Earlier this year, after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami devastated much of Japan, various "patriots," ahem, claimed via Facebook and Twitter that the disaster was "karmic payback" for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Apparently their work making America look terrible wasn't finished!

The haters have come out in full force once again for today's women's World Cup Final match between Japan and USA USA, currently underway in Frankfurt, Germany. As we type, "Pearl Harbor" is a trending topic on Twitter, and is also popping up a lot on FaceBook—largely because people are using it to make anti-Japanese "jokes" and comments. Japan Probe and 8Asians are just two websites that have documented some of the awfulness, including this Facebook status update from a guy whose profile picture depicts a happy-looking little baby: "I couldn't care less about the earthquakes & tsunami's [sic] that have crippled Japan. I hope the U.S. women eviscerate & embarrass the Japs on Sunday. U.S.A.! U.S.A! U.S.A!!" Sigh.

Unless you are a vengeful monster, you will be heartened to know that many, many other people are using their Facebook and Twitter accounts to condemn all the hatred they're seeing pop up in their feeds. Still, it saddens us that a day for celebrating some fantastic women athletes and their achievements has become for some an excuse to attack other people.

Update: Japan won.

[Image via AP]