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Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange
~ 2021 Society of Environmental Journalists' Rachel Carson Environment Book Award winner (Second Place) ~
For decades, the US military has been contaminating the Pacific region with toxic substances. Thousands of service members, their families, and local residents have been exposed - but the US has hidden the damage and refused to help victims. This book reveals the enormous extent of contamination and the lengths the Pentagon will go to conceal it.
For decades, the US military has been contaminating the Pacific region with toxic substances. Thousands of service members, their families, and local residents have been exposed - but the US has hidden the damage and refused to help victims. This book reveals the enormous extent of contamination and the lengths the Pentagon will go to conceal it.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionScience
296 pages, Hardcover
Published October 12, 2020
12 people are currently reading
248 people want to read
About the author
Jon Mitchell
2 books3 followersJon Mitchell is an investigative journalist based in Japan and recipient of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's Freedom of the Press Lifetime Achievement Award. An expert in the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), his scoops often top the front pages and TV news in Japan – and they have featured in reports for the US Congress. Author of four acclaimed Japanese books about Okinawa, in 2021, Mitchell's first English book, Poisoning the Pacific: The US Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange, was a winner in the Society of Environmental Journalists' annual awards. In 2023, he received Japan’s most prestigious journalism prize, the Ishibashi Tanzan Memorial Journalism Award for public service.
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February 6, 2021
“Before China tested its first nuclear weapon in 1964, US strategic planners had identified an astounding seventy-eight Chinese cities to be targeted for a hypothetical ‘full force’ nuclear bombing with estimated fatalities of ‘107 million’”. “In Laos, where fighting ceased four decades ago, 80 million American UXO (unexploded ordinance) still lie buried, ten explosives for every man, woman, and child in the nation.” In the 50’s and 60’s, the US military “spread bacteria over San Francisco and in the New York subway to simulate bioweapons attacks and, until the mid-1970’s under the auspices of Project 112, exposed service members to toxins, including nerve and mustard agents, without their knowledge.” This book is largely about how “the very weapons designed to protect Americans and their allies (Agent Orange, nuclear and other toxins) have ended up poisoning them instead.” In Okinawa, “the United States has laced the drinking water of one third of the islands population with carcinogenic fire-fighting chemicals.”
Japan saw Westerners colonizing everything around them without moral qualms and wanted a piece of the action. “In 1869, Japan annexed Hokkaido to its north” and then turned the separate Ryukyu Kingdom into Okinawans considered lower class. “In 1895, it annexed Taiwan, and ten years later it defeated Russia, in 1910 Japan occupied Korea.” Had the US not dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did you know it contracted an arms factory in Indiana to make “tens of thousands of anthrax bombs to spread the disease throughout Japan”? The US contaminated many important sites in Japan with toxic waste – everyone on Okunoshima island today has to drink imported water. Head of Japan’s bio warfare was Ishii Shiro who led the scary-assed Unit 731. Most of Japanese chemical warfare was used against China. During WWII, Japan shipped 7.5 million shells there. After surrender, Japanese forces in China gassed all surviving test subjects, had the involved buildings destroyed, and then killed the local laborers so no one would know what happened there. Japanese scientists released their exposed test animals into the wild as a parting gift to the Chinese (creating plague epidemics afterward). The Japanese sent large balloons filled with explosives aloft headed for the US. Two hundred reached the US and seven people died. The story was suppressed. The Pacific War was over before Japan had planned to drop plague carrying fleas on San Diego. Japan and the United States military are two sick puppies throughout this book, constantly putting their own people criminally in harm’s way for seemingly no reason. Japan massacred 250,000 Chinese because China had allowed US bombers to land there after the Doolittle Raid. The US gets all the Japanese human test data from their sadistic human tests. Apparently, before “Made in Japan” there was “Flayed in Japan”. The worst of the Japanese scientists brokered immunity deals even though the Japanese military and Unit 731 had committed clear biowarfare crimes. No reparations where paid to the Chinese by the Japanese and in return Japan would shut up publicly about the US atomic bombings and obvious radiation poisoning.
