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Toxic chemicals abound in the US military. There are many civilian regulations that were/are flagrantly ignored because USMIL is largely a law unto itself. This

Toxic chemicals abound in the US military. There are many civilian regulations that were/are flagrantly ignored because USMIL is largely a law unto itself. This includes: - unproven, risky, and experimental medications, vaccines, and medical procedures - direct exposure to toxic chemicals - toxic pollution of air, water, and soil (numerous superfund sites are former military land) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites - environmental damage There are also some well-known historical incidents: Gulf War-era (1st GW) - GW syndrome likely from pyridostigmine bromide nerve agent prophylaxis pills ("WMDs" was a Cheney hoax.) - exposure to partial combustion of hazardous oil well fires Vietnam-era Agent Orange exposure led to in in-theatre troops years to decades later: - AL Amyloidosis - Chronic B-cell Leukemias - Chloracne - Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 (and also adult-onset Type 1 where insulin production essentially stops) - Hodgkin’s Disease - Ischemic Heart Disease - Multiple Myeloma - Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma - Parkinson’s Disease - Peripheral Neuropathy, Early- Onset - Porphyria Cutanea Tarda - Prostate Cancer - Respiratory Cancers - Soft Tissue Sarcomas https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent-orange/agent-orange-2020/presumptive.asp https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/publications/agent... In the Vietnamese population, it lead to: - ~ 400k injuries and deaths - ~ 500k birth defects - ~ 2M cancers - (presumed 100k's) still births and fetal abnormalities

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
I wonder if or when the USA will ever reckon with what we did to Vietnam.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  How? What would/could that look like?
  - tehjoker 4y ago
    reparations, dropping IMF conditions, cleanup of agent orange and landmines, formal apology and condemnation of the actions of the US administrations that pursued the war, and so on and do forth
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      Yep and teaching about it honestly in schools. Borrowing from how they teach about the event in Vietnam and also about how we teach about the events in Germany in WW2.
      - mimd 4y ago
        Honestly? Surely you jest! If anything, the current interpretation of Vietnam by the american media is already what you want. They depict NV as a saint fighting against imperialism while the US as stupid. NV invaded South Vietnam and Laos, helped the Khmer Rouge, took help and advisors from the soviets and PRC (not totally about imperialism, eh?), flagrantly violated the rules of war, cleansed and supressed both religious and ethnic minorities, brainwashed their own into using suicide tactics, violated the core of the paris peace accords, re-educated South Vietnam, enforced single party rule, and so on. And no South Vietnam isn't a saint either, but North Vietnam has a habit of surpassing any of their transgressions by a good margin. If it wasn't so political important to many ideologies, NV would be seen in a far less sympathetic light. American interpretations of Vietnam are arrogantly about themselves.
    - trasz3 4y ago
      Tbh even not protecting American war criminals would go a long way. It’s a bit sad that none of the responsible for My Lai got properly prosecuted.
- MengerSponge 4y ago
  Seeing as Kissinger is still alive and a free man, my money's on no. "Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević." ― Anthony Bourdain
  - sacnoradhq 4y ago
    Cheney is still kicking too. And he did it directly for money. RIP AB
  - hayst4ck 4y ago
    Phnom Penh is probably the most sobering cities to visit in all of Asia. Words can't really do it justice. I was neither expecting nor prepared for the history there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields
    - boppo1 4y ago
      QRD on what Kissinger had to do with this? I've no doubt he's a bad guy, but my schooling left out his involvement in cambodia.
      - hayst4ck 4y ago
        I swear I heard Bourdain talk about this in an episode from one of his series. The laos episode hits on the topic, but the Cambodia episode is only available for pay. Laos (Start at 32:50): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1s8jntlpK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1s8jntlpK0 Shamelessly stolen from reddit, quoted from a broken link from Yale: The still-incomplete database (it has several “dark” periods) reveals that from October 4, 1965, to August 15, 1973, the United States dropped far more ordnance on Cambodia than was previously believed: 2,756,941 tons’ worth, dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites. Just over 10 percent of this bombing was indiscriminate, with 3,580 of the sites listed as having “unknown” targets and another 8,238 sites having no target listed at all. The database also shows that the bombing began four years earlier than is widely believed—not under Nixon, but under Lyndon Johnson. The impact of this bombing, the subject of much debate for the past three decades, is now clearer than ever. Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d’état in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide. In video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZpKFBTutW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZpKFBTutW8
- hayst4ck 4y ago
  My subjective experience was that Vietnamese were rather friendly to Americans, while they did not have a lot of love for Chinese. "Americans killed us and committed atrocities, but China wants to take our things, dominate us, or erase us" was kind of the sentiment I got. I was surprised that in many parts of Vietnam signs are in Vietnamese, English, and Korean, while Chinese is suspiciously missing. Now America is the main pressure pushing back on China in the south china sea. I'm starting to see "made in Vietnam" on all types of items in US stores. Half of Vietnamese that live abroad live in America... We have incredible amounts of media that are very anti Vietnam war and the general sentiment that I grew up in is that we (the us) were the bad guys. The sentiment I saw in north Vietnam was that they won by attrition and manipulating US public opinion. Going to Vietnam and seeing the agent orange museum was pretty shocking and dreadful. There was a general understanding we massacred women and children, but agent orange might have been a paragraph in a textbook taught clinically rather than emotionally. Bourdain's episode on Laos might have been the first time I heard about all the unexploded ordinance and mines. It's a pretty bad feeling. My entire experience with public education, there was no justification or defense of the war. There was one message. We were bad. All things considered, I don't think we have done/are doing as much as we should, but I also don't think we completely flouted any responsibility to Vietnam. I suppose my opinion doesn't matter very much, and it would be nice to hear from someone from Vietnam.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
tehjoker 4y ago
recent research indicates that GW1 syndrome is caused by Sarin exposure that was caused by US warplanes dropping bunker busters on storage facilities. the sarin then drifted onto US fighters far away. no study was made of the iraqi civilians that were nearby other sites that were hit. i guarantee you the toll there is much higher. https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2022/sarin-nerve-gas-gulf-war-illness.html https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2022/s...
sebazzz 4y ago
In the Netherlands there was a huge debacle in relation to Chrome VI used in camouflage paints on tanks and fighter jets. The paint is carcinogenic.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

