War without Mercy

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"WAR WITHOUT MERCY"

John Dower's War without Mercy describes the ugly racial issues, on both the Western Allies and Japanese sides of the conflict in the Pacific Theater as well as all of Asia before during and after World War II and the consequences of these issues on both military and reconstruction policy in the Pacific. In the United States as well as Great Britain, Dower dose a good job of proving that, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor." (8) On this issue, there was no dispute among contemporary observers including the respected scholars and writers as well as the media. During World War II the Japanese are perceived as a race apart, a species apart referred to as apes, but at the same time superhuman. "There was no Japanese counterpart to the "good German" in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies." (8) Dower is not trying to prove how horrible the Japanese are. Instead, he is examining the both sides as he points out, "atrocious behavior occurred on all sides in the Pacific War." (12-13) Dower explores the propaganda of the United States and Japanese conflict to underline the "patterns of a race war," and the portability of racist stereotypes. Dower points out that "as the war years themselves changed over into an era of peace between Japan and the Allied powers, the shrill racial rhetoric of the early 1940s revealed itself to be surprisingly adaptable. Idioms that formerly had denoted the unbridgeable gap between oneself and the enemy proved capable of serving the goals of accommodation as well."(13) "the Japanese also fell back upon theories of "proper place" which has long been used to legitimize inequitable relationships within Japan itself."(9) After...

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... and the common soldier. Allied forces came to believe increasingly that "the only good Jap is a dead Jap." (78-79)

A war like the Pacific theatre, which was led by ignorance, arrogance, anger, and racism, is undoubtedly going to be a living hell for both sides. The title for Dowers book says it all, a war without mercy, full of countless acts of brutality not shown in other fronts and treacherous war crimes on either side causing a lot of young men to suffer horrible, and many pointless, deaths. In conclusion, Dower brings to light many good points about racial issues, which is a subject that had been avoided for a long period of time, and the consequences of actions taken over racial issues. I agree with Dower and understand better now what caused the Pacific Theatre to be so much more atrocious than the other fronts in which the Allies were involved.

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