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US Is Finally Cleaning Up Agent Orange In Vietnam
derekmead writes "It only took 40 years. And yes, Washington still disputes Hanoi's claim that up to 4 million Vietnamese suffered contact with the defoliant, which was dumped en masse in a U.S. air campaign to scorch away the dense jungle cover under which guerilla fighters hid. But the AP reports that the U.S. is finally set to start cleaning up the mess. The numbers are staggering: Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed some 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and a galaxy of other herbicides on nearly a quarter of former South Vietnam. The defoliant ate through about 5 millions acres – a tract comparable in size to Massachusetts – of forest. An additional half-million acres of crops were decimated."
I would think that the clean up was a pre-requisite to the large resort chains going in and buying up the beach front...I hear it's beautiful there.
So one acre in 10 was wiped out. Doesn't sound so bad.
...but how much is a galaxy?
Why do stupid bureaucrats keep spending our money on stupid stuff? This money would be much better spent on NASA.
Or beer.
Added a whole new dimension to the old tactic of slash and burn, didn't it?
I'm sure the "peace" treaty didn't include a herbicide clean up clause. War sucks, so why try to change that 40 years later? No matter what happens it will still suck.
But what about our fathers who also had this shit sprayed on them and told to fuck off and die of cancer?
Created by responsible corporate citizens under the auspices of the Defense Production Act
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The US barely helps allies it bombed.
Unless Laos got a gift card I'm unaware of?
Well the US believes might makes right... so I'm assuming the fact that we lost means we were wrong?
I knew there was massive amounts of the stuff sprayed - but until now I thought it had a short-term effect. My thinking was along the lines of "sprayed a lot of round-up, but it's gone now."
To find out that it hasn't gone anywhere, and is still effective and still dangerous... not a comfortable realization to find that one little fact was omitted from every class, book or documentary I've ever seen about the war. Makes me wonder if it was something that was considered a "given" for Agent Orange - and the tidbit was never passed on, or if it was intentionally obscured.
Maybe not, but the US is, as usual, trying to buy friends. Never works, but it never stops them from trying.
My guess would be that Monsanto and Dow now have an Agent Orange clean-up chemical to sell and have been lobbying for this to boost their profits.
So you plan to build the next mars rover? How about just the road to get to the place where the next mars rover will be built? Let us give private citizens and companies the power to do all of that and see how far they want to go spending their money. Quit thinking like a child and realize that there is a reason you are taxed, and its a good one.
Still our enemy "technically?" Relations with Vietnam were normalized years ago. We have an embassy there. We have trade agreements with them. I mean, yes, if you consider them to be gooks, then I guess you need to consider them our enemy but that's an individual thing.
Really, who gives a shit if we supply some technical support to cleaning up crap that we sprayed. Regardless of what you think of the war and the VC, it was a pretty fucking lame thing to do. Kind of like the military equivalent of peeing on someone. Poisoning their ground and water. Ill-conceived nonsense like that should be handled properly; god help us if we take the high ground for once. Oh noes...we're showing weakness...we're not a super-power anymore, we're a bunch of weak kneed socialists. Short-sighted is short-sighted. In that part of the world, it's just as valuable having friends and influence now as it was when we did it by fighting in the jungles.
You forgot the other enemy, China. You know, the one that Vietnam borders on.
Ya, you shit the world, kill millions of humans, ruin their countries and let them deal with it....
Typical American.
You do realize Vietnam was a French colony, right?
Define "won". And then try explaining it to a Vietnamese civilian who went through that war.
So you plan to build the next mars rover?
Not by myself, no. But if even people want one built then they should use their own money to built one. If not enough people want to build one, then one will not get built.
How about just the road to get to the place where the next mars rover will be built? Let us give private citizens and companies the power to do all of that and see how far they want to go spending their money.
People can spend their money on what ever they like. They should not have it forcibly removed from them so it can be spent on something that *someone else* likes.
Quit thinking like a child and realize that there is a reason you are taxed, and its a good one.
The end is not the important part here, the means is. And the end does not justify the means. Compuslory wealth redistribution is nothing short of corrupt.
Interesting that US WMDs are still poisoning a country half a world away, whilst US forces are in another country, nearly half a world away (other direction) on a hunt for bogus WMDs.
If I were cynical, I'd call that hypocritical.
Look at US politics. US logic: Buying friends works all the time here, so why not internationally?
This is either a PR stunt or the US is trying to befriend Vietnam, possibly because that would make invading Iran easier, or maybe to build yet another military base.
Yes, that's what we need to invade Iran: a base that's on the other side of India and Pakistan.
