartoonist, like other Lefties do?

X^P

KEEP IT COMING!!1 I LOVE it!!1

Ok…So KKKarl do you believe that the Japanese were blameless and your country was wrong to fight them?

WEEEEELLLLLLL?

lol

;^)

You have gotten SO FAR from the original argument that at this point I am just sitting back watching a MASTER at work!!1 You are riffing and free-associating like the greatest JAZZ MUSICIANS!!1 Truly BRILLIANT!!1

LOL…the original argument is that Tom Hanks, who is a Liberal who said we fought the Japanese so hard because of racism.

Meanwhile I have proven that Japanese were RACIST towards Australians, Koreans, Chinese, British and Americans, and you have not proved they weren’t.

The Japanese put British, Americans and Australians civilians into concentration camps based on RACISM.

The Japanese mass murdered Chinese based on RACISM.

The Japanese forced Korean girls into sexual slavery based on RACISM.

Thanks for responding because people can see that there are parts of history that Mr. Hanks has forgotten, and the more you respond, WITHOUT proving that I am wrong, the more others can read the truth.

I see you have NO response…oh, well.

KEEP WATCHING…and learn.

;^P

Liberals who try to put the blame on our soldiers for fighting in WW II to stop the advancement of the RACIST Japanese empire are idiots.

America’ war on terror is not based on racism because Islam is NOT a race, it is a religious political system. Muslims come in all colors. Something Mr. Hands and other liberals are trying to say against the U.S.

@Latina2: I sincerely doubt Tom Hanks believes that racism was the only reason for the War of the Pacific. Perhaps it’s the progressive in me, but I can see how it racial overtones in a less enlightened age could be used to whip-up support and occasionally go over the line, which is what I interpret the quotes to me.

Thankfully as O’Reilly points out: We are better informed today, which is how we can discern between a jihadist and the Japanese.

Tom Hanks made the analogy that todays war on terror is also based on Racism, like WW II…Islam is not a race. A religion and political system is not a racial group.

Since logic is for right-wingers what garlic is for vampires, let me explain something:

No one disputes that Imperial Japan was brutally racist (except Republicans, who think the preferred Japanese torture method of forcing water into a person’s lungs is a good thing). Their atrocities during the war were ghoulish beyond belief and the US and other countries were justified in fighting back..

This does NOT change the fact that American attitudes towards non-whites we are at war with are entirely different than when the enemy is white. For example, Admiral “Bull” Halsey once said that if he ever met a pregnant Japanese woman he’d kick her in the stomach. There were no such comments about Germans and Italians.

Even if Hanks was right and there was a racial element in our view of the Japanese, so what? They attacked us, they’d been committing atrocities for years against the people they conquered even before we got in the war, and for the most part the Japanese saw themselves as superior to all other races and didn’t believe in surrender. Bottom line, if we hadn’t killed vast numbers of them, they were going to kill us. Wondering whether or not there was a racial element is so petty in comparison, I really don’t know why Hanks felt it necessary to mention it.

“America’ war on terror is not based on racism because Islam is NOT a race, it is a religious political system. Muslims come in all colors. Something Mr. Hands and other liberals are trying to say against the U.S.”

The Muslims who end up being tortured and killed by the US are almost entirely dark-skinned Middle Easterners (the British used to call such people “wogs”), who are often referred to by Americans as “Jawas”, “dune coons” and “sand niggers”. When was the last time Americans tortured white terrorists?

I guess when someone is trying to kill us, we could refer to all of them as gentlemen. I wonder if bin Laden and his boys ever call us any nasty names? I’m sure they don’t, since they aren’t white, and only white people behave in such a rude manner. Political correctness is fine for a garden party. It doesn’t always work in a war.

The Japanese were extremely racist towards other Asian groups. They killed hundreds of thousands in their racial conquest before the U.S. and the Allies got involved.

Jelperman, did you see what the Japanese did to the Chinese? You can even see the evidence on youtube, and SAYING AND DOING are two different things. I have seen people say things, but not act on them, meanwhile the evidence of what the Japanese did is on youtube to the Chinese is on youtube;

Massacre by Japan army in China during WW2

Then the Japanes forced Korean girls to have sex with Japanese soliders who raped them.

As for Germans, Germans were also interned in Texas and other areas. Today there is even a movement to say why did the Allies completely level Dresden, killing thousands of German civilians, literally flattening the city.

The Pacific War (you know, the subject of the mini-series Hanks is producing) was fought very differently than the war in Western Europe and much of it had to do with racism. For example, when German and Italian sailors abandoned sinking ships, the Allies rounded them up and sent them to POW camps. In the Pacific, they machine-gunned life-rafts on a regular basis. It’s also the reason for the disproportionately high death tolls of many of the battles. Tarawa and Peleliu cost almost as many lives as the much larger D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach in France.

If race is a driving factor in a war, why did we kill so many thousands of Germans? They were fellow whites, and they didn’t even attack us like the Japanese did. Plus we called them nasty names like ‘Kraut’.

The Germans interned in Texas were POWs -German soldiers taken prisoner.

The Japanese-Americans were American citizens who were herded into concentration camps. Apples and oranges.

Latin2, if you actually read what I wrote, rather than ignoring it, you would know that I know about how vicious the Japanese were in the war. My grandfather and great uncles were Marines who fought them and saw what they did first hand.

