US Is Finally Cleaning Up Agent Orange In Vietnam 277
derekmead writes "It only took 40 years. And yes, Washington still disputes Hanoi's claim that up to 4 million Vietnamese suffered contact with the defoliant, which was dumped en masse in a U.S. air campaign to scorch away the dense jungle cover under which guerilla fighters hid. But the AP reports that the U.S. is finally set to start cleaning up the mess. The numbers are staggering: Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed some 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and a galaxy of other herbicides on nearly a quarter of former South Vietnam. The defoliant ate through about 5 millions acres – a tract comparable in size to Massachusetts – of forest. An additional half-million acres of crops were decimated."
If I was cynical... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would think that the clean up was a pre-requisite to the large resort chains going in and buying up the beach front...I hear it's beautiful there.
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Re:If I was cynical... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If I was cynical... (Score:5, Interesting)
They indeed do ... even if you were being funny.
With 6 million annual visitors and a 20+% growth rate, it currently is ahead of places like Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan and Australia ... while rapidly closing in on Hawaii, Portugal, South Africa and Egypt.
Also for the US audience - already twice the tourism level of Cancun - so don't doubt the big money that is about to pour into that place.
Vietnam is clearly heading to replace Thailand for many people.
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Probably safer than Cancun in this day and age.
Probably the same scam-the-tourist games from cabbies and locals too, different language.
No red tequila though. *sigh*
Re:If I was cynical... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you are not (Score:5, Insightful)
Vietnam is opening up to foreign investors, and the United States is increasingly in competition against the Chinese in the influence game in South East Asia
While the Vietnamese communist government may want to get on the side of the US to counter the red China, most people of Vietnam just do not trust Uncle Sam
What took place in the village of My Lai and the Gulf of Tonkin incident have burned into the brains of many Vietnamese
BTW, the clean up of Agent Orange should not only be done in Vietnam, but also in Laos and Cambodia
Too many deaths, sufferings, and deformations had resulted from the Agent Orange - and Uncle Sam must be man enough to acknowledge what they had done, and to amend the damages that they had caused
Re:No, you are not (Score:5, Interesting)
...most people of Vietnam just do not trust Uncle Sam
That is the opposite of the impression I got when I travelled Vietnam for three weeks earlier this year. "We love Hillary and want to chop off the heads of the Chinese" to quote one guy I talked to. I have no impression that anyone holds any grudges because of the Vietnam war atleast in the younger population. China is seen as a big threat and USA / the west as the good guys.
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You sure it wasn't "We love the U.S. and want to chop off the head of Hillary and send it to the Chinese"? It really sounds more like a realistic context. Just sayin'...
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I think you will find tourists are always welcome. It's like the Scissor Sisters; whatever town they visit they tell the crowd is their new hometown and everyone there is wonderful, even if it is Dagenham.
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I was in Thailand at the end of the Vietnam war, and the Thais were of the same opinion (of course, they were on our side during the war).
That part of the world has a written history going back thousands of years, and for most of that history China was an agressive empire that repeatedly invaded Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, India, and anybody else they could reach. Vietnam may have a ten year history to hate us for, but they have thousands of years of history to hate the Chinese for.
Plus, it wa
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Whoa, kinda nit picky there fella.We all know war is terrible and Vietnam happened right in front of our eyes. War isn't fair. It isn't a game with referees like basketball, that can blow a whistle and stop play.Bad shit happens to innocent people in EVERY WAR.Now quit acting like the U.S. military invented sin.
If Vietnam works like the rest of the world, there will be a percentage that love us and a percentage that hate us and a smaller percentage that do not care. Just like our civil war, more than a cent
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China is Viet Nam's HISTORIC enemy.
Vietnamese, not being stupid, UNDERSTAND this, and China does things to remind them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War [wikipedia.org]
The French, Japanese, French post-WWII, then the US are just blips on the radar. Americans need to "grow the fuck up" re: the Viet Nam war. We supposedly fought it to help Viet Nam, and should retain the same goal for _mutual_ benefit.
It's OVER. So is WWII, and this many years out the US and West Germany and Japan were staunch ALLIES.
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We are friends with Germany and Japan, but the governments of Germany and Japan that we fought are gone, and if they came back I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be friends with them. The government of Vietnam isn't gone; we may have tried to help "Vietnam", but we certainly didn't try to help that particular government.
Re:The atrocities (Score:5, Interesting)
"No, it was not "very common"."
Not according to journals from my Grandfather, Lt. Col USMC, who served it all from WWII up to Korea/Vietnam.
That shit happened DAILY.
You're starting to sound pretty ignorant of history. THAT is foolish.
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Too many deaths, sufferings, and deformations had resulted from the Agent Orange - and Uncle Sam must be man enough to acknowledge what they had done, and to amend the damages that they had caused
Agent Orange is not the only weapon that stays behind when the soldiers leave. The U.S. still refuses to sign any international agreements on not using landmines. In the next three decades mines are going to keep killing in Iraq.
