Agent Orange

[iGas]

Children of Agent Orange -- Video.

It is so sad that there is no end to the suffering.

 

[OCGuy]

The 20th century was full of human rights abuses...I would say that stopping the Balkans slaughter of Muslims and ending WWI and WWII, as well as getting rid of Chemical Ali, makes up for any agent orange use on the HCM trail.

War sucks.

 

[Kadarin]

We need to drop a whole lot of that stuff on Pakistan.

 

[davmat787]

We need to drop a whole lot of that stuff on Pakistan.

Do you know what Agent Orange was used for? Hint: It is a defoliant. Unless your goal is for muslims not to have trees or something not sure where you are going here.

 

[Craig234]

Do you know what Agent Orange was used for? Hint: It is a defoliant. Unless your goal is for muslims not to have trees or something not sure where you are going here.

The moral scumbag is happy that the farmers and children harmed by Agent Orange - cancer, birth defects - were as an 'expression of our power', and wants more of it.

 

[Kadarin]

The moral scumbag is happy that the farmers and children harmed by Agent Orange - cancer, birth defects - were as an 'expression of our power', and wants more of it.

No. I simply wish bad things upon Pakistan.

 

[Apple Of Sodom]

We sprayed them with Agent Orange to defoliate. They still lived to have children.

That is far better than the Americans they tortured and killed who never had the chance to even have a child.

War is hell, as they say. Don't want the consequences? Don't poke the bear.

 

[CitizenKain]

We sprayed them with Agent Orange to defoliate. They still lived to have children.

That is far better than the Americans they tortured and killed who never had the chance to even have a child.

War is hell, as they say. Don't want the consequences? Don't poke the bear.

What about the civilians that US soldiers tortured and killed for shits and giggles. They never got to have kids. Infact, many of them were kids.

 

[Darwin333]

What about the civilians that US soldiers tortured and killed for shits and giggles. They never got to have kids. Infact, many of them were kids.

The soldiers that committed those crimes should be tried and if found guilty put in front of a firing squad.

Very sad story in the OP, some comments are right although they sound very cruel and heartless. War is hell, and it probably should be. Look at our current wars, in historical terms they are barely squabbles and it makes it rather easy to go to war. If Iraq was more like WWII or even Vietnam I doubt we would have went and I am positive that we would not still be there.

 

[Ausm]

Do you know what Agent Orange was used for? Hint: It is a defoliant. Unless your goal is for muslims not to have trees or something not sure where you are going here.

I was thinking the same thing lol.

 

[Craig234]

We sprayed them with Agent Orange to defoliate. They still lived to have children.

That is far better than the Americans they tortured and killed who never had the chance to even have a child.

War is hell, as they say. Don't want the consequences? Don't poke the bear.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4494347.stm (warning deformed photo)

That's a BBC story on the topic. Read it. The use was a monstrous policy.

Americans they tortured and killed? Not many they came to the US to do that to. They didn't 'poke the bear'. The bear traveled thousands of miles to those farmers.

 

[CitizenKain]

The soldiers that committed those crimes should be tried and if found guilty put in front of a firing squad.

Very sad story in the OP, some comments are right although they sound very cruel and heartless. War is hell, and it probably should be. Look at our current wars, in historical terms they are barely squabbles and it makes it rather easy to go to war. If Iraq was more like WWII or even Vietnam I doubt we would have went and I am positive that we would not still be there.

Hint: They weren't.

While 26 US soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at Mỹ Lai, only Second Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but only served three and a half years under house arrest.

Also fun note, the soldier who attempted to stop the My Lai massacre? He was called a traitor.

Apple of Sodom, you are human garbage.

 

[Doppel]

wiki
"The Toronto Star reported that, "records from the 1950s, 60s and 70s show forestry workers, often students and junior rangers, spent weeks at a time as human markers holding red, helium-filled balloons on fishing lines while low-flying planes sprayed toxic herbicides including an infamous chemical mixture known as Agent Orange on the brush and the boys below.""

It's amazing too me how little we seem to care about things that probably are harming us but that since we cannot unequivocally prove it we just assume that they aren't.

 

[iGas]

We sprayed them with Agent Orange to defoliate. They still lived to have children.

