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Legacy of Agent Orange

150 points by lambtron 11y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
When trying to read this on iOS, the video traps me in the page. Once it starts playing and goes fullscreen, if you try to stop/pause/rewind/exit it, it just starts playing again and goes fullscreen again.
perakojotgenije 11y ago
From wikipedia: "Agent Orange was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides".[4] The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was contaminated with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency." When someone asks me why I don't want Monsanto to grow my food I think I need no other answer.
- heliumcraft 11y ago
  Yeah... This was for WARFARE not agricultural purposes..
  - Wingman4l7 11y ago
    An alternate interpretation is that the OP doesn't want Monsanto to grow their food because of their involvement in the military-industrial complex and poisoning of the environment, not because their defoliant was contaminated.
    - heliumcraft 11y ago
      That's fine. Don't tell him about Boeing and Airbus next time he is flying :)
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        Or IBM. But if you do and his head starts to hurt so he grabs some Aspirin, don't ever bring up Bayer. ;).
        heliumcraft 11y ago
        Or Fanta. ;)
        briantakita 11y ago
        All of these companies should have been shut down for immoral practices. If somebody acts shady in the past, it doesn't exactly reassure me to trust them in the present.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        It's a view I used to hold, but now I'm not that sure of it. First, a company today is not run by the same people as it was 40 or 80 years ago. So the question is, how much of that immoral past is in the "company DNA", and how much of it was just the old management? Secondly, shutting down such company would work if and only if you went and jailed people responsible for atrocities. Otherwise, they'll just join other companies or start new ones and continue to do evil. And since what you really need is bad people in jail, you may as well just leave their company be.
        briantakita 11y ago
        The ecosystem of the company is what creates the immoral behavior. It's the combination of the management, shareholder expectations, etc. If the shareholders are lax in demanding moral behavior, then immoral behavior will result. The company should absolutely be shut down. > Otherwise, they'll just join other companies or start new ones and continue to do evil Actually, nobody will want to hire them. After all, nobody wants to lose their money in a company that was shut down.
        hn_ 11y ago
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Opposition on moral ground would be fair, but in case of Agent Orange there's enough blame to go around that one should probably put more blame on the US government, and to be consistent, avoid food advertised by them.
- masklinn 11y ago
  > When someone asks me why I don't want Monsanto to grow my food I think I need no other answer. Monsanto had told the US government about dioxin contamination of 2,4,5-T as early as 1952.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  First of all, weren't Monsanto a) just manufacturing this stuff on the request of DoD and b) the ones who discovered it's contaminated and warned the Government about it? It's like the very next occurrence of the word "Monsanto" in the Wiki article. Secondly, and I apologize for Godwining the thread, you probably know that IBM built and sold machines to Nazi Germany, having full knowledge that they will be used for oppression and murder. They even found a way to avoid the business ban during wartime. Hell, ever seen the serial numbers tattooed on the arms of concentration camps' prisoners? You can thank IBM punch-card systems for that. And yet I'm willing to bet that you don't avoid IBM computers, servers and software for that reason. Because what they did during WWII has little to do with the quality of hardware they manufacture now. And so is with Monsanto. The fact that they did work on herbicides-turned-chemical-weapons for USGOV doesn't mean anything about their ability to put healthy food on your table. If you want someone to blame for Agent Orange, blame the DoD.
  - fit2rule 11y ago
    The point is, the company profited grandly from the effort and used that profit to propel itself into its current grandeur position of gatekeeper to a significant portion of humanitys' food supply, and considers the literal mass manipulation of food supply key to its continued survival as an entity. An entity which has no moral issue from profiting, immensely, from the production of poison.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      There's plenty of reasons to dislike Monsanto for even today, they do have some shitty ways of doing business. But I see no reason to single out Monsanto in the story of Agent Orange, especially that they were the ones to warn everyone about the contamination issues. I'm not a fan of Monsato, but I'm a fan of putting the blame in a precise way, on those responsible and only for the things they're actually responsible for.
      - fit2rule 11y ago
        Monsanto wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for its production of previous poisons which continue to plague the world with death and mayhem. The point is to remember this fact, in considering "The Monsanto of Today", because - just like in the 60's, the Scientists in the Company Producing Foods and Poisons, telling you 'everything is okay' here and now today, was wrong.
- dionidium 11y ago
  It's a mistake to treat corporations like people (no matter what the SCOTUS has to say on the matter). Corporations are just the people who work there. And none of the people involved with Agent Orange are working on GMOs today. They have nothing to do with one another. Besides, Monsanto long ago spun off their chemical division as Solutia. We're not even talking about the same company. In the end, you're confusing the name of something with the actual something.
