8 ms·

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

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 12y 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 12y 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_ 12y 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.
    - Diamons 12y ago
      Ahh yes how could anyone forgot about the rules of war. Lol.
      - mladenkovacevic 12y ago
        You are being down voted but yours is the only correct attitude when it comes to war. There are no rules, justice, good guys, bad guys, innocents or the guilty. These are luxuries we afford ourselves when talking about war diatanced from us by a certain measure of time. The only truth that exists when war is ongoing is the human capacity for evil expressed through some supposed agenda and dead bodies.
    - refurb 12y ago
      From what I purpose of Agent Orange was to deny the Viet Cong supplies in South Vietnam. "Friendly" South Vietnamese were to be relocated to strategic hamlets and provided food if needed. This was not an attempt to starve the civilian population.
  - vacri 12y ago
    Agent Orange was in widespread use in South Vietnam - the same people that the US claimed it was there to protect in the first place. The US was destroying it's allied civilian's food... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-missions-in-Southern-Vietnam--1965-1971.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-mis...
bequanna 12y ago
> 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. With the benefit of 40+ years of hindsight, the use of Agent Orange was regrettable, no doubt. However, I don't think it is responsible to compare the decision to use Agent Orange with the Holocaust. The questions you should be asking are: What was the intent? What was known about AO at that time?
- nine_k 12y ago
  While using a somehow poisonous defoliant against crops and forests is certainly less atrocious than using a certainly lethal Zyklon-B directly against humans, destoying 85% of the crops is also somehow irresponsible. All wars are bad things, purportedly waged to avoid even worse things. But the Vietnam War had something especially bad about it, probably that same feature that made the US fight for 10 years, ruin the country it tried to protect, and effectively lose the case. One thing I remember from a historical book about that war is a general saying (approximately) "Do you think we will change the entire way our military functions just to win a frigging war?". This kind of mindset definitely leads to both atrocities and losing. NB: applies to project management in general.
- tomaskafka 12y ago
  What's the word for nazis causing intentional famines that wiped out at least 8 million russians and ukrainians? Also 'regrettable'? Not 'criminal'? And what's the difference then? Why was one side tried in Nuremberg and second one celebrated? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlands
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > What's the word for nazis causing intentional famines that wiped out at least 8 million russians and ukrainians? Sadly, most partially or fully engineered famines have never been prosecuted. Witness an Gorta Mór or Holodomor.
javert 12y ago
This is nothing like the Holocaust. There was no attempt to wipe out civilians en masse simply to kill civilians. To liken this to the Holocaust is massively disrespectful to the Jewish people, Holocaust victims, and the Americans who fought in Vietnam.
- vacri 12y ago
  Far from all Americans who fought in Vietnam were honourable. Look to the Kerry quote posted by shoo. The scene in Full Metal Jacket with the helicopter gunner randomly shooting down farmers? An actual even witnessed by a journalist. It may not be the industrialised conveyor-belt-like method of the Holocaust, but there was the same callousness involved.
  - javert 12y ago
    No, Vietnam did not have the same callousness involved as an entire nation's effort to wipe out an entire race of people. Vietnam soldiers were a bunch of misguided young American cannon-fodder that didn't want to be there. Some of them were callous. It was not Nazi Germany.
    - vacri 12y ago
      Most German soldiers in WWII were unaware of the death camps, and were the same kind of mix of volunteers and conscripted youth with nationalistic and idealistic components. If you think it was the "entire nation" that was working towards the Holocaust, you need to read more books and watch fewer action movies. Keep in mind also that men like Ernest Medina had a one-hour trial and was acquitted across the board, and William Calley was actually given a life sentence... very briefly, until the POTUS himself stepped in and changed it to house arrest, and shortly thereafter gave a full pardon. Meanwhile heroic men like Hugh Thompson were given senatorial censure and publicly hounded. Trying to paint the US portion of the horrors of the Vietnam war as merely the result of 'a few misguided conscripts' is, frankly, obscene. Hell, the journalists covering the war used to call the daily afternoon briefings from the military "The Five O'Clock Follies", due to the sheer amount of CYA bullshit in them. Edit: Perhaps a question - who do you think is more callous: a soldier who rounds up 'undesirables' and puts them on a train to what they think will end up at a work camp somewhere; or a soldier who shoots unarmed, unthreatening civilians for either entertainment (door gunner) or some sense of revenge (My Lai massacre)? This is what I mean when I say similar callousness was involved.
mhurron 12y ago
> I cannot see how US Military leaders should not be tried for their actions in an international court. War crimes are a final insult of the victor over the vanquished. While the US was not victorious in Vietnam, neither were they defeated by the Vietnamese/USSR. Don't think that war crime trials are about any sort of justice.
- paol 12y ago
  Exactly. Another obvious example were the bombings done by the allies during WW2. Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden (less known because they didn't use nukes, but with no less destruction: [1][2]) would have been classified as war crimes for certain had the allies lost. [1] http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2003/02/20030230.php http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2003/02/20030230.php [2] http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html
  - kiba 12y ago
    As far as I know, nobody, on both side, got prosecuted for terror bombing. Don't think the Japanese and Germans are not guilty either.
- mc32 12y ago
  Did Germany get prosecuted for their V2 campaign? I think there are things you kind of agree on are allowable in war and others not -like mustard gas, etc., targeting of civilians with no military value. And yes, I'm sure had we lost wwii we'd have been in for war crimes, such is the world.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    In a "total war" there are no "civilians with no military value". The UK Bomber Command in WW2 had a strategy of "area bombing" - which was basically to hit the centre of German cities because they were easy to find and to hit at night. There were lots of euphemisms used e.g. "dehousing" - but everyone knew that it was a policy of targeting civilians. Of course, the UK was on the winning side, so no war crimes trials.
Dylan16807 12y ago
How many people died from the famine? If it's only a tiny fraction of total war deaths, I'm upset but not really sickened. It's the effects of the accidental contamination that sicken me.

