Legacy of Agent Orange
widerimage.reuters.com
widerimage.reuters.com
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
This is the entrance to the site as it approximately looks today:
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.
FWIW, even though far larger quantities were sprayed over Vietnam, the spraying made the contamination less permanent than in the Netherlands. Hopefully most of what was sprayed in the war has been run off into the ocean, with no pluming and relatively little groundwater contamination.
Although "relatively" is rather less comforting when the contamination involves dioxins.
Yes. It's incredible how toxic that stuff is.
From the article (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
> 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.
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.
This was not an attempt to starve the civilian population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-mis...
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?
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.
Sadly, most partially or fully engineered famines have never been prosecuted. Witness an Gorta Mór or Holodomor.
To liken this to the Holocaust is massively disrespectful to the Jewish people, Holocaust victims, and the Americans who fought in Vietnam.
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.
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.
So, I ask again, how is killing 85 % of all crops different?
That is comparing fundamentally different things based on a single non-essential concrete.
The most important point: Nazism was an evil fascist ideology that willfully killed millions. The United States has never been that way.
Secondarily, to give a concrete difference: The civillian death toll from Nazism was massively greater than the civillian death toll in Vietnam, even if you are extremely generous in figuring the latter (estimates range from 245,000 to 2 million, per Wikipedia).
I think the point was that both the Nazi-induced famine and the US-induced famine (and subsequent contamination) are both war crimes.
> The most important point: Nazism was an evil fascist ideology that willfully killed millions.
No doubt, but it seems that the non-fascist America doesn't seem have been, in this case, much more interested in sparing civilians.
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.
[1] http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2003/02/20030230.php [2] http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html
Don't think the Japanese and Germans are not guilty either.
And yes, I'm sure had we lost wwii we'd have been in for war crimes, such is the world.
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War...
I can only assume (my father died several years ago) that he felt somewhat ashamed of his time in the war. I didn't appreciate the negativity surrounding the bombing campaigns until more recently when they opened the memorial in Hyde Park corner in London (http://www.rafbf.org/1794/bomber-command-memorial.html). It's difficult to appreciate this when you grow up watching films like the Dambusters and 633 Squadron and seeing these guys as heroes. Dads are always heroes.
Wait, what? At the very end US Troops were evacuated from Saigon, and the city was taken over by the Viet Cong. That was the end of the Vietnam war. South Vietnam was reunified with North Vietnam. It's still a communist country.
I'm very sorry, but exactly how is that not complete and total defeat, except under ridiculous exceptions like, "it wasn't really a war because: Congress"? What a disservice to everyone that fought.
The war escalated to the point where LBJ could neither stop, nor continue without basically destroying his legacy (as well as humanitarian and social goals), so he just kept fighting.
Officials from all factions in (for one example) the Bosnian civil war have been tried by the ICTY. So unless all sides suffered "utter defeat", that is demonstrably untrue.
One could argue that prior to the establishment of modern tribunals starting with the ICTY (but also including the ICTR and ICC), that was the case. And there might be other reasons that the US, in particular, is difficult to hold accountable. But its pretty clear that it is no longer the case that "to be charged with war crimes requires utter defeat", or even mere defeat.
The US just left. They left with egg on their face and not looking so superpowery but neither Vietnam or the USSR were in a position to do anything to the US. The US lost, but the US was not vanquished. Actually they basically went home and life just continued on.
The Nuremburg Trials were possible because the Allies were in direct control of the territory of Nazi Germany and had removed it's government. Below someone brought up the various Yugoslav conflicts, but even then, they stopped and then started rounding up the former leaders because NATO basically made it happen. NATO did forceably end those wars.
The nature of war and sovereignty and the absence of international institutions has certainly led to that being a non-implausible perception of war crimes enforcement in the past, but I'm not sure that can be squared with the more recent situation demonstrated by ad hoc tribunals like ICTY and ICTR as well as the standing tribunals like the ICC.
> While the US was not victorious in Vietnam, neither were they defeated by the Vietnamese/USSR.