rotorblade 11y ago
Does any one know... Was this considered 'war crime', or was it a too modern way of conducting war so that it was not covered by the international laws at the time? If against international law or not, has it ever been a case in an international court for the tactics used in Vietnam during this war? If not, is there a documented reason as to why not?
- riffraff 11y ago
  I don't think the effects were expected, at least not officially. This was an herbicide, not a chemical weapon.
  - rotorblade 11y ago
    Very fair point, its intended use was indeed not as a chemical weapon. It would however seem reasonable that, even if not expected at the time, people in charge could be held accountable after the fact as well. However this is perhaps way beyond what can be expected of international law.
    - creshal 11y ago
      > However this is perhaps way beyond what can be expected of international law. No, on the contrary, it was made to deal with such cases. But apparently only if you're not American.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > I don't think the effects were expected, at least not officially. I'm not sure about that, and if they weren't this was gross misconduct either way as issues related to dioxin contamination were either known or strongly hinted at before the operation started. > This was an herbicide, not a chemical weapon. The herbicide itself (actually a combination of two herbicides, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) is relatively innocuous, but during manufacturing 2,4,5-T can be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin — the colloquial "dioxin" (by accidental overheating which is a significant risk of high-temperature 2,4,5-T production). This contamination was revealed in 1952 (by Monsanto) and the toxicity of TCDD was published/revealed as early as 1957 (and Boehringer who manufactured 2,4,5-T using a low-temperature process warned other producers of the high-temperature process's risk and provided mitigation suggestions). Operation Ranch Hand started in 1962.
jmkni 11y ago
Heads up if you're in work, the imagery in this article, while appropriate, probably NSFW, wait until you get home.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  These mickey-mouse rules of what is and is not considered "safe" for work is one of the many, many reasons I don't work in an office anymore. The corporatist hivemind treats the individual worker like a child, incapable of discerning for themselves the difference between nudity and sexual imagery.
  - riffraff 11y ago
    while the corporate hiveminds may well do what you think, it might still be the case that your coworkers are upset by nudity, gore, violence etc. The conclusion of not working in an office might be the same, but it's not just because of The Man.
    - moron4hire 11y ago
      I'm including such coworkers, who can't discern the difference between offensive material and journalism--and clamor for rules to be applied to the rest of us--in the "corporate hivemind".
      - acdha 11y ago
        > I'm including such coworkers, who can't discern the difference between offensive material and journalism What about people who just don't want to spend the mental energy on it? You can think that this is an important story, one that every American has an obligation to see, etc. and still want to save that for a time when you don't need to focus on your job. I'd also remind you that not everyone is completely detached from these things. I've worked with Vietnamese immigrants, American veterans, and many people have family members who have birth defects which are similar to some of those pictures even if they weren't caused by Agent Orange. I certainly would hesitate to show any of them something like this without advanced warning.
shoo 11y ago
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.... They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. -- John Kerry, 1971 [https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerrytestimony.html https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerr...]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 11y ago
A component of Agent Orange, 2,4,5-T was produced by Philips-Duphar (A chemical subsdiary of the industry giant) in the Netherlands. At the end of the Vietnam war the remaining stock was dumped in a polder just North of Amsterdam. When the scandal broke it was too late and the chemicals had reacted to form various dioxins which had leached in a gigantic plume into the ground water around the town of Broek In Waterland. To this day the area where this all happened is off-limits, even though the soil has been excavated to many meters depth. This will likely be a permanent feature in what used to be one of the Netherlands nicest areas to recreate. Photo of the site during the cleanup: http://siebeswart.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jbBzIgQOwR4 http://siebeswart.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jbBzIgQOwR4 This is the entrance to the site as it approximately looks today: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.42447,4.991151,3a,75y,103.82h,85.26t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s9BTzdD4dnGQjxXtQ2QAL5w!2e0 https://www.google.com/maps/@52.42447,4.991151,3a,75y,103.82... It's one of the most expensive toxic waste operations ever in Europe and the most expensive one to date in NL. People were living within 100 meters of this dump! And that dump is a small fraction of what was dropped over Vietnam.
- hn_ 11y ago
  What do the signs shown in Google maps say?
  - cies 11y ago
    Here Amsterdam works on the sanitation and construction of the Volgmeerpolder (= the name of the area).
- data_scientist 11y ago
  I can't find anything about it in English. Do you have any link?
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    No, all I can find about it is in Dutch, but google translate is your friend.
