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 Paci?c, 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"