On the other hand, if you are posting from some alternate universe where that is true, the current experience in war crimes prosecutions might also be different there, too.
It's the effects of the accidental contamination that sicken me.
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.
[https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerr...]
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?
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.
No, on the contrary, it was made to deal with such cases.
But apparently only if you're not American.
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.
Yes, I'm pissed off on US, how they do what they want around the world in name of money and more power, and even try to lie to the face of the rest of the world about its motives. I don't see much change with present... methods changed, results not so much (ie Iraq poisoning with depleted uranium from those cool A-10 shells and thousands of kids with borne deffects). It's very hard to have much sympathy with events like 9/11 where +-3000 people died, when here we are talking about millions.
They only way I'll show my resent is try to NOT buy/use any US product, be it hardware spehere, or software. Of course, only when it actually makes sense and where proper non-US competition exists. In face of Snowden story, it should probably be agenda of many non-US companies nevertheless.
America gets most of the flak because it has the most power and influence. But out of all the hegemonies and empires in human history, I suspect the American one is among the most benevolent, if not the most benevolent.
That isn't to excuse its behavior if you find it abhorrent. But it is what it is. We are very lucky to live in the times we live in. The world was not nearly so kind only a few years ago. World powers now talk soft and pass all kinds of laws and treaties and human rights conventions and pay lip service and quite a bit more to principles that would have been laughed at for most of our history. To take this particular example, almost all historical generals would have laughed in your face and called you an idiot if you told them depriving citizenry of food was evil and they shouldn't do it.
What I wonder is how long this situation can last. We are a great aberration and I do not think it can last forever. We're already seeing some of the consequences: guerrilla warfare is effectively unstoppable as long as we have moral compunctions regarding civilians.
Iraqis (like other Middle Eastern Muslims) have high rates of birth defects because they have high rates of cousin marriage: http://www.marchofdimes.org/materials/global-report-on-birth...
Nicaragua did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States
"The ICJ ruled in favor of Nicaragua and against the United States and awarded reparations to Nicaragua. The ICJ held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The United States refused to participate in the proceedings after the Court rejected its argument that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The U.S. later blocked enforcement of the judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any actual compensation."
However, great powers are exempt from being challenged by international law, because they simply don't permit it.
Or to put it another way, you can't have laws without a method of enforcement, and there is no way to enforce international law.
But the battle for compensation continues: http://www.globalresearch.ca/seeking-compensation-for-vietna...
When someone asks me why I don't want Monsanto to grow my food I think I need no other answer.
But if you do and his head starts to hurt so he grabs some Aspirin, don't ever bring up Bayer. ;).
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.
Monsanto had told the US government about dioxin contamination of 2,4,5-T as early as 1952.
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.
An entity which has no moral issue from profiting, immensely, from the production of poison.
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.
So many companies and countries have regrettable histories that pointing fingers seems redundant to me.
Monsanto & healthy food is an oxymoron. Try drinking some Roundup. I hear it's "safe" ;-)
Apparently he succeeded. I guess it's a lesson in designing propaganda - be an asshole, people will believe you.
Also, I'm not particularly convinced that the insane amount of stuff farmers dump on their crops is really better than replacing all of it with just one pesticide.
Well, it's supposed to be "safe". Why didn't he drink it?
And the interview was originally about Golden Rice.
> Also, I'm not particularly convinced that the insane amount of stuff farmers dump on their crops is really better than replacing all of it with just one pesticide.
Actually, in a functioning ecosystem, no pesticides are needed. Insects & other microorganisms are natural parts of the food web.
http://www.permaculture.com/node/140
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk&feature=youtu.be
Urine is also safe. Would you drink your own in front of a camera if I asked you to during an interview on water purification systems?
Most people react negatively to such weird requests, especially if they're out of the blue, in front of a camera, and asked by person who evidently tries to prove some point at your expense.
> And the interview was originally about Golden Rice.