- 11y ago
defractional 11y ago
When I heard a vet recount how he was ordered to load AO straight instead of diluted, I realized it was as much a program of chemical warfare as defoliation. http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ao.html http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ao.html
pandatigox 11y ago
This is just absolutely disgusting. I wasn't quite sure what Agent Orange was, so I looked it up in Wikipedia... as a Y gen, I knew that the Vietnam War was bad, but not this bad... It is absolutely disgusting and atrocious what humans can do each other. From the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam...): 1. 20,000,000 U.S. gallons were sprayed 2. Military was told to destroy crops used to feed guerrillas. 3. Later discovered nearly all of the food they destroyed were being used to support the local civilian population. 4. In Quang Ngai province, 85% of the crop lands were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone, leaving many to die from the famine. I remember reading a book, Crimes Against Humanity, which said how Nazi leaders, especially those participated in the Holocaust were tried for their crimes. I cannot see how US Military leaders should not be tried for their actions in an international court. And that's the thing. It annoys how easily the Americans are willing to criticize everyone else, and yet shift the blame away from themselves. If they weren't such a superpower, they wouldn't even be able to get away with all this. This stuff sickens me
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  > 2. Military was told to destroy crops used to feed guerrillas. > 3. Later discovered nearly all of the food they destroyed were being used to support the local civilian population. To be fair, there is no distinction between the food guerillas eat and the food everyone else eats. Destroying the crops that feed the guerillas means destroying all the crops, period.
  - bryondowd 11y ago
    I'd further add that destroying food supplies is a pretty old strategy in war. Theoretically, it would result in less death, because most opponents would surrender before letting their people starve.
    - hn_ 11y ago
      Except that it is classified as a war crime under Article 54 of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention: It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.
leaveyou 11y ago
Does US pay some compensation for these mistakes ? The consequences are horrible..
- tomaskafka 11y ago
  Few dolalrs per life lost, to the 'lucky' ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Legal_and_diplomatic_proceedings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Legal_and_diplomat...
drikerf 11y ago
Disgusting. When I visited HCMC a couple of years ago a photo exhibition was held showing the damage of Agent Orange. If you ever visit, check if it's still on.
- tirant 11y ago
  It is still on, in the War Remnants Museum. It is shocking, very shocking. I had to leave after watching only half of it. Not an easy view.
refurb 11y ago
Has any epidemiological studies been published on Agent Orange in Vietnam? Birth defects happen even when no one is exposed to Agent Orange. Without a study, you wouldn't be able to determine how many more birth defects happened.
- hn_ 11y ago
  The VA has an overview of the research: http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/research-studies.asp http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/researc...
  - refurb 11y ago
    Interesting! Of course, the VA would have followed up. A quick perusal of the papers seems to indicate that the connection between AO and cancer are "non-significant" at least in the studies done so far. Little difference in risk, however, was noted according to dates of service, type of unit, military region, or any other characteristics that may have been associated with the use of Agent Orange.
kushti 11y ago
Germany paid big contributions to war sacrifices. I guess 'murica haven't paid any reasonable amount of compensations. I think it would be good for the country to pay compensations to 'murican war crimes sacrifices around the globe, hopefully it will prevent 'murican taxpayers from supporting new crimes(happening every day, in fact, e.g. innocent people killing in Pakistan with drones, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/10/fewer-than-2-percent-of-drone-strike-victims-in-pakistan-are-senior-al-qaeda-leaders/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/10/fewer-than-2-percent-of-... )
- freehunter 11y ago
  First off, look up the Marshall Plan before you say America hasn't paid to cover damages from a war. Secondly, what the fuck is a 'murican?
  - kushti 11y ago
    It's hard to see similarities between marshall plan and war crimes compensations. 'murica is the widely recognized meme for the country of war crimes
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      If one cannot win an argument without calling names or using slurs, perhaps one should revisit the premise of the argument.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- PirateDave 11y ago
  Maybe Pakistan should pay something for harboring one of the world's worst war criminals? [1] I don't agree with many of things the U.S. has done in its past relating to war, but there was a Geneva convention for a reason, and it seems like the U.S. is the only one that is trying to abide to it as of late. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/magazine/what-pakistan-knew-about-bin-laden.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/magazine/what-pakistan-kne...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't post any more of these. They're trollish, and have become predictable.
primroot 11y ago
And let's also not forget more recent developments. http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prov... http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigation_in_colombia http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigati...

