Of course not. The war in the Pacific was caused when the Japanese put imperialist notions into practice starting in China together with the fact that they hated just about everything that walked or crawled that wasn't Japanese. Then the United States started applying pressure on trade commodities to try to rein in some Japanee aggression. Then the Japanese retaliated by attacking the United States.
There is so much nostalgia regarding the D-Day invasion on the Normandy beaches and the heroism of the miracle of the infantry as Stephen Ambrose liked to call it. When you compare the casualty rates of D-Day to invasion after invasion in the Pacific, it says right here that Normandy was, by comparison, a walk in the sun.
I simply feel that the ferocity of the campaigns in the Pacific was the result of the Japanese first treating all non Japanese worse than they would treat a bacterium. Then they would rather die to the last man than lose to such subhuman creatures.
I never noticed most white folk I have known dwelling on natural white superiority. The fact is, I can't imagine most white folk even thinking such a thing. Yet I have talked to white folk that were in as front of the front lines in the Pacific as you could go without joining the Japanese Army. The ones that I talked to felt you could never kill enough Japanese to satisfy worldly necessity. These people hated the Japanese in kind. Those in Europe that felt that way about the Germans were the exceptions. I believe those in the Pacific that felt that way about the Japanese were the rule.
Yes, I do believe that the war in the Pacific was a racist war or one that race was a factor in how the sides behaved.
Do I think the Americans were as vile as the Japanese? I think the facts speak for themselves unless there was some secret site in Wyoming for using Japanese for guinea pigs for medical experiments (or a litany of other items) that I am oblivious to. However, I think most Americans shared Halsey's thoughts on a "good Jap."
I also think when the hostilities ended the Americans generally set aside their behavior. Americans have generally had difficulty maintaining the intensity of hatred for the long haul. My Dad who was at the front of the front at Iwo Jima and the back of the front at Okinawa even has a friend who is Nisei. Yet I know he is still uncomfortable with the "concept" of Japanese. I bet he isn't alone.
Well, I can concede the point that you are making that there were racist feelngs on both sides once hostilities WERE UNDER WAY, but it was not that way prior to the war at least on the American side.
When you call it a "racist war" your characterization/desrciption by default, means a war caused by, driven by, or fought for reasons of racism. It can only mean one thing. It's a description that distorts and paints the entire struggle on both sides, as one where the participants were driven to war by racist feelings as their primary reason. It's simply not true.
In fact I'd say it was just the opposite for the USA. We sent the AVG over to China to protect, fight and die for their cause. We defended ourselves and took the fight to them, to put a stop to Japanese aggression. Whatever feelings towards the Japanese that came out of that on our side, were a byproduct of the war and not the cause.
You wrote "The war in the Pacific was caused when the Japanese put imperialist notions into practice starting in China together with the fact that they hated just about everything that walked or crawled that wasn't Japanese. Then the United States started applying pressure on trade commodities to try to rein in some Japanee aggression. Then the Japanese retaliated by attacking the United States."
Instead of calling it a racist war I would describe it as a war that was caused when the "Japanese put imperialist notions into practice", while the USA was just trying to defend itself and "rein in" and defeat "Japanese aggression"
I guess you agree with me, thanks.