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The U.S. still refuses to sign any international agreements on not using landmines. In the next three decades mines are going to keep killing in Iraq.
International agreements are rarely worth the paper they're written on- they're mostly just publicity. There are plenty of reasons why we haven't signed any of the proposed unilateral landmine treaties, but I doubt you're actually interested as to why. I will point out we already are phasing out most types of landmines in most situations. http://www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/c11735.htm
I'll also mention we HAVE signed agreements regarding the use of landmines, among other weapons, and I'll also point out we're not
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If I remember correctly, the US has committed itself to not using mines anywhere in the world other than the DMZ between North Korea and South Korea. There are 30,000 Marines stationed at the DMZ as a speed bump to any North Korean invasion. The Marines are supposed to get killed and force America to intervene on behalf of South Korea. As one might imagine, the DMZ is strewn with minefields, and the North Koreans are thought to have substantial tunnels under the entire damned mess. I think American policy i
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the us has not sewn fields of random landmines in iraq. they have used landmines exclusively for base perimeter defense and even then it is doubtful that there is much or even any of that in iraq (it is primarily used in the DPRK DMZ, where it makes sense). your claim about the future use of landmines is anti-american nonsense. in vietnam, the us had nearly zero use of landmines. the landmines in cambodia are almost entirely of Soviet origin (to balance it out and to blame americans on the issue in cambodia, the fiction of 'unexploded cluster mines' is used - to believe this, you'd also have to believe ridiculous overestimates that 10-20% of us air-dropped cluster munitions failed to explode).
The reason people count cluster munitions as landmine is because the US loves using weapons like this to prevent a hostile area being moved through freely by enemy forces:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-43 [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system [wikipedia.org]
That is why people could them as "Unexploded Cluster Munitions". The problem is the dud rate of mines that do not explode after 15 days and just sit there until some child picks it up and shakes it or something thereby bridging whatever electrical contact brok
Re:No, you are not (Score:4, Insightful)
you would have to be either crazy or retarded to trust the government
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I hear it's beautiful there.
KILGORE: "Well, why didn't you tell me that before? A good peak. There aren't any good peaks in this whole shitty country. It's all goddamn beach break."
MIKE: "It's pretty hairy in there. It's Charlie's Point."
KILGORE: "Charlie don't surf!"
Five million acres (Score:2)
Added a whole new dimension to the old tactic of slash and burn, didn't it?
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Do the trees know the difference?
Re:Five million acres (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that they're de-toxing the soil 40 years later tells me there's a difference. Simple slash-and-burn at least allows regrowth if the farmers go away.
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Vietnam simply gets more attention due to the long-term effects of Agent Orange.
And in that respect it's not unlike a nuclear blast (or meltdown), right? The "long-term effects" makes those far more destructive to an ecology and economy than even the most severe conventional warfare. The Chernobyl disaster was more destructive than German bombs and artillery of World War II; at least a bombed-out building can be rebuilt, but Chernobyl was like a real estate version of "denial of service"... can't even rebuild when the entire environment is still lethal. And don't forget the long-te
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I take it noone ever told you that they rebuilt Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Immediately after the War, in fact.
They probably also didn't mention that the area around Chernobyl is a nature preserve now....
That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
But what about our fathers who also had this shit sprayed on them and told to fuck off and die of cancer?
Re:That's nice (Score:4, Insightful)
Or their children who were born with birth defects...
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Or their children who were born with birth defects...
Exactly. It's a life-time battle just for a US Vietnam Vet to prove he was in the place he was in at the time this shit got sprayed on them, let alone get help for their children.
I can't imagine slowly dying of cancer and know that their children are 2nd generation casualties of this shit. This goes for both sides of the battlefield.
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Interesting)
My father served in Vietnam as a truck driver. The foliage on the sides of the roads were a main target for the agent orange deployments, and the truck drivers likely received a proportionally higher dose due to their continuing contact with the agent.
He major inflammation of the heart 6 months after returning from Vietnam, and a series of heart attacks from Ischemic heart disease over the next few decades. He had a multitude of other illnesses that are typically associated with exposure.
I was born with several birth defects. They are mostly manageable with medicine, but still, it sucked being 18 and having to take beta-blockers so my heart wouldn't tear itself to pieces.
My Father's illnesses are under presumed status, meaning that all he had to demonstrate in order to receive benefits was that he was in Vietnam during the time period agent orange was deployed, and that he had a disease recognized to be caused by exposure. This recognition did not happen until a few years ago. He had spent the last 15 years in near poverty as he could no longer work due to the advanced heart disease, which required a quadruple bipass.
The causality for my health issues is less defined, and I'm basically on my own for the treatment.