Agent orange has poisoned the water supply and people of Elmira, Ontario to the point that for the past two decades the water supply is completely unusable in that city.
You would think the US would start with their friends up north before they start with the people they were trying to kill!!! WTF is wrong with your country?
They won in the sense that they kept fighting until the US decided to pull out. It's not like they were marching on Washington DC. Your reasoning would only make sense in a symmetric war.
Pretty much this but not sure it its in the sense you meant it... The US is buttering up Vietnam because of China and we Vietnam isn't really against being friends with eh US now it counters China's influence in the region it's also why they're working with Russia it's all about containing the influence of China and the negative impacts i might have in Vietnam
Fair point. Now I'm sad...
I was in Nam towards the end ('73) while in the Army, I was stationed at an abandoned
Air Force hospital (flush toilets, hot water, Hooch's) - a Mash unit at Tuy Hoa.
Apparently different companies "downsized" together into one. A conex that had
been some groups bagage had been sitting alone outside of our hospital since I'd been there.
Bored I poked through it one day. It was filled with stuff I couldn't explain then nor now. A lot
of atropine self injectors (they make lousy darts), cases of them and new rubber suits.
Imagine Dracula's cape with a hood, I wanted one for myself. It was made
entirely out of a thick soft rubber, with it and other items I found, one could be
completely covered and safe from nerve gas (my first impression).
I haven't heard of anything thing that could justify such an outfit, except agent orange.
If it were used in it's dispersion, Agent orange was seen as some nasty stuff
by those who used to own that conex.
Monsanto and Dow have been poisoning the U.S. population for decades - now under the disguise of "GMO"
Hear, hear. Considering that the US's days as the uncontested military superpower are likely numbered (I'd give us a few more decades at most), it seems to me it makes good long-term strategic sense to start cultivating friendships and good will now, when our actions still matter. Especially considering the massive loss of global good will we've suffered in the last decade.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Vietnam is opening up to foreign investors, and the United States is increasingly in competition against the Chinese in the influence game in South East Asia
While the Vietnamese communist government may want to get on the side of the US to counter the red China, most people of Vietnam just do not trust Uncle Sam
What took place in the village of My Lai and the Gulf of Tonkin incident have burned into the brains of many Vietnamese
BTW, the clean up of Agent Orange should not only be done in Vietnam, but also in Laos and Cambodia
Too many deaths, sufferings, and deformations had resulted from the Agent Orange - and Uncle Sam must be man enough to acknowledge what they had done, and to amend the damages that they had caused
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The whole world owes it to its own continued survival to rid itself of callous greed and forked tongues; and the blind obedience to them, which you so aptly expressed.
The money would be much better given back to the people it was taken from!
Are you advocating spraying American taxpayers with Agent Orange?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Why?
We never won that battle, so why should we pay to clean up the damages?
Because it's usually the losing side who pays reparations to the winning side - immediately, not 40 years later?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
US politicians can be bought easily enough. the stupid morons just don't realise it doesn't work the other way around
yes they can, because the US is pretty fucked
US politicians just like blowing up other countries because they hope that other countries being fucked up will make the US not look so fucked up... relatively
at the end of the day that's all they can do... trying to reverse the years of fucking up is now pointless
A large portion of the trouble was/is caused by dioxin contamination. There was a lot of dioxin in the Agent Orange they were spraying and it's part of the legacy. There's no safe level for dioxin exposure.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
The losing side pays reparations if the winning side is capable of forcing them to. If the winning side is not capable of forcing them to, the losing side doesn't pay reparations.
The West couldn't even force Germany to pay all their reparations after World War I, and trying to force them was one of the things that helped start World War II.
And I don't think Iraq was made to pay any reparations to Kuwait after the Kuwaitis drove them out (with the help of a foreign power, same as Vietnam did). Nor has the Taliban paid reparations to the US over 9/11.
They won in the sense that they kept fighting until the US decided to pull out. It's not like they were marching on Washington DC.
See, that's because George W. was making sure they couldn't get there through Texan airspace.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
His point being that whether it was a French, British, or Dutch colony, it was already being shit on and exploited. Typical European colonists.
Anyway, blame the people in charge. I don't blame every person in German for the Nazi's, and I don't think that many American soldiers had a choice, they were drafted, they would be put in prison if they didn't comply with their orders, their families back home would be destitute, living in shame and poverty. When your choice is be a patriot and fight for what you are told is right against an enemy that is firing back at you, you do it. 99% of the people are small, all they can do is operate in their small circle.