It’s not just killing. American troops didn’t mutilate German or Italian corpses for souvenirs. They did do such things to Japanese corpses, including civilians on Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

And there are a couple of reasons why we didn’t take that many Japanese prisoners. First, they wouldn’t surrender. Second, after we learned that they would usually shoot any of us that they captured, we started responding in kind. The left can play armchair quarterback now and say everyone should have played nice, but that’s not reality. It was the same between the Russians and Germans, even though both were white. When the Russians saw what the SS had been doing to their citizens, they behaved in kind once they were on German soil.

My grandfathers, great uncles and even great aunts were involved in WW II and they both fought in both Europe and the Pacific and both Germans and the Allies committed what many on the Left would consider “atrocities” against each other. There were even rapes and atrocities against civilians. It was not only exclusive to the Pacific. Jelperman, if your own family members did things that were over the top, that is not every soldier, but maybe exclusive to your Grandfather’s unit. If you are saying that your family members are war criminals…well that is on you, because mine did not carrying on like that in the Pacific and in Europe.

Which units were your family in?

So why is Hanks not bringing up the European front?

So why is Hanks not bringing up the European front?

@Latin2: Because the mini-series he’s promoting is about the War of the Pacific.

My dad was a Marine involved in much of the Pacific island hopping. He never would talk about it much, but I think what he did say about the Japanese sums it up. “They weren’t good to us, so we weren’t good to them.”

Latin2, I realize you’re a troll but some of the shit you’re slinging around deserves a response.

My grandfather and great uncle were in the 1st Marines and no, they didn’t commit any atrocities. They were allowed to come after being wounded (great-uncle) and one of 12 survivors from his company on Peleliu (grandfather). Most of the American atrocities occurred later in the war as the Allies moved onto Iwo Jima and Okinawa (Japanese islands). Read Dower’s book.

Hanks didn’t mention the Eastern Front because Americans didn’t fight there. That’s why other Allies weren’t featured in Band of Brothers except as cameos. The show was about an American unit of the 101st Airborne. Personally, I’d like to see mini-series about the British 8th Army or Chuikhov’s army at Stalingrad or even the female fighter pilots of the Red Air Force. As long as they make an effort to be accurate, warts and all.

Jelperman said, “It’s not just killing. American troops didn’t mutilate German or Italian corpses for souvenirs. They did do such things to Japanese corpses, including civilians on Okinawa and Iwo Jima.”

There were no civilians on Iwo Jima so how did American troops mutilate non-existent Japanese civilian corpses on Iwo Jima. This brings your other claims into doubt. Even if your claims are true, how does what they did at the end of the war, after being subjected to the barbarous cruelty of the Japanese troops for those long years, prove any of your point.

I once had a friend tell me he wanted to “kill those nigers who mugged him!” Does that prove that he was racist? Would you still consider him racist if you knew he was black?

I registered on this site for the sole reason of reponding to this story. First: Azarkhan- you Sir, are a near genius. I hope you come back in here and see this comment. The points you raise to counter this large number of ignorant and totally uniformed people are the same I have used to counter others just as ignorant of the facts. You however did a better job. Anyone reading Azarkhan’s comment who does not agree with him after verifying his facts is an ignorant fool.
Was there racism in WW2? Rampantly. But that is not the issue. The issue is that one of my favorite actors, Tom Hanks, spoke the ill informed words of a complete fool. According to an extensive family tree I am actually related to Tom Hanks. VERY distantly. Probably half of America is realted to each other too. But Tom, who didn’t graduate High School is no match for a man educated at Harvard like Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly is a pain. But he’s a smart guy and he digs up facts.
The reason there was racism in the Pacific theater is because it’s a necessary tool to use against a foe as deadly and dangerous as the everyday Japanese soldier. But something changed and made no racism even necessary. The American Marine, Soldier, Airman & Sailor found out just how cruel the Japanese were. There are far too many examples of Japanese torture to list here. But if you have the brains to read this then you can read “Flags of our Fathers”. A book by a priviledged Liberal whose Conservative Father was on Iwo Jima, aided in the raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi, and as a medic tried to save many lives. He also lost his best friend on Iwo. They found him a couple of days after the island was secured. He had been grabbed through a Japanese spider hole in a hiding spot he was in avoiding direct fire. The Japanese took this young, dumb, probably innocent kid and tortured him beyond belief. They didn’t take him prisoner. They grabbed him and made that horsesh-t that happened in Abu Ghraib look like the nothing it really was. Read Flags of our Fathers. You might learn something. Lastly, for those of you who always find fault with this country- to hell with you. I did over 12 years in the US Navy and intended on doing 20. I’ve done more for this country than most of you added together. If you find fault with America why don’t you move to China? Go there and complain, see what happens there. None of you will go, because you like it here. You can run your mouths with no fear of retribution. No need to prove that you believe what you say enough to fight for it. I hate you left wing America hating SOB’s.

I have to add one more comment. I saw something in one of these comments about detention camps. I’ll bet that everyone in here believes that the detention camps were wrong and horrible racist. Well, you would be wrong. There are two reasons that the Japanese in this country ended up in those camps. First- you cannot tell a true American Japanese from a Japanese Spy that speaks perfect English. And by the way, there were Japanese spies all over Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. Second and most important- The American Japanese were put into those camps for their own protection. What! say you? Sure enough, campers, after Pearl Harbor was attacked people lined up to get into recruiting stations around the block. But those that weren’t trying to get into the military were beating the crap out of every Japanese they could find. In many areas across this country Japanese were being pulled out of their businesses and getting beaten into the ground and then lynched. If you were a Japanese in post-Pearl Harbor America your life was in serious danger. Those camps stopped that. From what I understand nearly, if not all, detainees lost their homes and were not compensated. That’s wrong. They should have have been compensated. Who knows? They may have been to some degree.