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Jon Mitchell is an investigative journalist with the Okinawa Times
and winner of the 2015 Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's
lifetime achievement award for press freedom. His work has featured
in reports for the US Congress and Japanese parliament; it has also
helped US veterans exposed to contamination in Japan to win help
from the Department of Veterans Affairs. US authorities—including
the State Department and Department of Defense—have repeatedly
attempted to block Mitchell’s work, prompting condemnation from
international press freedom groups. He lives in Japan.
John W. Dower is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Embracing
Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.
In 'Poisoning the Pacific, ' investigative journalist Jon Mitchell
offers a deeply reported and impressively complete look at the
environmental damage done by the U.S. military in the Pacific since
World War II. Many readers will already be familiar with the legacy
of nuclear testing in the Pacific, and Mitchell goes beyond those
nuclear tests to include the long-term effects of chemical and
biological weapons tests conducted on and near U.S. territories and
military installations. Mitchell painstakingly reviewed thousands
of pages of official documents obtained through public records
requests, and interviewed survivors, service members,
whistleblowers and Indigenous leaders. Together, their stories
paint a picture of an indifferent superpower, willing to endanger
the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of people in order to
gain an upper hand in geopolitics.Mitchell also connects the
environmental crimes of the past to environmental destruction in
the present. Current servicemembers and their families, as well as
those who live near U.S. military bases, will see themselves in
chapters about contemporary water contamination that is still
occurring on the mainland and on U.S. territories such as Guam.
Ultimately, this book promises to frustrate official attempts to
cover up or whitewash the environmental impacts of America's
military history, and open the eyes of the public. (From SEJ's 2021
Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, Second Place judges'
comments)-- "Society of Environmental Journalists "
Jon Mitchell, a British investigative journalist in Japan, cuts an
assured path through decades of disinformation, dissembling and
spin to bring the abject evil of each military atrocity and its
consequences into the full glare of the light. The result is
devastating: a litany of war crimes, leaks of radiation and
biochemical weapons, inept clean-ups, poisonings and cover-ups....
Mitchell distills a decade of research into an intense and
compelling account, drawing on over 10,000 pages grudgingly
released by the US military, CIA and State Department through the
Freedom of Information Act, and countless interviews with
whistleblowers, base-workers and victims.-- "Review 31"
Mitchell's advocacy for human and environmental justice pushes for
sweeping change as he offers up a blueprint of hope in the last
chapter and a call to action boldly addressed to the American
government. . . . Mitchell catalogues in detail the present-day
victims of the poisoned Pacific: indigenous residents of Okinawa
and various Pacific islands, forced to help clean up chemical
spills, drink contaminated water, and deal with ruined soil and
rampant disease; the waters of the Pacific Ocean itself, containing
thousands of liters of leaking contaminated barrels; the
unprotected American military personnel and their families
stationed in Japan and exposed to dangerous chemicals that cause
birth defects and cancer.-- "Japan Times"
Poisoning the Pacific by Jon Mitchell is an eye-opening addition to
the annals of American military history. Chronicling a dark and
unsettling history of pollution, Mitchell provides a definitive
account of how the U.S. military has endangered the health and
safety of millions of people across the Pacific region. A
journalist based in Japan, Mitchell has spent years amassing
records through the Freedom of Information Act about the
contamination at military bases in Japan, Guam, the Marshall
Islands, and other places in the Pacific. Poisoning the Pacific
will therefore appeal to those readers interested in military and
environmental history, international relations, defense policy, and
the Asia-Pacific region in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries.-- "The Journal Of Military History"
The US military and the US Defense Department have the maddening
habit of reflexively refusing to acknowledge almost anything that
could possibly be construed as making them look bad. One of the
consequences of this habit of denial is that the military's right
hand rarely knows much about what its left hand is up to. Rather
than admit this ignorance, however, military leadership insists
that the armed forces are entirely honourable and that they are
therefore incapable of doing anything nefarious. It takes books
like this to thrust these dirty deeds out into the open.-- "Pacific
Affairs"
This is an exquisitely researched book. Its comprehensive analysis
is based on hard evidence, much of which is contained in US
records. It reveals that when accidents with pollutants occurred,
there were few lessons learned and little attempt made to train
military personnel to handle these chemicals with safety to
themselves and the environment.... Michell's credentials and honors
attest to his expertise with a plethora of sources, including
Japanese records. His endnotes are full and relevant. This is a
convincing study of war damage--but more so, the real environmental
and human costs of "eternal vigilance" in maintaining the US war
machine. I have taught several courses on the environmental history
of the Pacific, and I wish this book had been available at that
time. It adds much to the understanding of the way governments can
work when they take their eyes off their own and other people and
simply see the world though the crosshairs of the gun.-- "The
Journal of Asian Studies"
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