150 points by lambtron 11y ago

When trying to read this on iOS, the video traps me in the page. Once it starts playing and goes fullscreen, if you try to stop/pause/rewind/exit it, it just starts playing again and goes fullscreen again.

perakojotgenije 11y ago

From wikipedia: "Agent Orange was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides".[4] The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was contaminated with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency." When someone asks me why I don't want Monsanto to grow my food I think I need no other answer.

heliumcraft 11y ago
Yeah... This was for WARFARE not agricultural purposes..
- Wingman4l7 11y ago
  An alternate interpretation is that the OP doesn't want Monsanto to grow their food because of their involvement in the military-industrial complex and poisoning of the environment, not because their defoliant was contaminated.
  - heliumcraft 11y ago
    That's fine. Don't tell him about Boeing and Airbus next time he is flying :)
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Or IBM. But if you do and his head starts to hurt so he grabs some Aspirin, don't ever bring up Bayer. ;).
      - heliumcraft 11y ago
        Or Fanta. ;)
        briantakita 11y ago
        All of these companies should have been shut down for immoral practices. If somebody acts shady in the past, it doesn't exactly reassure me to trust them in the present.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        It's a view I used to hold, but now I'm not that sure of it. First, a company today is not run by the same people as it was 40 or 80 years ago. So the question is, how much of that immoral past is in the "company DNA", and how much of it was just the old management? Secondly, shutting down such company would work if and only if you went and jailed people responsible for atrocities. Otherwise, they'll just join other companies or start new ones and continue to do evil. And since what you really need is bad people in jail, you may as well just leave their company be.
        briantakita 11y ago
        The ecosystem of the company is what creates the immoral behavior. It's the combination of the management, shareholder expectations, etc. If the shareholders are lax in demanding moral behavior, then immoral behavior will result. The company should absolutely be shut down. > Otherwise, they'll just join other companies or start new ones and continue to do evil Actually, nobody will want to hire them. After all, nobody wants to lose their money in a company that was shut down.
      - hn_ 11y ago
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Opposition on moral ground would be fair, but in case of Agent Orange there's enough blame to go around that one should probably put more blame on the US government, and to be consistent, avoid food advertised by them.
masklinn 11y ago
> When someone asks me why I don't want Monsanto to grow my food I think I need no other answer. Monsanto had told the US government about dioxin contamination of 2,4,5-T as early as 1952.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
First of all, weren't Monsanto a) just manufacturing this stuff on the request of DoD and b) the ones who discovered it's contaminated and warned the Government about it? It's like the very next occurrence of the word "Monsanto" in the Wiki article. Secondly, and I apologize for Godwining the thread, you probably know that IBM built and sold machines to Nazi Germany, having full knowledge that they will be used for oppression and murder. They even found a way to avoid the business ban during wartime. Hell, ever seen the serial numbers tattooed on the arms of concentration camps' prisoners? You can thank IBM punch-card systems for that. And yet I'm willing to bet that you don't avoid IBM computers, servers and software for that reason. Because what they did during WWII has little to do with the quality of hardware they manufacture now. And so is with Monsanto. The fact that they did work on herbicides-turned-chemical-weapons for USGOV doesn't mean anything about their ability to put healthy food on your table. If you want someone to blame for Agent Orange, blame the DoD.
