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Veteran actor Tom Hanks is under fire for suggesting that World War II veterans are racist.
The star of Saving Private Ryan has twice compared the Second World War with the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying all three were about race.
Promoting his new series ‘The Pacific’, which was filmed in Melbourne and Queensland, he told MSNBC that the war drama "represents a war that was of racism and terror".
"The only way to complete one of these battles on these small specks of rock in the middle of nowhere was, and I'm sorry, to kill them all," Hanks said.
The dual Oscar-winner went further in Time magazine.
"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods," he said.
"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, 53, produced TV mini-series ‘The Pacific’, which was film in South Melbourne, the You Yangs near Geelong and in north Queensland.
The star of such hits as ‘Big’, ‘Forrest Gump’ and ‘Philadelphia’ was lashed for comparing the historic battle with the modern wars, but defended his claim it was race-based.
"It would be naive to assume that racism was not part of that quotient of World War II," Hanks later said.
He acknowledged the fights in Afghanistan and Iraq were separate wars.
"It's not clear-cut, and it would be foolish to assume that it is," he said.
Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly lashed out, saying racism had no role in the clash with the Japanese or today's war on terror.
"Why (does) Hanks want to inject racism into two wars, Japan and the war on terror, where racism clearly does not exist," he said.
Other experts told the actor to keep quiet.
"I think if personalities that have a big megaphone by virtue of their acting talent are going to make political statements, they ought to be careful," said Richard Pearle, former secretary of Defense for President Ronald Reagan.