Yes, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Roundup. Golden rice is a cool piece of biotech created to save more than half a million lives of children annually (and save many more from blindness) and is given away for free to grow (and replant) by people that need it. Bringing up Monsanto's pesticide in that interview was disingenuous, not to mention off-topic.
> Actually, in a functioning ecosystem, no pesticides are needed. Insects & other microorganisms are natural parts of the food web.
First of all, not really. That is, sure if you don't mind half your crops being rotten. I've never seen the evidence that you can successfully run a high-yield zero-pesticide farm. But I'm not that into farming and I'll be more than happy to learn I'm wrong.
But more importantly, even if possible, apparently almost no one does that. Especially not organic farmers, who dump even more chemicals on food than usual, with only difference is that those chemicals have "organic-certified" label. So between "a lot of pesticides", "even more pesticides applied by industry that tries to cheat you into thinking they're not using pesticides" the "one pesticide" solution suddenly doesn't sound that bad.
The differences are I'm not trying to peddle my urine as the "only" way to grow food and urine actually is safe. Roundup is not safe.
Btw, urine is a wonderful fertilizer. It's more effective & more environmentally friendly than the petrol biz solutions.
It's funny that the people spraying pesticides need to wear haz mat suits. If it were so safe, why wear the suits?
Here's some of the effects that these "safe" pesticides have on people.
http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/argentina-the-country...
IMO, this whole notion that we accept poisons on our food is ridiculous. But ymmv. Many people are content getting fat & diabetic eating McDonalds.
> That is, sure if you don't mind half your crops being rotten.
Sorry, but that's a load of BS. Local farms don't really have this issue. Also note there is a huge problem of waste with conventional farming & animal meat production.
Re: "pests". Pests have predators. If you encourage the predators to thrive, you don't have a pest problem. Conventional monoculture chemical agricultural practices are prone to disease & pests because the natural food web & community is disrupted. It's an unsound architecture that requires expensive & destructive inputs to maintain. It's the industrial model fighting nature.
Why not work with nature instead?
> I've never seen the evidence that you can successfully run a high-yield zero-pesticide farm.
See the links I posted above. Both high-yield farms use zero-pesticides.
> But I'm not that into farming and I'll be more than happy to learn I'm wrong.
Maybe you should look more into it before stating such a strong opinion...It sounds like you are heavily influenced by propaganda from large chemical & petrol companies. I don't blame you, they have huge marketing budgets & are owned by the same interests that run the major media outlets. Too bad nature doesn't have a marketing department, huh?
> But more importantly, even if possible, apparently almost no one does that.
That's untrue. Natural methods are still dominant in most of the world. America is an outlier.
America subsidizes petrol chemical centralized agriculture. We don't subsidize natural methods. Lobbying & corporate interests drive this behavior.
> Especially not organic farmers, who dump even more chemicals on food than usual, with only difference is that those chemicals have "organic-certified" label.
The USDA Organic label is pretty asinine. Many think it's a way of sabotaging natural chemical free methods.
Note that natural food webs don't need chemicals. It has been done successfully but does not receive much attention on a large scale because it does not suit large scale corporate interests. If you take an interest in chemical free gardening, you can try it out yourself.
Natural methods emphasizes small, autonomous farms. It's also better for the environment since natural ecosystems are built (serving a variety of functions), instead of the monoculture pesticide drenched, petrol subsidized, environmentally destructive system that we have today.
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.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prov...
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq
http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigati...
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.
http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/researc...
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.
The conclusion of not working in an office might be the same, but it's not just because of The Man.
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.
And it's not their failing if such important depressing things distract them from getting their work done. It doesn't have to be offensive to be a bad idea to share with people that are trying to be productive.
The way you describe it, you must work in one of those interminable open floor plan offices.
Impressions are often more important than content here.
It's like swearing. By culture, I'm inclined to swear when something goes bad (i.e. hard to find bug), but I know some people don't like it, so I try not to do it around them, or around people whom I don't know well enough.
It's common courtesy, even if there is noone clamoring for it.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/magazine/what-pakistan-kne...