- fit2rule 11y ago
  The point is, the company profited grandly from the effort and used that profit to propel itself into its current grandeur position of gatekeeper to a significant portion of humanitys' food supply, and considers the literal mass manipulation of food supply key to its continued survival as an entity. An entity which has no moral issue from profiting, immensely, from the production of poison.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    There's plenty of reasons to dislike Monsanto for even today, they do have some shitty ways of doing business. But I see no reason to single out Monsanto in the story of Agent Orange, especially that they were the ones to warn everyone about the contamination issues. I'm not a fan of Monsato, but I'm a fan of putting the blame in a precise way, on those responsible and only for the things they're actually responsible for.
    - fit2rule 11y ago
      Monsanto wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for its production of previous poisons which continue to plague the world with death and mayhem. The point is to remember this fact, in considering "The Monsanto of Today", because - just like in the 60's, the Scientists in the Company Producing Foods and Poisons, telling you 'everything is okay' here and now today, was wrong.
dionidium 11y ago
It's a mistake to treat corporations like people (no matter what the SCOTUS has to say on the matter). Corporations are just the people who work there. And none of the people involved with Agent Orange are working on GMOs today. They have nothing to do with one another. Besides, Monsanto long ago spun off their chemical division as Solutia. We're not even talking about the same company. In the end, you're confusing the name of something with the actual something.

rotorblade 11y ago

Does any one know... Was this considered 'war crime', or was it a too modern way of conducting war so that it was not covered by the international laws at the time? If against international law or not, has it ever been a case in an international court for the tactics used in Vietnam during this war? If not, is there a documented reason as to why not?

riffraff 11y ago
I don't think the effects were expected, at least not officially. This was an herbicide, not a chemical weapon.
- rotorblade 11y ago
  Very fair point, its intended use was indeed not as a chemical weapon. It would however seem reasonable that, even if not expected at the time, people in charge could be held accountable after the fact as well. However this is perhaps way beyond what can be expected of international law.
  - creshal 11y ago
    > However this is perhaps way beyond what can be expected of international law. No, on the contrary, it was made to deal with such cases. But apparently only if you're not American.
- masklinn 11y ago
  > I don't think the effects were expected, at least not officially. I'm not sure about that, and if they weren't this was gross misconduct either way as issues related to dioxin contamination were either known or strongly hinted at before the operation started. > This was an herbicide, not a chemical weapon. The herbicide itself (actually a combination of two herbicides, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) is relatively innocuous, but during manufacturing 2,4,5-T can be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin — the colloquial "dioxin" (by accidental overheating which is a significant risk of high-temperature 2,4,5-T production). This contamination was revealed in 1952 (by Monsanto) and the toxicity of TCDD was published/revealed as early as 1957 (and Boehringer who manufactured 2,4,5-T using a low-temperature process warned other producers of the high-temperature process's risk and provided mitigation suggestions). Operation Ranch Hand started in 1962.