Within three years, the Manhattan Project became “as large as the entire automobile industry of the United States at that date”. It employed 125,000 workers and “used as much as 10 percent of the nation’s entire electrical supply.” Hanford and Oak Ridge are both still contaminated from the Manhattan project and bomb production. We now know that Hiroshima had been spared air attacks to keep it clean for the new bomb. “Truman himself referred to the bombing of Hiroshima as an experiment.” With Nagasaki, 10% of the bomb’s uranium and plutonium achieved fission so the rest floated over Japan as a final parting gift from our land of freedom and liberty. Imagine the joy of the 23 POWs in Hiroshima and 8 POWs in Nagasaki at the time being incinerated by their own bombers. Truman called Hiroshima with a straight face, “an important Japanese army base”. That silly Truman, always kidding. The director of the Manhattan Project, Leslie Groves got in on the fun and actually stated that radiation poisoning is a “very pleasant way to die.” See, this is why you don’t name a boy Leslie, unexamined resentment. Top military commanders later stated the war was over before the bombs were dropped and the pugilist in chief, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, bluntly stated that the United States dropped the bombs to stop the soviets ‘get so much in on the kill’.”
In the US, “nuclear weapons tests exposed more than two hundred thousand troops to fallout” US scientists did tests on civilians including feeding radioactive substances to pregnant women (like in the Green Run test of 1949). Kissinger quote on the Marshall Islanders sickened and impoverished by the US Military: “There are only ninety thousand people out there. Who gives a damn?” Henry condenses US foreign policy since 1776 into two sentences. Project 4.1 was the injection of radioactive isotopes and operations on 500 Marshallese without their consent - some of them were US military. US troops who worked on contaminated islands have a cancer rate of 20%. “Project 112 exposed thousands of unwitting American service members to such substances as sarin and VX agents.” Sarin was invented in 1938. VX is more dangerous than sarin and was invented by the British in the 1950’s. One liter of VX can kill thousands of people. VX and sarin still work after hitting the ocean. Mustard gas does as well upon immersion by developing a thick shell to protect its toxicity from time.
Okinawans were raped and murdered by US service members, especially in 1949, and between 1965 and 1975. 75% of everything going to Vietnam went through Okinawa. A US admiral in 1965 admitted that “without Okinawa, we couldn’t continue fighting the Vietnam war.” General Maxwell Taylor called Vietnam a laboratory. In Vietnam you could try out new nasty toxins to see what would happen, like napalm that wouldn’t stop burning you after you dove in the water, or a stronger CS gas. There were over 19,000 defoliation sorties over South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. When locals would use the empty defoliant barrels to store gasoline it’s use as such stripped the trees bare along Saigon’s boulevards. 14% of US Agent Orange remained unaccounted for. The US military would drop leaflets on villagers saying that Agent Orange was harmless to humans and animals. I love when the US military goes out of their way to lie. Don’t you? Meanwhile, after the Agent Orange hit the jungle canopy you would hear the sound of silence as you killed off all the insects, frogs, monkeys and birds. Hell on earth. An estimated 3 million Vietnamese fell ill because of the US spraying. By 1965, the C-123 flights were targeting crops one half of the time, a massive war crime. Imagine thousands of Vietnamese babies born disfigured thanks to the US. This one “has the face of a duck” and that child has the “head that resembles a poodle or sheep.” One child had “two heads, 3 arms and twenty fingers”. This is STILL going on in hospitals around Vietnam. Not a nickel would arrive from the US to help these children. When people around the world complained about the US military, the state department would fear the left would use such facts for leftist causes. “the newspapers and the leftists will certainly make good use of this issue against us.” Two times the US accidentally dumped nuclear weapons in the Pacific. In 1978, the VA wrote that veterans suffering from herbicide exposure should not be awarded benefits. That’s how much the VA cherishes its soldiers. Veterans claiming sickness were called freeloaders. But in 1991, the Agent Orange Act finally brought relief to sufferers and by 2018, “more than 750,000 veterans” had finally received benefits. Three Million Vietnamese today suffer from dioxin and almost every community in Vietnam has a care facility for dioxin related injuries. Those suffering from US herbicides in Laos and Cambodia have still received nothing. Many military families were sickened on Okinawa at two contaminated schools there for western kids. By 2019, 250 US service members had received compensation for Agent Orange exposure at Okinawa. Cleanup on Okinawa has historically been paid for by Japanese taxpayers.