Growing up dealing with this, and watching my Dad fight PTS and his illnesses made me very suspicious of the government at a young age. Sadly, all that insight has seemed to gain me is a disgust for the blind and ignorant patriotism most people I meet seem to display.
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I can only hope that today's ruler, through your father's and your own sacrifice, can realize the true cost of going to war, and stop it.
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Fuck you. You are displaying the bullshit armband attitude that makes this stuff possible in the first place. Just because soldiers (or truck drivers, for that matter) have "American" in their passport, doesn't exactly they're the ones who profit from the wars they're used as cannon fodder in.
And even if it did: punishing children for what their fathers did? Fuck you.
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And the kids of those soldiers? Were they paid? Did they serve? Were they ever given a choice?
Johann said it best. "Punishing children for what their fathers did? Fuck you."
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Add one more tally to this category - our family has had essentially the same exact story as the other folks are describing here...
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This may sound like very little, but there are stories of major site in which mining and indust
Dioxin contamination (Score:2)
Re:That's nice (Score:4, Insightful)
Your fathers are Darwin award winners.
+1 Unwitting Stupidity
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Informative)
You're fathers went to war to kill people in a spot of land that as none of are business. Your fathers are Darwin award winners.
Or they were drafted or conscripted - like mine.
And then their allies, the Americans, forgot to tell the Aussies - "Yo, spraying some nasty shit over here, might want to get out".
And then their kids (me), were born deaf and lost a father to cancer as a result of it.
So yeah, fuck you.
Agent Orange (Score:3)
Created by responsible corporate citizens under the auspices of the Defense Production Act [wikipedia.org]
Pssst, hey IRAQ, I heard about US WMDs (Score:3)
Interesting that US WMDs are still poisoning a country half a world away, whilst US forces are in another country, nearly half a world away (other direction) on a hunt for bogus WMDs.
If I were cynical, I'd call that hypocritical.
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Agent orange isn't realistically considered a WMD since it the side effects from over exposure that can potentially be fatal compared to real WMDs like Nuclear weapons and Chemical (VX and Sarin) and Bio-Weapons (Anthrax) that are designed to do one thing and that is kill en mass
Nasty stuff that Agent orange? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was in Nam towards the end ('73) while in the Army, I was stationed at an abandoned
Air Force hospital (flush toilets, hot water, Hooch's) - a Mash unit at Tuy Hoa.
Apparently different companies "downsized" together into one. A conex that had
been some groups bagage had been sitting alone outside of our hospital since I'd been there.
Bored I poked through it one day. It was filled with stuff I couldn't explain then nor now. A lot
of atropine self injectors (they make lousy darts), cases of them and new rubber suits.
Imagine Dracula's cape with a hood, I wanted one for myself. It was made
entirely out of a thick soft rubber, with it and other items I found, one could be
completely covered and safe from nerve gas (my first impression).
I haven't heard of anything thing that could justify such an outfit, except agent orange.
If it were used in it's dispersion, Agent orange was seen as some nasty stuff
by those who used to own that conex.
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The Ranch Hand guys didn't wear such things, but they should have had exposure suits or at least mask and gloves. A cape/poncho wouldn't have helped.
Scroll down to the unfortunate Airman working without protective gear:
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Operation-Ranch-Hand18oct97.htm [mindfully.org]
Agent Orange doesn't have an antidote. (You can look up its components, 2 4-D, 2,4,5-T, online.)
Atropine is specifically an antidote to either nerve agent or pesticides containing similar compounds. Those autoinjectors have bee
Autoinjectors, missing accessories (Score:2)
I'll back up couchslug on the idea that the capes were probably part of an early form of MOPP [wikipedia.org] gear. There are cape-style soviet designs [russianwarrior.com], maybe some of these were captured?
Speaking of missing equipment, there should have been 2PAM-Chloride [nih.gov] autoinjectors as well, they ought to have been packaged together (at least, they are today when distributed to soldiers). I hear that that the 2PAM vials get abused by snipers as muscle relaxants, though, so they may have walked away some time before your inspection...
What comes around go around (Score:2)
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About 82 cubic feet [wikipedia.org], if you include storage on the roof. Though how they managed to send it back in time is still an open question. Or perhaps they meant a Galaxie [wikipedia.org].
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To put 20 million gallons into perspective, a typical high quality home garden hose has a practical flow rate of 20 to 25 gallons per minute, it would take such a hose a bit under 2 years to disperse this much Agent Orange.
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So, it's basically the same as 10,000 people watering their lawn for a couple hours. Doesn't seem so bad.
