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US Is Finally Cleaning Up Agent Orange In Vietnam

Posted by samzenpus on from the we're-gonna-need-a-bigger-mop dept.

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."

10 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. If I was cynical... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:If I was cynical... by Penurious+Penguin · · Score: 5, Funny

      So I see you've been to Florida lately. It works well enough here, doesn't it?

      --
      Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
    2. Re:If I was cynical... by mister2au · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They indeed do ... even if you were being funny.

      With 6 million annual visitors and a 20+% growth rate, it currently is ahead of places like Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan and Australia ... while rapidly closing in on Hawaii, Portugal, South Africa and Egypt.

      Also for the US audience - already twice the tourism level of Cancun - so don't doubt the big money that is about to pour into that place.

      Vietnam is clearly heading to replace Thailand for many people.

  2. That's nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But what about our fathers who also had this shit sprayed on them and told to fuck off and die of cancer?

    1. Re:That's nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're fathers went to war to kill people in a spot of land that as none of are business. Your fathers are Darwin award winners.

      Or they were drafted or conscripted - like mine.
      And then their allies, the Americans, forgot to tell the Aussies - "Yo, spraying some nasty shit over here, might want to get out".
      And then their kids (me), were born deaf and lost a father to cancer as a result of it.

      So yeah, fuck you.

    2. Re:That's nice by burningcpu · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My father served in Vietnam as a truck driver. The foliage on the sides of the roads were a main target for the agent orange deployments, and the truck drivers likely received a proportionally higher dose due to their continuing contact with the agent.

      He major inflammation of the heart 6 months after returning from Vietnam, and a series of heart attacks from Ischemic heart disease over the next few decades. He had a multitude of other illnesses that are typically associated with exposure.

      I was born with several birth defects. They are mostly manageable with medicine, but still, it sucked being 18 and having to take beta-blockers so my heart wouldn't tear itself to pieces.

      My Father's illnesses are under presumed status, meaning that all he had to demonstrate in order to receive benefits was that he was in Vietnam during the time period agent orange was deployed, and that he had a disease recognized to be caused by exposure. This recognition did not happen until a few years ago. He had spent the last 15 years in near poverty as he could no longer work due to the advanced heart disease, which required a quadruple bipass.

      The causality for my health issues is less defined, and I'm basically on my own for the treatment.

      Growing up dealing with this, and watching my Dad fight PTS and his illnesses made me very suspicious of the government at a young age. Sadly, all that insight has seemed to gain me is a disgust for the blind and ignorant patriotism most people I meet seem to display.

  3. Re:Um... by Bespoke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Um... by Immerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  5. No, you are not by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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 !
    1. Re:No, you are not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      ...most people of Vietnam just do not trust Uncle Sam

      That is the opposite of the impression I got when I travelled Vietnam for three weeks earlier this year. "We love Hillary and want to chop off the heads of the Chinese" to quote one guy I talked to. I have no impression that anyone holds any grudges because of the Vietnam war atleast in the younger population. China is seen as a big threat and USA / the west as the good guys.