That is far better than the Americans they tortured and killed who never had the chance to even have a child.

War is hell, as they say. Don't want the consequences? Don't poke the bear.

6 millions Vietnamese casualty vs. 58151 American casualty. The Vietnamese never did anything to American or "poke the bear" as you put it, and the American used the excuse of helping the Imperial/Expansionist French to pedal the invasion under the banner or of "stoping the communist domino effect".

IMHO, there were no domino effect at all. The Vietnamese do not care for the communist and we wanted a democratic society, but the stupid American sided with the Vichy Franco imperialist/expansionist to steal the land from the Vietnamese. I'm a South Vietnamese that was born and lived through the war and have had family members died by the hands of the French, American, VC, and SVN.

It was lies and greed that promoted and prolong the war, because weapon and chemical companies such as Dow Chemical, and Monsanto Corporation was profiting from the blood money.

Yes, it is true that Vietnamese still live and have children, but so far the third generation still having birth defects from it.

Will you still praises these chemicals, governments, and companies that benefit from it, if these horrific act cast upon America soil and it populous from other world tyrants?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange -- Warning, Graphics!

 

[Craig234]

6 millions Vietnamese casualty vs. 58151 American casualty.

To be clear, estimates of Vietnamese killed are rough, but a good estimate is two million; I presume the six million includes wounded/affected by chemical attacks.

The second figure is the number of Americans killed; including wounded would be a larger number in the low six figures, I presume.

The Vietnamese never did anything to American or "poke the bear" as you put it, and the American used the excuse of helping the Imperial/Expansionist French to pedal the invasion under the banner or of "stoping the communist domino effect".

There's a phase of history Americans have not come to grip with - the greatly heightened, extreme, unnecessary cold war policies in the 1950's.

Americans think of that as 'there were tensions' and are pretty ignorant of the history that we made them far worse. People know this about McCarthyism - our domestic hysteria creating blacklists and demanding Americans inform on each other looking everywhere for spies - including the head of the US Army and even Eisenhower called 'communist agents' by some.

But it was an era when America, fresh out of the alliance with Europe from WWII, basically had unconditional support for European colonialism, and distrust of any third world leaders who were not extreme right-wing dictators. There were basically 'right-wing dictators' who could be 'owned' by the US - we called this 'friendly' - and communist threats. Want to represent the people of your country? You're an enemy and a threat as someone sympathetic to the global communists.

It was so bad, even communist-hating Winston Churchill said he was infuriated by the Eisenhower's needless blind opposition to any measures for co-existence.

This was the culture US Vietnam policy was created in. It was well intended, within that context. France had been colonial occupiers of Vietnam before WWII. This was a repressive policy, but Europe 'felt entitled', they'd long had these policies and colonies. Remember back when they were 'civilising' the world. Vietnam resented them; communism was born in resistance to these heavy-handed old European policies, their first major victory overthrowing the corrupt Russian Czar.

Within just a few years, around 1920, Ho Chi Minh had written a letter to President Wilson, saying how much he admired our history of rebellion against oppressive occupation, and asking for our help bringing an end to French occupation of vietnam - just as our founding fathers had French help they needed to end the occupation by England of the colonies. The US did not reply to his letter.

In WWII, with the fall of France to Germany, Japan replaced France in occupying Vietnam, and were brutal as they were generally in occupation. With the allied victory in WWII, Vietnam asked the west to let occupation end with Japan's fall, and not to have France re-occupy Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh created a 'Vietnamese declaration of indepdence' modeled on the US, announcing independence. France promptly re-occupied Vietnam, with strong US support.

This is where the Vietnamese formed armed resistance to the occupation. They turned to who would help them - communist powers. The 'cod war' war often about 'proxy wars', putting third world countries in the middle of the war between superpowers, who used their money and arms industries to have the third world people kill each other in the name of one side of the cold war. There was basically no diplomatic mechanism for saying 'stop this, it's wrong'. It was just 'win the war'.

You had senior military officials supporting a nuclear exchange between the US and communist powers to 'win the cold war', they certainly weren't squeamish about the wasting of third world lives in the name of 'defending liberty against the enslavement of mankind'.

The Vietnamese resistance to France was effective - not many Americans know, at its peak of violence, the US was paying for 90% of France's war costs. More proxy.

The Vietnamese finally won this struggle and drove out the French. Another chance for Vietnam to be free of occupation - but this was the mid-1950's. Forget it.

Conferences were held, and the US decided this was a great time to prevent the 'fall' of the good people of Vietnam to the evils of communist tyranny. Ho Chi Minh and others were indeed communists - who had their own internal power struggles, Minh killing off competitors. They weren't a very attractive option for the US.

The US did not understand that Vietnam was a nationalist movement; the fact their rebellion had communist leaders led to the 'domino theory'. The US sort of adopted Vietnam as a place for its values to be supported - fight the communists and let Vietnam be a model state of western style freedom and democracy, instead of letting it become a 'puppet of the communist powers, strengthening their hand in trying to turn southeast Asia into a communist bloc'.

The US had the idea it was very important to protect these people in the larger cold war, and a lot of pretty talk about comparing them to the revolutionary US.

The US made a high priority of this region, though the hotter conflict under Eisenhower was Laos, where we were backing a far-right dictator the people didn't want, and we wanted to force. The more 'moderate' alternative was, of course, a communist enemy to the administration - Eisenhower, Nixon, and the Dulles brothers running State and the CIA.

A plan was made - temporarily partition Vietnam into two, north and south, and let the anti-communist, persecuted Vietnamese in Northern Vietnam leave to the South.

In a little while, hold national elections with both partitions, and select one government and re-unite the new, democratic Vietnam under Vietnamese rule.

A funny thing happened on the way to western democracy - the US determined the Vietnamese were going to elect Ho Chi Minh, and that just wouldn't do for our tastes for who Vietnam should pick. So much for 'democracy'. So we blocked the election. This didn't go over too well with the North Vietnamese, and the rebellion was back on, this time the North opposing the western-run South, under their hand-picked leader, Diem. The US just wanted to 'beat the communists' and have their US-friendly regime they were used to having, winning a victory in this battle of the cold war.

Eisenhower made commitments. JFK inherited them. JFK was very wary of war, but he also preferred a victory in the cold war, in a time when 'who lost China' was followed only a couple years by 'who lost Cuba'. 'Losing Vietnam' wasn't a very appealing result - and was expected to only be followed by the next front in the war.

Over his presidency, JFK came to the view that the US needed to leave Vietnam, if limited support of arms and advisers wasn't going to win the war. He was at odds with his own administration on this, and his plan to leave Vietnam in 1965 was not shared with many, not planned for the 1964 election as a position, while the line was still 'victory'. That all changed when cold warrior LBJ became president - a friend of Diem who resented that the Kennedy administration had not backed Diem more, as he had been assassinated in a coup. LBJ reversed any plans for leaving, and the US was doing things like training South Vietnamese terrorists and placing them in North Vietnam.

As I understand it, it was on just such a mission, a US destroyer escorting South Vietnamese commandos into North Vietnam for terrorism, when the 'Gulf of Tonkin' attack happened - in Vietnamese waters, by North Vietnamese defending their waters, but which we said was 'an unprovoked attack on the US navy in international waters'. A reported second attack soon after appears to not have occurred, and I'm not clear between 'confusion' and 'invention' on the story.

But this was the trigger the administration needed for its policy decision to go to war in Vietnam - apparently primarily driven by LBJ wanting to protect his 'Great Society' domestic agenda, and 'giving' Republicans and some Democrats this war for their support. The military and CIA were providing rosy estimates of how 'winnable' this war was, and he didn't want to be the President to 'lose' it.

The rest is tragic history, as the US dropped more bombs on this small country of farmers than had been dropped in World War II. Napalm, Agent Orange, secret torture and assassination squads and much more - with the North Vietnamese themselves using terrorism and violence against civilians for their own benefit.

Five years after Eisenhower warned of the 'military industrial complex', many billions were being given to that complex for this war.

The corruption of the US only increased - Nixon secretly sabotaging LBJ's peace talks to win the presidency, LBJ's fall over Vietnam leading to the end of the liberal presidencies in the US begun with FDI and affecting the nation ever since, as the more right-wing policies have led to a return to the highest concentration of wealth in the advanced world not seen since shortly before FDR. Not being willing to end a war for political reasons, the President privately calling for killing hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese farmers by destroying dikes and causing flooding, and for the use of nuclear weapons, finally ending the war in disgrace.

The US, to its shame, remembers it was no fun losing a war, and its losses. Its lack of support for freedom from colonization, millions of Vietnamese casualties... not really cared about. Wrong lessons learned - the only problem was 'not being willing to do more like use nukes', 'not giving the military a free hand', 'politicians meddling', 'letting the anti-war idiots affect the policy'.

The US had a 'we aren't too excited about more war' period when war went covert - some very ugly times, creating and supporting death squads and terrorists, as well as backing Afghan fighters against the USSR - but the war policies were allowed once again with the 1990 Gulf War, and the return of pro-war advocates to government explaining the benefits of the US 'slapping countries around to project power'.

The US has never much appreciated what it did wrong in Vietnam.

The architect of the war, Robert McNamara - having resigned in opposition to the war continuing - later tried to admit some errors, but was largely ignored.

Now, it's just a 'hot button' politically; say anything about it, and the right doesn't listen, but responds with 'you're a communist sympathizer, we should have won'.

The left doesn't really have much to say about it mostly except as a sort of 'war is bad' reminder. It seems it's 'bad politics' to mention the war.

IMHO, there were no domino effect at all. The Vietnamese do not care for the communist and we wanted a democratic society, but the stupid American sided with the Vichy Franco imperialist/expansionist to steal the land from the Vietnamese. I'm a South Vietnamese that was born and lived through the war and have had family members died by the hands of the French, American, VC, and SVN.

That's pretty much my understanding as well, and your first-hand information is invaluable for us to learn from.

It's not quite as clear about the role of communism - the South Vietnamese did seem to oppose and fear the communist north, and the leader of the opposition to France and the US, Ho Chi Minh, besides being a nationalist, was a communist, so it's not at all clear that just saying 'here you go, Minh, your country' wasn't going to lead to a communist stronghold. Did the US have reason to think it wouldn't?

It was lies and greed that promoted and prolong the war, because weapon and chemical companies such as Dow Chemical, and Monsanto Corporation was profiting from the blood money.

Yes, it is true that Vietnamese still live and have children, but so far the third generation still having birth defects from it.

Will you still praises these chemicals, governments, and companies that benefit from it, if these horrific act cast upon America soil and it populous from other world tyrants?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange -- Warning, Graphics!

Countries are rarely able to accept the things they do wrong to others. A rare exception is Nazi Germany - not much denying it. But even in the same war, Japan to this day doesn't accept the things they did; England doesn't seem to fond of admitting the brutality of its empire, which was 'on whole, extremely benevolent and helpful for the occupied people', they seem to think; and we aren't good at being the 'chemical war criminal' country.

I'd like to see the US learn better lessons - from the error of imperialism, to the wrongs of mass violence and the war corruption it brings.

This was a case where US was a lot more like the USSR than it would like to admit: both with 'noble motives' corrupted resulting in immoral policies.

Save234

 

[DCal430]

Hint: They weren't.


Also fun note, the soldier who attempted to stop the My Lai massacre? He was called a traitor.

Apple of Sodom, you are human garbage.

While the My Lai massacare was bad I would remind you these same people supported the massacare of others. After the americans pulled out over a million women and children were killed by the Viet Cong and their supporters for being dissident. After the war millions were killed or placed into so called reeducation camps where they were tortured and subject to great cruelties. This includes women and children. What most vietnamese immigrants noticed was the west did not care about this at all. There was no protest over human rights violations after the war being commited by the communist government, nothing about chilldren being executed.

 

[iGas]

While the My Lai massacare was bad I would remind you these same people supported the massacare of others. After the americans pulled out over a million women and children were killed by the Viet Cong and their supporters for being dissident. After the war millions were killed or placed into so called reeducation camps where they were tortured and subject to great cruelties. This includes women and children. What most vietnamese immigrants noticed was the west did not care about this at all. There was no protest over human rights violations after the war being commited by the communist government, nothing about chilldren being executed.

There isn't a specific number of death after the war, however bot North & South Vietnamese have done horrifying things to its people, but that doesn't excuse the French, or American war crimes that were bestow upon the Vietnamese (Vietnamese didn't invade the US or colonized France).

 

[Darwin333]

Hint: They weren't.

Doesn't change the fact that they should be.

What exactly are you looking for? They committed horrible crimes and should have been tried for them, I completely concur.

 

[DCal430]

There isn't a specific number of death after the war, however bot North & South Vietnamese have done horrifying things to its people, but that doesn't excuse the French, or American war crimes that were bestow upon the Vietnamese (Vietnamese didn't invade the US or colonized France).

Most estimates place it in the millions with some over 2 million killed. It is known that millions were rounded up and placed into "reeducation" camps though. The numbers killed by the north far out paces that killed by the south. No credible source doubts this.

 

[iGas]

Most estimates place it in the millions with some over 2 million killed. It is known that millions were rounded up and placed into "reeducation" camps though. The numbers killed by the north far out paces that killed by the south. No credible source doubts this.

Links would be greatly appreciated.

My dad was placed into re-education camps and so as my uncles and cousins (my favorite cousin/childhood friend died in re-edu camp, 4 years for my father/nationalist writer). However, both North and South government placed one of my uncle (a nationalist writer) into jail for writing/reporting human abuse crimes (20 years jailed by the South, and 10 years by the North).

<--- was drafted by the communist to go and fight Pol Pot in Cambodia.

PS. Are you trying to be an apologist for your American masters by looking at only the North crimes, instead of looking at the crimes of the South and so as the American and French crimes as well?

[add]

Ngo Dinh Diem and his brothers were dictators/tyrants/murders and so as Ho Chi Minh and his henchmen. Duong Van Minh (8 years re-education camp, lived in exile in France/US) over thrown/killed Diem and made a deal with the VC so that the South "wouldn't have to battle" with the VC on Apr 30, 1975 (the true is that there were lots of weapons/planes/tanks but there weren't fuel or bullets). Nguyen Van Thieu was an uneducated American puppet, and your beloved vice president Nguyen Cao Ky kissed the VC asses and moved back to Vietnam to live with out any harms and recently died (July 2011 in a Malaysian hospital for cancer).

 

[iGas]

To be clear, estimates of Vietnamese killed are rough, but a good estimate is two million; I presume the six million includes wounded/affected by chemical attacks.

The second figure is the number of Americans killed; including wounded would be a larger number in the low six figures, I presume.

1.5-2 millions North Vietnamese died from the result of war during the conflict, and roughly 1 million South Vietnamese.

An additional 3-4 million died from the American hand shake with communist China (a sell out by Kissinger & Nixon) that allowed the Chinese to attacked and killed the Vietnamese after Apr 30, 1975. And, the detrimental embargo that was placed on Vietnam by the sore loser American from 1975 to Feb 3, 1994.

Mao Zedong, and Nixon

Mao, Ford, and Kissinger

Kissinger, and Zhou Enlai

 

[trenchfoot]

After serving in Vietnam for two tours, my best friend and a good friend of his that went through their military enlistments together under the buddy system died of the same type of cancer that many others who served there also succumbed to. One died early last year and the other just a few months ago.

Noone can positively ascertain that Orange was the direct cause, but it was strongly suspected, as with many other veterans who came in contact with the stuff and suffered the same fate.

Both had operated extensively in areas that were known treated areas. I was lucky not to have. Both were infantry and I was in a CE unit.

It took over 35 years for the effects to finally take their lives. Lives they naturally assumed they got to keep after fulfilling their contracts and going on with their lives as PFC's (Private Frick'in Citizens).

Sad, but who knew then? And even if they did know that the stuff was cancer causing, the mission came first.

I remember when I was required to take Anthrax shots before deploying in support of Desert Shield. The side effects I saw from other guys that took it scared the shit out'a me, but orders were orders, and who knows what I can expect in the future from those shots, just like my friends never knew what to expect back then.

IIRC, approx. 25% of the pilots in the Air Guard nationwide got out because it might have affected their full time careers as commercial pilots.

 

[Craig234]

Wikipedia says that carcinogens were added to Agent Orange. I'd be interested in more info on that, the reasons, the known information about the effects.