Today I would languish in a stockade before I went to a war on foreign soil to "protect our interests" (as opposed to protecting our own families)... but then again, i don't have a family... if I did, the decision to not cooperate would not just mean my torture, but theirs as well, and I might not be able to stand that.
My overall point being, this is not just an "American" thing, they are just the biggest and most obvious ones.
If you want to point out that to a Vietnamese civilian, the war wasn't exactly won, you don't even need to invoke the United States for that. Just getting the government that Vietnam actually got after the war was a clear loss for everyone except high-ranking members of that government.
When the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan, was that a win for the average Afghani? No, regardless of civilian casualties, because being ruled by the Taliban is a loss all by itself.
Compuslory wealth redistribution is nothing short of corrupt.
Then shut up and move somewhere it isn't practiced.
Learn to love Alaska
Cleaning up Agent Orange is non-optional. If you think it is too expensive then it shouldn't have been used in the first place.
It wasn't thought to have been that big of a deal back then. Hell, we used it in our own national parks for controlling vegetation up until the EPA banned it in 1978 when we figured out it was causing birth defects. The horrible part was what we were dropping it on, not the fact we were dropping it- the government told the public it was being used to beat down jungle used as cover for the NVA, when in reality they were dropping it on civilian crop land. It was a good number of years before people figured out exactly how nasty dioxin compounds really are and stopped using the stuff.
cleaning up the landmines used in Iraq isn't going to be cheap.
We only used landmines in Iraq around some of our bases. The fields were marked, and the mines were removed when we shut down operations. The mines which are killing people were placed by Saddam's regime, or afterwards by the "insurgent" groups. And most of the mines killing people are doing so because they're being dug up and re-purposed as IED's.
Yes, you are a voter in a democracy, you are responsible for the government actions and spendings.
Technically speaking you're responsible for your country's actions regardless of the type of government in place. But people who like to deal with real life instead of hyperbole and rhetoric understand that what leaders and politicians do is quite often against the wishes of the population, and in many cases outside of the population's ability to directly do anything about it.
And just FYI, the US is not a democracy, it's a Republic.
Expand the idea I keep throwing about to anyone who will listen, that I stole from Frank Herbert.
I initially pilfered it while thinking about the overblown threat of Iran and nukes. Simply put, if any nation detonates a nuke in anger, every other nuke-bearing nation nukes said aggressor until their country is glass and glows in the dark.
This can clearly be expanded to general warfare. If any nation that hasn't been victim of an invasion within the past fifty years attacks another country, everyone(tm) declares war on them.
Everyone wins, really. First world nations maintain peace between each other, and the military-industrial complex is kept happy because you know some backwater dictator in Assbackwardsistan is going to start a tribal conflict sooner or later, giving plenty of opportunity to have wargasms with the latest toys.
The money would be much better given back to the people it was taken from!
Are you advocating spraying American taxpayers with Agent Orange?
Shh ... They are always looking of ways to beat the taxpayer harder.
The atrocities were just too many to be documented
Accounts such as
Rape
Women being gang raped
M-16 muzzle stuck into her private part
then trigger was squeezed
Cannibalism
G.I. cutting out hearts and livers of dead vietcon fighters
forced local food vendors to cook those organs
enjoyed cuisine made of cooked vietcon liver/heart
were very very common back then
As for the Western journalists who were stationed in Vietnam?
Even those who were anti-war - they got so horrified by what they saw they often "forgot" to report anything
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
And I don't think Iraq was made to pay any reparations to Kuwait after the Kuwaitis drove them out (with the help of a foreign power, same as Vietnam did). Nor has the Taliban paid reparations to the US over 9/11.
You are wrong. Iraq has paid $37.7 billion in reparations for the 1990/91 Gulf War via "the UN Compensation Fund, which is funded by a percentage of the proceeds generated by the export sales of Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products", most of it to Kuwait. . And why would the Taliban pay reparations for 9/11? It wasn't the Taliban who attacked, but Al Qaeda.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
His point being that whether it was a French, British, or Dutch colony, it was already being shit on and exploited. Typical European colonists.
Sort of, it was more that much of 20th century history involved the US cleaning up after the messes left behind when European colonial powers walked away from their colonies. Now, did the US screw up a lot? Sure. Were we locked in a struggle with the USSR and use smaller countries as proxies? Sure.
But no one just decided, "hey, fuck, let's bomb some brown people and steal their oil!"
And, it's worth noting that it wasn't until after we withdrew from Vietnam, after Saigon fell, and after and the "peace" was established that the reeducation camps were set up. That, in turn, is when the boat people started coming.