The US has 4,100 bases just in the US. The US has contaminated 40,000 sites so far in the US (no wonder many call the US military the world’s largest polluter). 900 of these sites are Superfund Sites. Military contamination touches the lives of all Americans. Camp Lejeune is “synonymous with contamination”. Air force bases are highly polluted with solvents, degreasing agents and fuel. Military burn pits are huge health problems rarely addressed. The military also pours “toxic chemicals into outdoor ponds.” The military drops toxins into the ocean (454 tons of radioactive waste dumped just between 1944 and 1970). In Utah, the military sprayed VX to see what would happen. 6,000 sheeps in the area died and the US military sprung into action – by denying any involvement. 4.5 million US service members have been exposed to contamination so far. What a great recruitment tool: Join the US military – Win a chance of permanent disability and/or PTSD. It is common to hear in the military: “The military is here to protect the nation, not the environment.” In 2004, “the inspector general for the Department of Defense recommended that the entire US army undergo ethics training.” How refreshing to see “army” and “ethics” in the same sentence.
In Japan was the 1947 Reverse Course, where militarists were freed from prison and communist sympathizers were fired. Japanese began seeing themselves as a victim rather than the aggressor, and buried the countless stories of Japanese military atrocities. “Article XVIII exempts any US service members who damage Japanese property from any claims of compensation.” This was conveniently used after Minimata’s methyl mercury poisoning and for military contamination. The US has freedom to pollute its Japanese bases at will. Not so in Germany where the German government only has to pay 25% of environmental cleanup costs. Even South Korea gets more environmental accountability from the US than Japan does. Okinawa is toxic yet and it’s a tourist destination. With 9.4 million tourists annually, Okinawa competes with Hawaii. “Tokyo still refuses to acknowledge Okinawans as an indigenous people.” Yeah, let’s all go vacation to Okinawa which has had “270 environmental accidents” between 2002 and 2016. In 1995, three service members raped a 12-year-old Okinawan girl. That sure was a high point in US/Japanese relations.
Kadena Air Base is the largest USAF installation in Asia and has had many environmental problems. Just one drinking fountain at Kadena High School was contaminated with lead at 190 ppb. Two High Schools there were located next to a 108-barrel dioxin dump site. The author was treated like crap for merely trying to protect the health of service members employed at Kadena (as well as on Okinawa). Ten annual deaths per year at Kadena are related just to noise, while 17,000 locals suffer from “disturbed sleep”. Back in the US, “FOIA-released reports reveal numerous instances where military aircraft dumped fuel over civilian communities.” The “USJF does not need to curtail or report such contamination”. Page 149 begins a long Timeline of contamination incidents just on Okinawa. Page after page of pure negligence by the US military. At Iwakuni, there were at least 344 environmental incidents between 2007 and 2016 that involved spilling 25,000 liters of jet fuel. Other U.S. Air Bases have their own story of spills and negligence included in this important book. Did you know that Disney’s PR film “Our Friend the Atom” was actually bankrolled by the Navy and GE? Extensive nuclear PR pushed Japan nuclear, leading to its nuclear problems today. GE brings good things …to death. Let’s pack reactors on one of the most “tectonically active places on the planet”: so much for Japanese engineering. In addition, it was standard in Japan for decades to falsify nuclear safety records. After Fukushima, the water in Tokyo showed “radioactive iodine at double the safe levels for babies.” “As of 2019, approximately six hundred tons of melted fuel lie at the bottom of the Fukishima reactors, emitting radiation strong enough to paralyze robots. The technology does not yet exist to begin operations.” “Millions of plastic sacks of contaminated soil sit outside in plastic sacks in Fukishima.” The plan is to use it in construction projects. Yuck.
Nimitz class ships can “operate for twenty years on only one fueling.” In 2018, an LSD drug ring was found among a group of sailors tasked the nuclear reactor division. Acid and safety? What could go wrong there? Tokyo Bay is a disaster waiting to happen. If you get another earthquake and a Nimitz class ship is in the bay, a tsunami undertow would strand the ship and there could go the reactor’s cooling systems. Decommissioning each nuclear ship costs a cool one billion dollars. The final Japanese soldier to surrender gave himself up in 1972. He was hiding in a Guam jungle. That may qualify as the longest game of Hide and Seek ever played.
