Comments on: Tom Hanks rewrites WWII history

By: William

William — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:20:37 +0000

By the way, we did do bad things to the Japanese, but maybe not in the way you think. We essentially had internment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII. We had similar camps for German Americans too, but they weren’t as numerous as the Japanese ones. So, in a sense, yes we were bad to the Japanese people.

However, I seriously doubt that is what Tom Hanks was referring to…

By: Morgan K Freeberg

Morgan K Freeberg — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:00:23 +0000

Sonja,

With all due respect, if this is “not worth getting worked up over” then nothing is.

By: Sonja

Sonja — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:23:32 +0000

JFH: And what? That made it okay for the US to torture Japanese?

Your argument is just like the feminists’ arguments when someone points out crimes committed against men: They whine “but women have it worse”. You are whining that the Japanese committed worse – true, but failing to at all acknowledge what the US did to the Japanese.

Neither side were angels, in Europe, the Pacific, through Korea, Vietnam and into Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s nothing new about it, and it’s not worth getting worked up over someone pointing out the ills of one side.

By: All American Blogger » Will Tom Hanks Screw Up “The Pacific?” Sounds Like He Might

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:09:26 +0000

[...] at Cassy Fiano. Thanks [...]

By: Daredevil

Daredevil — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:22:28 +0000

The “rape of Naking” and Batann death march are testaments to what cruelties the Japanese did during WW2. They were to Asia as Germany then was to Europe.

By: JFH

JFH — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:14:17 +0000

Geez, Sonja, thanks for educating Cassy and I on the details of WWII. We had no idea that the war in Europe started in 1939!! Although, technically, if we are talking about the war in the Pacific, it actually started in 1937, when Japan invaded China.

BTW, you have no f**king clue about the how the Japanese treated their enemies, based on your statement. “POORLY” does begin to describe their treatment. Let me give you just one example (because my 11 year-old son is doing a report on the Doolittle Raid): The Japanese slaughtered around 250,000 Chinese CIVILIANS when searching for the Doolittle Raiders. For the US, this would be the equivalent of the military executing all 110,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps because a small number of these people were spies for Japan.

By: Sonja

Sonja — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:04:09 +0000

“And who could forget what started the entire war… Pearl Harbor?”

Wow, on this count, you couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. Pearl Harbor was just the start of American involvement in the war, and a good 2 years after most of the rest of the world went to war.

The war really started in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.

And just because the Japanese treated Allied soldiers poorly doesn’t mean the same is not true in reverse.

By: WayneB

WayneB — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:11:24 +0000

Cassy, As I posted in a comment over at Misha's place, Hanks is pretty much parroting the sentiment in this article. It's not just about the atomic bombings, it's a blaming of America for bad things that happened during the whole Pacific campaign. They imply that it's due to racism and negligence that there were so many civilian casualties, especially out on the Islands, even when it was civilians killing their own families out of the fear instilled in them by their government's propaganda efforts.

By: Daredevil

Daredevil — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:06:22 +0000

America did do wrong to Japanese-Americans during WW2, similar to how it treated German-Americans during WW1. The common link is that in both wars, US got attacked or provoked into war in the eyes of the Presidents during both wars. Germany did not attack America during WW2 (though it foolishly declared war on the US four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor), thus giving FDR poltical room to be able to send his men into Europe, North Africa, etc., to drive out the Germans), so probably reason why German civilians in America got the pass that the Japanese did not get during WW2 and that they themselves did not get during WW1.

I do agree btw the Japanese military during WW2 was very atrocious and committed many war crimes against humanity, especially in China as well as the Philippines, Indochina (which is present day, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), etc.

By: Daredevil

Daredevil — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:59:13 +0000

The Germans certainly did not abide by the Geneva, not in the extermination and concentration camps during WW2. There is a reason why folks like Dr. Josef Mengele were infamous. And there is a reason why terms like final solution, Holocaust, etc., have become part of history’s vocab when it comes to what the Germans did during the war. Ask the Ulkranians and other civilian folks in Russia, Poland, etc., if the Nazis abided by conventional laws of warfare.