jmkni 11y ago

Heads up if you're in work, the imagery in this article, while appropriate, probably NSFW, wait until you get home.

moron4hire 11y ago
These mickey-mouse rules of what is and is not considered "safe" for work is one of the many, many reasons I don't work in an office anymore. The corporatist hivemind treats the individual worker like a child, incapable of discerning for themselves the difference between nudity and sexual imagery.
- riffraff 11y ago
  while the corporate hiveminds may well do what you think, it might still be the case that your coworkers are upset by nudity, gore, violence etc. The conclusion of not working in an office might be the same, but it's not just because of The Man.
  - moron4hire 11y ago
    I'm including such coworkers, who can't discern the difference between offensive material and journalism--and clamor for rules to be applied to the rest of us--in the "corporate hivemind".
    - acdha 11y ago
      > I'm including such coworkers, who can't discern the difference between offensive material and journalism What about people who just don't want to spend the mental energy on it? You can think that this is an important story, one that every American has an obligation to see, etc. and still want to save that for a time when you don't need to focus on your job. I'd also remind you that not everyone is completely detached from these things. I've worked with Vietnamese immigrants, American veterans, and many people have family members who have birth defects which are similar to some of those pictures even if they weren't caused by Agent Orange. I certainly would hesitate to show any of them something like this without advanced warning.

shoo 11y ago

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.... They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. -- John Kerry, 1971 [https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerrytestimony.html https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerr...]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

jacquesm 11y ago

A component of Agent Orange, 2,4,5-T was produced by Philips-Duphar (A chemical subsdiary of the industry giant) in the Netherlands. At the end of the Vietnam war the remaining stock was dumped in a polder just North of Amsterdam. When the scandal broke it was too late and the chemicals had reacted to form various dioxins which had leached in a gigantic plume into the ground water around the town of Broek In Waterland. To this day the area where this all happened is off-limits, even though the soil has been excavated to many meters depth. This will likely be a permanent feature in what used to be one of the Netherlands nicest areas to recreate. Photo of the site during the cleanup: http://siebeswart.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jbBzIgQOwR4 http://siebeswart.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jbBzIgQOwR4 This is the entrance to the site as it approximately looks today: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.42447,4.991151,3a,75y,103.82h,85.26t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s9BTzdD4dnGQjxXtQ2QAL5w!2e0 https://www.google.com/maps/@52.42447,4.991151,3a,75y,103.82... It's one of the most expensive toxic waste operations ever in Europe and the most expensive one to date in NL. People were living within 100 meters of this dump! And that dump is a small fraction of what was dropped over Vietnam.

hn_ 11y ago
What do the signs shown in Google maps say?
- cies 11y ago
  Here Amsterdam works on the sanitation and construction of the Volgmeerpolder (= the name of the area).
data_scientist 11y ago
I can't find anything about it in English. Do you have any link?
- jacquesm 11y ago
  No, all I can find about it is in Dutch, but google translate is your friend.
11y ago

defractional 11y ago

When I heard a vet recount how he was ordered to load AO straight instead of diluted, I realized it was as much a program of chemical warfare as defoliation. http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ao.html http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ao.html