The US is loathe to say it has colonies, so a game is played and it’s colonies are called territories. Today you have 4 million of these territory people living in US imposed legal limbo with US passports but not full rights. The citizens of present US territories have been treated as expendable obstacles living within sacrifice zones. For example on Guam, the native Chamorro language was banned in schools and government offices. US forces even burned Chamorro books. Not surprisingly, Guam’s poverty rate (23%) is higher than any US state. On Guam’s Anderson Air Force Base in 1972, there were 155 B-52’s. Imagine the amount of environmental damage they caused. 120 Jet engine overhauls per month, all the oils and solvents… Nixon phased out the Peace Corps after their legal teams had been found to be educating Guam islanders about property rights. In 2008, a single B2 crashed on takeoff in Guam on a clear day costing taxpayers a whopping 1.4 billion dollars. History’s most expensive air disaster? We are number one.
Although the US helped its Atomic Soldiers (human guinea pigs exposed to radiation) it still hasn’t helped those service members who did the clean-up. Granting immunity to Japanese Scientists committing atrocities in China made the US complicit. One Japanese Unit 731 scientist regained his degree by changing his subjects from human into monkeys. Sharp eyes however caught that the scientist had written that some of the test subjects “complained of headaches”. Great book. Noam loved it, you will too.
Japan saw Westerners colonizing everything around them without moral qualms and wanted a piece of the action. “In 1869, Japan annexed Hokkaido to its north” and then turned the separate Ryukyu Kingdom into Okinawans considered lower class. “In 1895, it annexed Taiwan, and ten years later it defeated Russia, in 1910 Japan occupied Korea.” Had the US not dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did you know it contracted an arms factory in Indiana to make “tens of thousands of anthrax bombs to spread the disease throughout Japan”? The US contaminated many important sites in Japan with toxic waste – everyone on Okunoshima island today has to drink imported water. Head of Japan’s bio warfare was Ishii Shiro who led the scary-assed Unit 731. Most of Japanese chemical warfare was used against China. During WWII, Japan shipped 7.5 million shells there. After surrender, Japanese forces in China gassed all surviving test subjects, had the involved buildings destroyed, and then killed the local laborers so no one would know what happened there. Japanese scientists released their exposed test animals into the wild as a parting gift to the Chinese (creating plague epidemics afterward). The Japanese sent large balloons filled with explosives aloft headed for the US. Two hundred reached the US and seven people died. The story was suppressed. The Pacific War was over before Japan had planned to drop plague carrying fleas on San Diego. Japan and the United States military are two sick puppies throughout this book, constantly putting their own people criminally in harm’s way for seemingly no reason. Japan massacred 250,000 Chinese because China had allowed US bombers to land there after the Doolittle Raid. The US gets all the Japanese human test data from their sadistic human tests. Apparently, before “Made in Japan” there was “Flayed in Japan”. The worst of the Japanese scientists brokered immunity deals even though the Japanese military and Unit 731 had committed clear biowarfare crimes. No reparations where paid to the Chinese by the Japanese and in return Japan would shut up publicly about the US atomic bombings and obvious radiation poisoning.
Within three years, the Manhattan Project became “as large as the entire automobile industry of the United States at that date”. It employed 125,000 workers and “used as much as 10 percent of the nation’s entire electrical supply.” Hanford and Oak Ridge are both still contaminated from the Manhattan project and bomb production. We now know that Hiroshima had been spared air attacks to keep it clean for the new bomb. “Truman himself referred to the bombing of Hiroshima as an experiment.” With Nagasaki, 10% of the bomb’s uranium and plutonium achieved fission so the rest floated over Japan as a final parting gift from our land of freedom and liberty. Imagine the joy of the 23 POWs in Hiroshima and 8 POWs in Nagasaki at the time being incinerated by their own bombers. Truman called Hiroshima with a straight face, “an important Japanese army base”. That silly Truman, always kidding. The director of the Manhattan Project, Leslie Groves got in on the fun and actually stated that radiation poisoning is a “very pleasant way to die.” See, this is why you don’t name a boy Leslie, unexamined resentment. Top military commanders later stated the war was over before the bombs were dropped and the pugilist in chief, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, bluntly stated that the United States dropped the bombs to stop the soviets ‘get so much in on the kill’.”