thaumasiotes 12y 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 12y 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_ 12y 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.
  - Diamons 12y ago
    Ahh yes how could anyone forgot about the rules of war. Lol.
    - mladenkovacevic 12y ago
      You are being down voted but yours is the only correct attitude when it comes to war. There are no rules, justice, good guys, bad guys, innocents or the guilty. These are luxuries we afford ourselves when talking about war diatanced from us by a certain measure of time. The only truth that exists when war is ongoing is the human capacity for evil expressed through some supposed agenda and dead bodies.
  - refurb 12y ago
    From what I purpose of Agent Orange was to deny the Viet Cong supplies in South Vietnam. "Friendly" South Vietnamese were to be relocated to strategic hamlets and provided food if needed. This was not an attempt to starve the civilian population.
- vacri 12y ago
  Agent Orange was in widespread use in South Vietnam - the same people that the US claimed it was there to protect in the first place. The US was destroying it's allied civilian's food... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-missions-in-Southern-Vietnam--1965-1971.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-mis...

bequanna 12y ago

> 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. With the benefit of 40+ years of hindsight, the use of Agent Orange was regrettable, no doubt. However, I don't think it is responsible to compare the decision to use Agent Orange with the Holocaust. The questions you should be asking are: What was the intent? What was known about AO at that time?

nine_k 12y ago
While using a somehow poisonous defoliant against crops and forests is certainly less atrocious than using a certainly lethal Zyklon-B directly against humans, destoying 85% of the crops is also somehow irresponsible. All wars are bad things, purportedly waged to avoid even worse things. But the Vietnam War had something especially bad about it, probably that same feature that made the US fight for 10 years, ruin the country it tried to protect, and effectively lose the case. One thing I remember from a historical book about that war is a general saying (approximately) "Do you think we will change the entire way our military functions just to win a frigging war?". This kind of mindset definitely leads to both atrocities and losing. NB: applies to project management in general.
tomaskafka 12y ago
What's the word for nazis causing intentional famines that wiped out at least 8 million russians and ukrainians? Also 'regrettable'? Not 'criminal'? And what's the difference then? Why was one side tried in Nuremberg and second one celebrated? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlands
- masklinn 11y ago
  > What's the word for nazis causing intentional famines that wiped out at least 8 million russians and ukrainians? Sadly, most partially or fully engineered famines have never been prosecuted. Witness an Gorta Mór or Holodomor.

