U.S. can't ignore victims of Agent Orange

[Monkeyman]

http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20061121/OPINION/6112110338/1048

President Bush's just-ended Asian trip is likely to open doors to trade with Vietnam. That's not enough. It also should open minds to consider U.S. responsibility for Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange.

Our country sprayed the chemical defoliant widely on Vietnam from 1962 to 1971. Agent Orange contained dioxin, which is blamed for cancer,birth defects and other ills. Vietnam says there are 1 million victims in that country-- not only veterans and civilians from the war era, but children born since then.

Most live out of sight, ostracized in a society that can't afford to treat or educate people with disabilities. Afew lucky ones are cared for by religious groups or nonprofits such as Hanoi's Vietnam Friendship Village, a treatment center founded by former GI's.

More disabilities will come now from Iraq because of DU. When is our Country going to step up and fix what we break. Hell we still don't treat children here exposed to Agent Orange I know my son is 30 going on six. I have brother vets who suffer everyday from this . Now think about how many will be affected by DU.

[knowbody0]

1. i am so sorry, Monkeyman

there is no excuse for this. big money makes the laws, big corps build the weapons, it's a big orgy of corporate pigs and the veterans are merely disposable assets. It is an atrocity and absolutely a crime against humanity.

Thank you for your service to our country, peace and love to you and yours.

[Jcrowley]

2. US Military just usin' people like rags

Fewer in number but still significant were barrels ringed with a blue stripe, containing an arsenical herbicide (cacodylic acid) that starves plants of moisture, killing them by drying them out (desiccation).{1} This was Agent Blue. By starving rice plants of moisture, the enemy (including millions of rice-growing villagers) would be starved of their most basic food. With its first recorded use on rice paddies in November 1962, over 1.2 million gallons of Agent Blue were sprayed over the next nine years, forming an essential part of the US government's "rice-killing operations."{2} According to a new study of US military flight records that exposes far greater use of herbicides in Vietnam than previously thought: "Agent Blue was the agent of choice for crop destruction by desiccation throughout the entire war, but more than four million litres of other agents, primarily containing 2,4,5-T, were also used on crops."{3}

Killing rice was a military strategy from the very start of the US aggression in Vietnam. At first, US soldiers attempted to blow up rice paddies and rice stocks, using mortars and grenades. But grains of rice were far more durable than they understood, and were not easily destroyed. Every grain that survived was a seed, to be collected and planted again. In a report to the International War Crimes Tribunal (founded by Bertrand Russell) at the end of 1967, it was stated that: "The soldiers discovered that rice is one of the most maddeningly difficult substances to destroy; using thermite metal grenades it is almost impossible to make it burn and, even if one succeeds in scattering the rice, this does not stop it being harvested by patient men. And so it is easier to use herbicides since defoliation before the rice is ripe means a 60-90 per cent loss of the harvest."{4}

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5639

The most infamous herbicide used was called Agent Orange. The steel drums in which the herbicide was transported were color-coded with an orange stripe. Other colors such as Blue, White, Purple and Pink, were used to designate different herbicide formulations.

http://www.landscaper.net/agent.htm

A few bits of info for any who might happen upon this thread and wish to research further.

K&R

Peace and solidarity to you and yours.

[Nikki Stone1]

3. kick and recommend

One of the first orders of business for the Democratic Congress is to provide funding for veterans' healthcare.

[Mnemosyne]

4. kick and nom. for visibility n/t

[OneBlueSky]

5. and just wait until the depleted uranium victims start surfacing . . .

in the massive numbers anticipated . . . the government is going to have to deal with them, too . . .

[k_jerome]

6. my father died from cancer as a result of agent orange exposure...

I can assure you that our country has continued to ignore these victims. We use up these soldiers while claiming undying support, then spit them out when theres nothing left.

[TahitiNut]

7. They sprayed that crap on us at Long Binh, I believe.

I can't be certain, of course - I've never seen any records. Long Binh Post was like a donut ... built up ground with drainage in the center - which we jokingly called 'the jungle' because it was overgrown with lots of vegetation. Well, they'd fly over and spray - and before long the foliage just shriveled and dropped. The place looked like the "dead zone." Since our unit was adjacent to the 'jungle' on the inner edge of the southern side of the donut, it even got into our drinking water cistern.

There was an above-ground swimming pool in the field near the chapel and parachute tent we used to show movies in at night. The pool would get this shiny chemical layer on the surface that smelled like no pesticide I'd ever smelled. Very few guys would bother using the pool around that time.

[acmejack]

8. I don't see why not

The united States ignores youthful victims of "High Food Insecurity" here in our own Borders, we have no problem dismissing the the 20% of our population, many of them minors, without medical care. By rights we owe reparations to, oh say, 50 million people? Native Americans, Ex Slaves, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Hondurans, Everyone we've screwed so blithely in our grand fulfilling of our manifest destiny! The only question is if there is any kind of Statute of Limitations.

As the Dollar begins what may be it's final nose over into irrelevance among the World's major currencies, it is appropriate we talk of additional impoverishing measures. That National Service program that everyone was so dead set against may actually be the only way this Nation survives, if it is to survive. I believe people here shall be very distressed if the Union actually falls.

But what do I know? Dismiss these as the ramblings of an old fool.