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by amazing_jose 3642 days ago
I think that you will find evidence in both directions. It was a feedback loop. The Americans soldiers had a racist preconception of the Japanese, and at the same time were exposed to the the atrocities that the Japanese committed in China, way before fighting the Americans. You cannot ignore the indoctrination of the Japanese (and please, don't make me here recount some of their massacres in China). Many Americans considered them killing machines without heart with whom it was impossible to reason.
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> I think that you will find evidence in both directions

Most american POWs survived ww2 under japanese control. Almost no wounded or surrendering japanese survived ww2 under American control.

There was brutality on both side for sure. But the allies were especially racist and especially brutal. What the allies did in the pacific has no parallels in human history in terms of brutality and savagery on the battlefield.

Hundreds of thousands of japanese were tortured and mutilated. Hundreds of thousands of japanese were decapitated and their heads were boiled to make war trophies.

It is the ugly side of history hidden from view because the winners get to write the histories.

As I said, evil won ww2 and evil lost ww2.

> Many Americans considered them killing machines without heart with whom it was impossible to reason.

That doesn't explain the mutilation, torture and other depraved behavior by the allies. America was the most racist society on earth during ww2. The nazis modeled their racial ideology on the US for a reason.

The brutalizing of nonwhites has a long history in the US. The propaganda about the japanese being "unreasonable" or "suicidal" are lies we invented to hide our savage behavior. No different than our excuses for mutilating native americans and blacks.

FYI: The mutilating of non-whites continued in the korean war and the vietnam war. I guess they were "unreasonable" too... I guess all the blacks that were tortured and lynched were "unreasonable" as well.

Or maybe the US was just extremely racist.