I wonder if or when the USA will ever reckon with what we did to Vietnam.

lostlogin 4y ago
How? What would/could that look like?
- tehjoker 4y ago
  reparations, dropping IMF conditions, cleanup of agent orange and landmines, formal apology and condemnation of the actions of the US administrations that pursued the war, and so on and do forth
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    Yep and teaching about it honestly in schools. Borrowing from how they teach about the event in Vietnam and also about how we teach about the events in Germany in WW2.
    - mimd 4y ago
      Honestly? Surely you jest! If anything, the current interpretation of Vietnam by the american media is already what you want. They depict NV as a saint fighting against imperialism while the US as stupid. NV invaded South Vietnam and Laos, helped the Khmer Rouge, took help and advisors from the soviets and PRC (not totally about imperialism, eh?), flagrantly violated the rules of war, cleansed and supressed both religious and ethnic minorities, brainwashed their own into using suicide tactics, violated the core of the paris peace accords, re-educated South Vietnam, enforced single party rule, and so on. And no South Vietnam isn't a saint either, but North Vietnam has a habit of surpassing any of their transgressions by a good margin. If it wasn't so political important to many ideologies, NV would be seen in a far less sympathetic light. American interpretations of Vietnam are arrogantly about themselves.
  - trasz3 4y ago
    Tbh even not protecting American war criminals would go a long way. It’s a bit sad that none of the responsible for My Lai got properly prosecuted.
MengerSponge 4y ago
Seeing as Kissinger is still alive and a free man, my money's on no. "Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević." ― Anthony Bourdain
- sacnoradhq 4y ago
  Cheney is still kicking too. And he did it directly for money. RIP AB
- hayst4ck 4y ago
  Phnom Penh is probably the most sobering cities to visit in all of Asia. Words can't really do it justice. I was neither expecting nor prepared for the history there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields
  - boppo1 4y ago
    QRD on what Kissinger had to do with this? I've no doubt he's a bad guy, but my schooling left out his involvement in cambodia.
    - hayst4ck 4y ago
      I swear I heard Bourdain talk about this in an episode from one of his series. The laos episode hits on the topic, but the Cambodia episode is only available for pay. Laos (Start at 32:50): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1s8jntlpK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1s8jntlpK0 Shamelessly stolen from reddit, quoted from a broken link from Yale: The still-incomplete database (it has several “dark” periods) reveals that from October 4, 1965, to August 15, 1973, the United States dropped far more ordnance on Cambodia than was previously believed: 2,756,941 tons’ worth, dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites. Just over 10 percent of this bombing was indiscriminate, with 3,580 of the sites listed as having “unknown” targets and another 8,238 sites having no target listed at all. The database also shows that the bombing began four years earlier than is widely believed—not under Nixon, but under Lyndon Johnson. The impact of this bombing, the subject of much debate for the past three decades, is now clearer than ever. Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d’état in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide. In video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZpKFBTutW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZpKFBTutW8
hayst4ck 4y ago
My subjective experience was that Vietnamese were rather friendly to Americans, while they did not have a lot of love for Chinese. "Americans killed us and committed atrocities, but China wants to take our things, dominate us, or erase us" was kind of the sentiment I got. I was surprised that in many parts of Vietnam signs are in Vietnamese, English, and Korean, while Chinese is suspiciously missing. Now America is the main pressure pushing back on China in the south china sea. I'm starting to see "made in Vietnam" on all types of items in US stores. Half of Vietnamese that live abroad live in America... We have incredible amounts of media that are very anti Vietnam war and the general sentiment that I grew up in is that we (the us) were the bad guys. The sentiment I saw in north Vietnam was that they won by attrition and manipulating US public opinion. Going to Vietnam and seeing the agent orange museum was pretty shocking and dreadful. There was a general understanding we massacred women and children, but agent orange might have been a paragraph in a textbook taught clinically rather than emotionally. Bourdain's episode on Laos might have been the first time I heard about all the unexploded ordinance and mines. It's a pretty bad feeling. My entire experience with public education, there was no justification or defense of the war. There was one message. We were bad. All things considered, I don't think we have done/are doing as much as we should, but I also don't think we completely flouted any responsibility to Vietnam. I suppose my opinion doesn't matter very much, and it would be nice to hear from someone from Vietnam.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

tehjoker 4y ago

recent research indicates that GW1 syndrome is caused by Sarin exposure that was caused by US warplanes dropping bunker busters on storage facilities. the sarin then drifted onto US fighters far away. no study was made of the iraqi civilians that were nearby other sites that were hit. i guarantee you the toll there is much higher. https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2022/sarin-nerve-gas-gulf-war-illness.html https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2022/s...

sebazzz 4y ago

In the Netherlands there was a huge debacle in relation to Chrome VI used in camouflage paints on tanks and fighter jets. The paint is carcinogenic.