In the US, “nuclear weapons tests exposed more than two hundred thousand troops to fallout” US scientists did tests on civilians including feeding radioactive substances to pregnant women (like in the Green Run test of 1949). Kissinger quote on the Marshall Islanders sickened and impoverished by the US Military: “There are only ninety thousand people out there. Who gives a damn?” Henry condenses US foreign policy since 1776 into two sentences. Project 4.1 was the injection of radioactive isotopes and operations on 500 Marshallese without their consent - some of them were US military. US troops who worked on contaminated islands have a cancer rate of 20%. “Project 112 exposed thousands of unwitting American service members to such substances as sarin and VX agents.” Sarin was invented in 1938. VX is more dangerous than sarin and was invented by the British in the 1950’s. One liter of VX can kill thousands of people. VX and sarin still work after hitting the ocean. Mustard gas does as well upon immersion by developing a thick shell to protect its toxicity from time.
Okinawans were raped and murdered by US service members, especially in 1949, and between 1965 and 1975. 75% of everything going to Vietnam went through Okinawa. A US admiral in 1965 admitted that “without Okinawa, we couldn’t continue fighting the Vietnam war.” General Maxwell Taylor called Vietnam a laboratory. In Vietnam you could try out new nasty toxins to see what would happen, like napalm that wouldn’t stop burning you after you dove in the water, or a stronger CS gas. There were over 19,000 defoliation sorties over South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. When locals would use the empty defoliant barrels to store gasoline it’s use as such stripped the trees bare along Saigon’s boulevards. 14% of US Agent Orange remained unaccounted for. The US military would drop leaflets on villagers saying that Agent Orange was harmless to humans and animals. I love when the US military goes out of their way to lie. Don’t you? Meanwhile, after the Agent Orange hit the jungle canopy you would hear the sound of silence as you killed off all the insects, frogs, monkeys and birds. Hell on earth. An estimated 3 million Vietnamese fell ill because of the US spraying. By 1965, the C-123 flights were targeting crops one half of the time, a massive war crime. Imagine thousands of Vietnamese babies born disfigured thanks to the US. This one “has the face of a duck” and that child has the “head that resembles a poodle or sheep.” One child had “two heads, 3 arms and twenty fingers”. This is STILL going on in hospitals around Vietnam. Not a nickel would arrive from the US to help these children. When people around the world complained about the US military, the state department would fear the left would use such facts for leftist causes. “the newspapers and the leftists will certainly make good use of this issue against us.” Two times the US accidentally dumped nuclear weapons in the Pacific. In 1978, the VA wrote that veterans suffering from herbicide exposure should not be awarded benefits. That’s how much the VA cherishes its soldiers. Veterans claiming sickness were called freeloaders. But in 1991, the Agent Orange Act finally brought relief to sufferers and by 2018, “more than 750,000 veterans” had finally received benefits. Three Million Vietnamese today suffer from dioxin and almost every community in Vietnam has a care facility for dioxin related injuries. Those suffering from US herbicides in Laos and Cambodia have still received nothing. Many military families were sickened on Okinawa at two contaminated schools there for western kids. By 2019, 250 US service members had received compensation for Agent Orange exposure at Okinawa. Cleanup on Okinawa has historically been paid for by Japanese taxpayers.
The US has 4,100 bases just in the US. The US has contaminated 40,000 sites so far in the US (no wonder many call the US military the world’s largest polluter). 900 of these sites are Superfund Sites. Military contamination touches the lives of all Americans. Camp Lejeune is “synonymous with contamination”. Air force bases are highly polluted with solvents, degreasing agents and fuel. Military burn pits are huge health problems rarely addressed. The military also pours “toxic chemicals into outdoor ponds.” The military drops toxins into the ocean (454 tons of radioactive waste dumped just between 1944 and 1970). In Utah, the military sprayed VX to see what would happen. 6,000 sheeps in the area died and the US military sprung into action – by denying any involvement. 4.5 million US service members have been exposed to contamination so far. What a great recruitment tool: Join the US military – Win a chance of permanent disability and/or PTSD. It is common to hear in the military: “The military is here to protect the nation, not the environment.” In 2004, “the inspector general for the Department of Defense recommended that the entire US army undergo ethics training.” How refreshing to see “army” and “ethics” in the same sentence.