javert 12y ago

This is nothing like the Holocaust. There was no attempt to wipe out civilians en masse simply to kill civilians. To liken this to the Holocaust is massively disrespectful to the Jewish people, Holocaust victims, and the Americans who fought in Vietnam.

vacri 12y ago
Far from all Americans who fought in Vietnam were honourable. Look to the Kerry quote posted by shoo. The scene in Full Metal Jacket with the helicopter gunner randomly shooting down farmers? An actual even witnessed by a journalist. It may not be the industrialised conveyor-belt-like method of the Holocaust, but there was the same callousness involved.
- javert 12y ago
  No, Vietnam did not have the same callousness involved as an entire nation's effort to wipe out an entire race of people. Vietnam soldiers were a bunch of misguided young American cannon-fodder that didn't want to be there. Some of them were callous. It was not Nazi Germany.
  - vacri 12y ago
    Most German soldiers in WWII were unaware of the death camps, and were the same kind of mix of volunteers and conscripted youth with nationalistic and idealistic components. If you think it was the "entire nation" that was working towards the Holocaust, you need to read more books and watch fewer action movies. Keep in mind also that men like Ernest Medina had a one-hour trial and was acquitted across the board, and William Calley was actually given a life sentence... very briefly, until the POTUS himself stepped in and changed it to house arrest, and shortly thereafter gave a full pardon. Meanwhile heroic men like Hugh Thompson were given senatorial censure and publicly hounded. Trying to paint the US portion of the horrors of the Vietnam war as merely the result of 'a few misguided conscripts' is, frankly, obscene. Hell, the journalists covering the war used to call the daily afternoon briefings from the military "The Five O'Clock Follies", due to the sheer amount of CYA bullshit in them. Edit: Perhaps a question - who do you think is more callous: a soldier who rounds up 'undesirables' and puts them on a train to what they think will end up at a work camp somewhere; or a soldier who shoots unarmed, unthreatening civilians for either entertainment (door gunner) or some sense of revenge (My Lai massacre)? This is what I mean when I say similar callousness was involved.

mhurron 12y ago

> I cannot see how US Military leaders should not be tried for their actions in an international court. War crimes are a final insult of the victor over the vanquished. While the US was not victorious in Vietnam, neither were they defeated by the Vietnamese/USSR. Don't think that war crime trials are about any sort of justice.

paol 12y ago
Exactly. Another obvious example were the bombings done by the allies during WW2. Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden (less known because they didn't use nukes, but with no less destruction: [1][2]) would have been classified as war crimes for certain had the allies lost. [1] http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2003/02/20030230.php http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2003/02/20030230.php [2] http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html
- kiba 12y ago
  As far as I know, nobody, on both side, got prosecuted for terror bombing. Don't think the Japanese and Germans are not guilty either.
mc32 12y ago
Did Germany get prosecuted for their V2 campaign? I think there are things you kind of agree on are allowable in war and others not -like mustard gas, etc., targeting of civilians with no military value. And yes, I'm sure had we lost wwii we'd have been in for war crimes, such is the world.
- arethuza 12y ago
  In a "total war" there are no "civilians with no military value". The UK Bomber Command in WW2 had a strategy of "area bombing" - which was basically to hit the centre of German cities because they were easy to find and to hit at night. There were lots of euphemisms used e.g. "dehousing" - but everyone knew that it was a policy of targeting civilians. Of course, the UK was on the winning side, so no war crimes trials.

Dylan16807 12y ago

How many people died from the famine? If it's only a tiny fraction of total war deaths, I'm upset but not really sickened. It's the effects of the accidental contamination that sicken me.