This doesn't have to do anything with someone "owing" to someone else. Sometimes, you know, you do things just because they're the right things to do.
So, the next time Palestine bombs Israel, we just confiscate Palestine. And how do you steal the wealth of a country without invading it? Those intending to break the rules would shield their wealth.
Learn to love Alaska
Taliban had almost eradicated opium production before the US invaded. That made them rather unpopular with the farmers.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Note that Vietnam was "shit on and exploited" by that notorious European colonial power, Japan during WW2.
And that the most recent war Vietnam was involved in was against that other notorious European colonial power, China....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Is it wrong for a company to develop a new product that cleans up a horribly toxic chemical and want to sell it to make a return on their research & development investment? At least they're developing a way to clean up this chemical rather than a new and improved Agent Orange with even more horrible side effects.
Several million of us were sprayed with the stuff and are suffering a slow agonizing death from this crap and the US/VA is doing nothing about it. Charity begins at home, F the Vietnamese. We had no choice we were forced to attend that 'war'. john
> Make it legal to confiscate all the wealth of the countries that goes to war
Do you have any idea how much foreign money is invested in the United States? Or the EU, for that matter? And more importantly, how much of that money is invested by citizens of the few remaining countries capable of even pretending they could TRY to enforce such an edict against the US or EU, without getting themselves wiped off the map in retaliation?
War is not a board game. The highest-raking Generals and Admirals in the US Army, Air Force, and Navy aren't required to walk around with a team of lawyers and get their decisions approved by them first. The rules are defined (often retroactively) and enforced by the victors. Nuenburg wasn't about punishing German military leaders for technical rule violations, it was about "getting revenge". The UN has the power to punish countries because (and IF) it's able to get members states to contribute military forces to back it up, not because someone, somewhere, made a grand declaration that it should be thus. To believe otherwise is completely delusional, or at best, an act of philosophical masturbation.
You realize that:
1) Agent Orange was a 50:50 mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D
2) 2,4-D is still in widespread use today
3) It was the impurities in the 2,4,5,-T that caused the vast majority of the problems, not the 2,4,5-T, which, when properly manufactured, has relatively low toxicity.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The Vietnamese are our best chances of obtaining access to the oil reserves in the South China Sea. And they need us to keep it out of Chinese hands. It won't be long before Vietnam is a regular port of call for the US Navy.
The health effects of Agent Orange on Vietnamese people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Health_effects Pretty horrible stuff
I dont know, his idea has some elegance to it. Iran says "screw you guys we're getting a nuke", we respond "oh yea? Well we're getting an IRAN. IN YOUR FACE."
I think it could work.
While you are trolling, plenty of the same chemicals have been sprayed in the US.
The reason they were used is that (at the time) their hazards weren't widely known.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Tragedy of the Commons. That's all I have to say.
:(){
Great idea. The people harmed by colonialism must be compensated. The first step should be giving them back their land (including the Americas). So let's move the descendants of the colonialists back to their native countries. Then those countries can set up funds to help restart the economy of the now underpopulated continents.
I stand corrected for Iraq.
Has Al Qaeda paid any significant reparations for 9/11? We managed to freeze some assets, but I believe that was a pretty small percentage of the damage.
"much of 20th century history involved the US cleaning up after the messes left behind when European colonial powers walked away from their colonies"
Like what countries exactly?
"But no one just decided, "hey, fuck, let's bomb some brown people and steal their oil!""
No, it was more like "hey, fuck, let's bomb some people if we don't have it our way!"
I'll back up couchslug on the idea that the capes were probably part of an early form of MOPP gear. There are cape-style soviet designs, maybe some of these were captured?
Speaking of missing equipment, there should have been 2PAM-Chloride autoinjectors as well, they ought to have been packaged together (at least, they are today when distributed to soldiers). I hear that that the 2PAM vials get abused by snipers as muscle relaxants, though, so they may have walked away some time before your inspection...
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
When are you due? I'm guessing no more than seven months since you have already missed a couple of periods. Who's us kemosabe?
Cool, now all we have to do is have various scenes of American adventurism declared tourist areas for us to go in and clean up our land mines, depleted uranium warheads, cluster bomblets...
The punishment for war is we war all over you. Why does it sound like a parent giving their child a spanking for hitting another kid while chanting "hitting never solved anything" between blows.
Learn to love Alaska
If Vietnam needs something from the US as a result of the war (cleanup of Agent Orange), and they didn't get it, and they are incapable of forcing the US to provide it, then it's not like total victory in every meaningful way.
The solution to "tragedy of the commons" is not to force people to hand over their own property.