pandatigox 11y ago

This is just absolutely disgusting. I wasn't quite sure what Agent Orange was, so I looked it up in Wikipedia... as a Y gen, I knew that the Vietnam War was bad, but not this bad... It is absolutely disgusting and atrocious what humans can do each other. From the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam...): 1. 20,000,000 U.S. gallons were sprayed 2. Military was told to destroy crops used to feed guerrillas. 3. Later discovered nearly all of the food they destroyed were being used to support the local civilian population. 4. In Quang Ngai province, 85% of the crop lands were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone, leaving many to die from the famine. I remember reading a book, Crimes Against Humanity, which said how Nazi leaders, especially those participated in the Holocaust were tried for their crimes. I cannot see how US Military leaders should not be tried for their actions in an international court. And that's the thing. It annoys how easily the Americans are willing to criticize everyone else, and yet shift the blame away from themselves. If they weren't such a superpower, they wouldn't even be able to get away with all this. This stuff sickens me

thaumasiotes 11y ago
> 2. Military was told to destroy crops used to feed guerrillas. > 3. Later discovered nearly all of the food they destroyed were being used to support the local civilian population. To be fair, there is no distinction between the food guerillas eat and the food everyone else eats. Destroying the crops that feed the guerillas means destroying all the crops, period.
- bryondowd 11y ago
  I'd further add that destroying food supplies is a pretty old strategy in war. Theoretically, it would result in less death, because most opponents would surrender before letting their people starve.
  - hn_ 11y ago
    Except that it is classified as a war crime under Article 54 of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention: It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.

leaveyou 11y ago

Does US pay some compensation for these mistakes ? The consequences are horrible..

tomaskafka 11y ago
Few dolalrs per life lost, to the 'lucky' ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Legal_and_diplomatic_proceedings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Legal_and_diplomat...

drikerf 11y ago

Disgusting. When I visited HCMC a couple of years ago a photo exhibition was held showing the damage of Agent Orange. If you ever visit, check if it's still on.

tirant 11y ago
It is still on, in the War Remnants Museum. It is shocking, very shocking. I had to leave after watching only half of it. Not an easy view.

refurb 11y ago

Has any epidemiological studies been published on Agent Orange in Vietnam? Birth defects happen even when no one is exposed to Agent Orange. Without a study, you wouldn't be able to determine how many more birth defects happened.

hn_ 11y ago
The VA has an overview of the research: http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/research-studies.asp http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/researc...
- refurb 11y ago
  Interesting! Of course, the VA would have followed up. A quick perusal of the papers seems to indicate that the connection between AO and cancer are "non-significant" at least in the studies done so far. Little difference in risk, however, was noted according to dates of service, type of unit, military region, or any other characteristics that may have been associated with the use of Agent Orange.

kushti 11y ago

Germany paid big contributions to war sacrifices. I guess 'murica haven't paid any reasonable amount of compensations. I think it would be good for the country to pay compensations to 'murican war crimes sacrifices around the globe, hopefully it will prevent 'murican taxpayers from supporting new crimes(happening every day, in fact, e.g. innocent people killing in Pakistan with drones, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/10/fewer-than-2-percent-of-drone-strike-victims-in-pakistan-are-senior-al-qaeda-leaders/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/10/fewer-than-2-percent-of-... )

freehunter 11y ago
First off, look up the Marshall Plan before you say America hasn't paid to cover damages from a war. Secondly, what the fuck is a 'murican?
- kushti 11y ago
  It's hard to see similarities between marshall plan and war crimes compensations. 'murica is the widely recognized meme for the country of war crimes
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    If one cannot win an argument without calling names or using slurs, perhaps one should revisit the premise of the argument.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
PirateDave 11y ago
Maybe Pakistan should pay something for harboring one of the world's worst war criminals? [1] I don't agree with many of things the U.S. has done in its past relating to war, but there was a Geneva convention for a reason, and it seems like the U.S. is the only one that is trying to abide to it as of late. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/magazine/what-pakistan-knew-about-bin-laden.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/magazine/what-pakistan-kne...

deleted 11y ago

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dang 11y ago
Please don't post any more of these. They're trollish, and have become predictable.

primroot 11y ago

And let's also not forget more recent developments. http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prov... http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigation_in_colombia http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigati...