Tom Hanks and 'The Pacific' Controversy

Tom Hanks has had the image of the historical enthusiast who has honored America's war heroes and celebrated the glories of the American space program. That image has some basis in fact, but recently Hanks tarnished it considerably.

In an interview in Time Magazine with Douglas Brinkley, which concerned the upcoming Pacific War miniseries, Hanks descended to Hollywood lefty argot when he said this about World War II in the Pacific.

"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?"

One can only hope that those words were inartfully expressed or perhaps even misquoted. But they are out there and thus far Hanks had not chosen to clarify or, as many are now demanding, apologize for what appears to be a slander of not only the soldiers and Marines who fought in the Pacific but those who now fight against Islamist terror in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Victor Davis Hanson, himself a historian, asked the question, "Is Tom Hanks unhinged?" Until Hanks chooses to clarify and apologize, it is a fair question. Hanson offers a devastating refutation to Hanks, starting with the context of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and ending with the inconvenient fact that the moment Japan stopped fighting, the United States spent a great deal of treasure rebuilding Japan to such an extent that it is now an economic rival and a military ally.

Hanson points out that Japan would not have been so gentle had the fortunes of war gone the other way. While certainly America was far more racist in the 1940s than most people in the year 2010 can even conceive, that feeling was nothing compared to what the Japanese, infested at the time by a mutated form of Bushido, viewed anyone non Japanese, even other Asians. That was manifest not only in the horrific treatment of prisoners (remember the Bataan Death March), but in the way the Japanese choose to wage the war, often fighting on long after it was sensible to do so.

It took the shock of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring Japan to its senses. Even then a group of military officers actually attempted to seize the Emperor before he could broadcast the order to surrender. The alternative would have been an invasion of the home islands. Based on the experience of Okinawa, allied military planners believed that an invasion would result in millions of casualties on both sides, the greatest blood bath in the history of mankind. The atomic bombings were therefore an act of mercy, not an atrocity that many maintain that they were.

The comparison to the current War on Terror is even more ludicrous. There is no desire on the part of anyone to annihilate the Dar es Islam. Indeed some of our most stalwart allies, Iraqis, Afghans, and others, are Muslims, fighting in the Great Coalition against the Islamofascists.

Since World War II we have developed precision guided weapons for the single purpose of striking at the enemy and minimizing civilian casualties. It is no longer necessary to carpet bomb cities.

Unlike what the liberal icon Franklin Roosevelt did to Japanese Americans, the right wing George W. Bush did not herd Muslim Americans into relocation camps. Indeed any hate crimes against Muslims in America have been vigorously pursued. If anything, the official policy of the United States has been to bend over backwards respecting Muslim religion and culture.

The first Arab democracy has taken root in Iraq, inspiring, among others, the people of Iran to struggle for their own liberty. That is one similarity with the War in the Pacific and the treatment of defeated Japan Tom Hanks failed to mention.

The sad thing is that Tom Hanks, who has actually read a book or two, unlike many Hollywood actors, knows better or should. Maybe it is something in the super heated, left wing atmosphere in Hollywood that causes one to say foolish things.

Still, one looks forward to The Pacific War miniseries, hoping that it doesn't try to be a polemic about racism of Americans at the time. Otherwise, Hanks will have tainted himself even more.

Sources: How Tom Hanks Became America's Historian in Chief, Douglas Brinkley, Time Magazine, March 6th, 2010

Is Tom Hanks Unhinged?, Victor Davis Hanson, Pajamas Media, March 11th, 2010