In Japan was the 1947 Reverse Course, where militarists were freed from prison and communist sympathizers were fired. Japanese began seeing themselves as a victim rather than the aggressor, and buried the countless stories of Japanese military atrocities. “Article XVIII exempts any US service members who damage Japanese property from any claims of compensation.” This was conveniently used after Minimata’s methyl mercury poisoning and for military contamination. The US has freedom to pollute its Japanese bases at will. Not so in Germany where the German government only has to pay 25% of environmental cleanup costs. Even South Korea gets more environmental accountability from the US than Japan does. Okinawa is toxic yet and it’s a tourist destination. With 9.4 million tourists annually, Okinawa competes with Hawaii. “Tokyo still refuses to acknowledge Okinawans as an indigenous people.” Yeah, let’s all go vacation to Okinawa which has had “270 environmental accidents” between 2002 and 2016. In 1995, three service members raped a 12-year-old Okinawan girl. That sure was a high point in US/Japanese relations.
Kadena Air Base is the largest USAF installation in Asia and has had many environmental problems. Just one drinking fountain at Kadena High School was contaminated with lead at 190 ppb. Two High Schools there were located next to a 108-barrel dioxin dump site. The author was treated like crap for merely trying to protect the health of service members employed at Kadena (as well as on Okinawa). Ten annual deaths per year at Kadena are related just to noise, while 17,000 locals suffer from “disturbed sleep”. Back in the US, “FOIA-released reports reveal numerous instances where military aircraft dumped fuel over civilian communities.” The “USJF does not need to curtail or report such contamination”. Page 149 begins a long Timeline of contamination incidents just on Okinawa. Page after page of pure negligence by the US military. At Iwakuni, there were at least 344 environmental incidents between 2007 and 2016 that involved spilling 25,000 liters of jet fuel. Other U.S. Air Bases have their own story of spills and negligence included in this important book. Did you know that Disney’s PR film “Our Friend the Atom” was actually bankrolled by the Navy and GE? Extensive nuclear PR pushed Japan nuclear, leading to its nuclear problems today. GE brings good things …to death. Let’s pack reactors on one of the most “tectonically active places on the planet”: so much for Japanese engineering. In addition, it was standard in Japan for decades to falsify nuclear safety records. After Fukushima, the water in Tokyo showed “radioactive iodine at double the safe levels for babies.” “As of 2019, approximately six hundred tons of melted fuel lie at the bottom of the Fukishima reactors, emitting radiation strong enough to paralyze robots. The technology does not yet exist to begin operations.” “Millions of plastic sacks of contaminated soil sit outside in plastic sacks in Fukishima.” The plan is to use it in construction projects. Yuck.
Nimitz class ships can “operate for twenty years on only one fueling.” In 2018, an LSD drug ring was found among a group of sailors tasked the nuclear reactor division. Acid and safety? What could go wrong there? Tokyo Bay is a disaster waiting to happen. If you get another earthquake and a Nimitz class ship is in the bay, a tsunami undertow would strand the ship and there could go the reactor’s cooling systems. Decommissioning each nuclear ship costs a cool one billion dollars. The final Japanese soldier to surrender gave himself up in 1972. He was hiding in a Guam jungle. That may qualify as the longest game of Hide and Seek ever played.
The US is loathe to say it has colonies, so a game is played and it’s colonies are called territories. Today you have 4 million of these territory people living in US imposed legal limbo with US passports but not full rights. The citizens of present US territories have been treated as expendable obstacles living within sacrifice zones. For example on Guam, the native Chamorro language was banned in schools and government offices. US forces even burned Chamorro books. Not surprisingly, Guam’s poverty rate (23%) is higher than any US state. On Guam’s Anderson Air Force Base in 1972, there were 155 B-52’s. Imagine the amount of environmental damage they caused. 120 Jet engine overhauls per month, all the oils and solvents… Nixon phased out the Peace Corps after their legal teams had been found to be educating Guam islanders about property rights. In 2008, a single B2 crashed on takeoff in Guam on a clear day costing taxpayers a whopping 1.4 billion dollars. History’s most expensive air disaster? We are number one.
Although the US helped its Atomic Soldiers (human guinea pigs exposed to radiation) it still hasn’t helped those service members who did the clean-up. Granting immunity to Japanese Scientists committing atrocities in China made the US complicit. One Japanese Unit 731 scientist regained his degree by changing his subjects from human into monkeys. Sharp eyes however caught that the scientist had written that some of the test subjects “complained of headaches”. Great book. Noam loved it, you will too.
January 13, 2021
“The US military is the largest polluter on the planet. Globally, it consumes the most petroleum, making it the worst producer of greenhouse gases; between 2001 and 2017, it pumped out 1.2 billion metric tons of CO2, more than some entire countries. Each year it creates more than one ton per minute of hazardous waste, exceeding that of the top three US chemical manufacturers combined.”
There are many threads to this book, but the backbone rests on America’s shameful occupation of Okinawa, the details are shocking and border on pure cruelty. We learn how the US military were storing more than 1’000 nuclear weapons, conducting biological and chemical attacks, poisoning the public, a US jet crashed into a school killing 12 kids and another 6 civilians in 1959 (don’t worry the American pilot parachuted to safety). There were also many cases of US soldiers killing, raping, robbing and assaulting locals too.
“At Kyushu Imperial University in May and June 1945 medical teams-unaffiliated with Unit 731-subjected eight American POWs to live experiments, including removal of their lungs, injections with seawater, and drilling into their brains.”
As part of their biological and chemical programme at Unit 731 and its various satellites, in 1941 the Japanese dropped 36 kg of plague carrying fleas in Changde in China creating an epidemic which killed 7,643 people. They later slaughtered around 250’000 Chinese in retaliation to the US bombing of Japan. This was a nation who were planning on the “cherry blossoms at night” project this was a plan to drop more plague infested fleas, this time in San Diego. Of course later on the Americans granted not only full immunity to the scientists working there in exchange for their notes, but gave them many gifts and in some cases even cash payments, effectively making America complicit in these war crimes by protecting and enriching the criminals allowing many of them to go on and enjoy prestigious careers.
One of the more fascinating aspects to this was during the US occupation of Japan (1945-1952) on top of the various lies the US was telling the victims and the rest of the world about the effects of radiation poisoning. The US spent millions in saturating the Japanese media with pro-US feeling. In 1952 backed by the CIA they set up Japan’s first commercial TV station NTV. Next they pumped millions of dollars in the newly created LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) to promote US interests. US funding continued for decades “transforming Japan into a de facto one-party state, riddled with nepotism, corruption, and subservience to Washington.”
Truman’s “Atoms for Peace” talk in December 1953 heralded the start of a huge propaganda campaign, including a video later made by Disney “Our Friend The Atom” to fool the Japanese and the rest of the world into embracing nuclear energy. This was one of the primary motives of American interference in Japan, they would make vast sums of money as well as scoring a PR victory. Eventually the JAEC (Japanese Atomic Energy Commission) was created and Japan and the US signed the Atomic Energy Agreement. The US then lavished Japanese university professors with trips to the US to sell them on the benefits of nuclear power. It eventually worked and in the coming decades an eye-watering 54 nuclear reactors were built throughout Japan.
We learn of the many major incidents and accidents the nuclear powered American vessels have been involved in, since the 90s alone there have been several major accidents caused by human error, including the sinking of a Japanese ship by the USS Greeneville which killed 9, including 4 children in 2001. There were three major accidents in 2017 alone, which killed 17 US sailors and resulted in the dismissal of a commander. In March 2011 troops on the USS Ronald Reagan removed radioactive contamination, without the proper clothing or equipment, with predictable results. A court later dismissed the claims of around 400 sailors, this in spite of the sickness, the rashes, the cancers and the deaths.
“During the last eighty years, no nation’s military has damaged the planet more than that of the United States. Since 1941, the United States has been at almost constant war, causing extreme environmental contamination.”
We are told at one point that the US military maintains nearly 800 overseas bases spread across more than 70 nations. Now stop and think about that for a moment. Imagine if any other nation had the arrogance and entitlement to do such a thing. How would we react?...Why does America think it has the right to do this?...
Between 1945 and 1992, the United States exploded more than 1,000 hundred nuclear bombs. During the Cold War under that old aegis of “national security” we learn that the US “conducted experiments on prisoners, mentally disabled children, and expectant mothers.”
“US government promised” and “The military denies” are common features in here and these words have the weight and conviction of a junky’s pinky swear and are really no more than empty catchphrases, but still they get repeated ad nauseum instead of the truth.
The US military is really no more than a brash, bloated bully stumbling about the planet causing havoc and offending others. Their incompetence and arrogance is astonishing and yet like an abusive drunk they constantly shout to the world the reasons why we should be grateful for them.
They honestly believe that they are above the law at all times and are free to do what they want where they want. Not only do they rarely take responsibility but they consistently make others clean up their mess and deal with the consequences of their actions. That is what US military do best they create other problems and bigger problems for other people, usually poorer people to solve and then they want you to thank them for it, whilst yelling about "Democracy" and "Freedom".
What we are seeing here is the collusion of two former enemy governments, effectively uniting in lies and deceit against their own respective civilians and troops. Both governments have shown for decades that without doubt their main priority is to protect their lies and financial interests over the safety and welfare of their own population. They are willing to do this no matter what the cost.
This is a deeply shocking and absorbing read, and it’s a damning indictment on the US government as well as those of Japan, France and others. This is first rate research with good, strong writing, and his work is so well-done that it attracted the attention of various Americans who suddenly weren’t so happy with “freedom of speech”. This is a book which deserves as wide a readership as possible. What the US government and military have inflicted upon the Pacific and much of the world is unforgiveable, and it is time that they try a new approach, one of honesty and openness and to start to take responsibility and try to make amends for the immense suffering they have inflicted.
“There is always more money for new weapons and wars but never enough for those poisoned by past ones.”
March 27, 2025
We simply don’t hate the US Military and neo-colonialism enough.
This should be a required read for every US service member, everyone involved in US politics, international relations, and every citizen of every far reaching place on earth the United States has had the severe misfortune of setting foot on, militarily or otherwise.
「ぬちどぅたから」
This should be a required read for every US service member, everyone involved in US politics, international relations, and every citizen of every far reaching place on earth the United States has had the severe misfortune of setting foot on, militarily or otherwise.
「ぬちどぅたから」
October 1, 2020
Required reading for everyone in both the US mainland and Japan.
October 21, 2020
This book is an honest straightforward history of America's role in poisoning the Pacific. From World-War 2 through present days. The reality of America's Defense department's role in the pollution of our "Pacific Lake" is a sadly true and accurate depiction of our role in the Pacific, particularly on the island of Okinawa. I served on Okinawa in 1968-69 and personally observed defoliants being sprayed around military installations, and being stored, and mishandled by US military personnel. The damage to the island and it's amazing people continues still to this day. During my tour of duty accidental spills and mishandling of poisonous gas weapons occurred much to the chagrin of US Military officials. Our total disregard of the health and well being of our ally in Okinawa continues to this day and without the persistence of a professional journalist/author named Jon Mitchell the US department of Defense would be able to continue their program of disinformation and denials. I am grateful to Mr. Mitchell for his considerable commitment to bringing the truth to light. This is a must read for all American Citizens who want to know what is being perpetrated in their name.
March 27, 2024
The book hits and hits hard; it is beyond any flavor of imagination, no matter how wild you think it might be. I'm in my late 40s, growing up in Easter Europe in the former Soviet block. I lived my share of poisoning the environment and the population by the authorities, due to either ignorance or ill will. The thing that strikes you while reading Poisoning the Pacific is the sheer incompetence, ignorance and lack of any resemblance of empathy from an entity which should behave very opposite in most of the situations.
One might be compelled to say "Yes, but it is the Military so no compassion here", and one might be true in some aspects. But poisoning their own people and service personnel, and their own allies is something not encountered anywhere else, especially in times of peace.
What is even more frightening is that there is no single person doing it, no single division or battalion or platoon but it is everyone: Army, Navy, Air Force. At some point one might even think they competed with each other to poison, mutilate and irreversible destroy the environment.
One might be compelled to say "Yes, but it is the Military so no compassion here", and one might be true in some aspects. But poisoning their own people and service personnel, and their own allies is something not encountered anywhere else, especially in times of peace.
What is even more frightening is that there is no single person doing it, no single division or battalion or platoon but it is everyone: Army, Navy, Air Force. At some point one might even think they competed with each other to poison, mutilate and irreversible destroy the environment.
November 30, 2021
Required reading.
Read
January 15, 2024Johnston Atoll
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