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That's an exceptionally large flow for a standard 5/8" hose, especially in a house that might only have a 1" to 1-1/2" service, maybe even only a 3/4" service, and often less than 30 psi at the meter. For 20 gpm through an ID of 5/8" you'd be talking about velocities in excess of 20 Feet Per Second and pressure drops of over 100 psi per 100 feet of hose. Chicago plumbing code requires sizing supp
Re:Decimated? (Score:4, Funny)
How do you get nine acres to beat another acre to death?
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How do you get nine acres to beat another acre to death?
First, you have to recruit them into a legion, or so I've heard. Rural acres are usually preferred, which is satisfied in this case.
Re:Decimated? (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations, in your haste to be OUTRAGED, you missed the fact that the GP was just making a (lame) joke about the definition of the word "decimated".
That's funny.... (Score:3)
The US barely helps allies it bombed.
Unless Laos got a gift card I'm unaware of?
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Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Still our enemy "technically?" Relations with Vietnam were normalized years ago. We have an embassy there. We have trade agreements with them. I mean, yes, if you consider them to be gooks, then I guess you need to consider them our enemy but that's an individual thing.
Really, who gives a shit if we supply some technical support to cleaning up crap that we sprayed. Regardless of what you think of the war and the VC, it was a pretty fucking lame thing to do. Kind of like the military equivalent of peei
Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hear, hear. Considering that the US's days as the uncontested military superpower are likely numbered (I'd give us a few more decades at most), it seems to me it makes good long-term strategic sense to start cultivating friendships and good will now, when our actions still matter. Especially considering the massive loss of global good will we've suffered in the last decade.
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The losing side pays reparations if the winning side is capable of forcing them to. If the winning side is not capable of forcing them to, the losing side doesn't pay reparations.
The West couldn't even force Germany to pay all their reparations after World War I, and trying to force them was one of the things that helped start World War II.
And I don't think Iraq was made to pay any reparations to Kuwait after the Kuwaitis drove them out (with the help of a foreign power, same as Vietnam did). Nor has the
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I stand corrected for Iraq.
Has Al Qaeda paid any significant reparations for 9/11? We managed to freeze some assets, but I believe that was a pretty small percentage of the damage.
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Maybe not, but the US is, as usual, trying to buy friends. Never works, but it never stops them from trying.
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Fair point. Now I'm sad...
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Define "won". And then try explaining it to a Vietnamese civilian who went through that war.
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If you want to point out that to a Vietnamese civilian, the war wasn't exactly won, you don't even need to invoke the United States for that. Just getting the government that Vietnam actually got after the war was a clear loss for everyone except high-ranking members of that government.
When the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan, was that a win for the average Afghani? No, regardless of civilian casualties, because being ruled by the Taliban is a loss all by itself.
Re:Tough luck (Score:5, Insightful)
They won in the sense that they kept fighting until the US decided to pull out. It's not like they were marching on Washington DC. Your reasoning would only make sense in a symmetric war.
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If Vietnam needs something from the US as a result of the war (cleanup of Agent Orange), and they didn't get it, and they are incapable of forcing the US to provide it, then it's not like total victory in every meaningful way.
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The whole world owes it to its own continued survival to rid itself of callous greed and forked tongues; and the blind obedience to them, which you so aptly expressed.
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This doesn't have to do anything with someone "owing" to someone else. Sometimes, you know, you do things just because they're the right things to do.
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This is either a PR stunt or the US is trying to befriend Vietnam, possibly because that would make invading Iran easier, or maybe to build yet another military base.
Yes, that's what we need to invade Iran: a base that's on the other side of India and Pakistan.
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Pretty much this but not sure it its in the sense you meant it... The US is buttering up Vietnam because of China and we Vietnam isn't really against being friends with eh US now it counters China's influence in the region it's also why they're working with Russia it's all about containing the influence of China and the negative impacts i might have in Vietnam
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We always talk about the US fighting a war, winning it, but failing to win the peace. Well, that doesn't just apply when the US is the one who won the war. Vietnam fought a war, won it, and earned the right to send millions of their people to reeducation camps, and to execute up to 200,000 of them, but they failed to win the peace. (I wonder if more people went to reeducation camps than were affected by Agent Orange.) The US hasn't been able to get the Taliban to pay for the damage caused by 9/11; why s
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Not sure if you're aware, but wars are not contests in being selfless and giving towards your opposite. Generally the point is to win.
Re:What the...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure if you're aware, but wars are not contests in being selfless and giving towards your opposite. Generally the point is to win.
Yup. But the point was, this was an unnecessary war that was mostly being conducted because Lyndon Johnson couldn't figure out a way to withdraw that wouldn't result in people blaming him. And, like most wars, those who suffered were mostly civilians.
Sometimes I think that no country should be allowed to go to war, if it hasn't has a war on its own soil in the last fifty years. We (the USA, or rather the former Confedracy) last had a war on our soil in 1865 (if you don't count a few skirmishes in WW2), so we can't identify with the horror.
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"Allowed to go to war"? How are you going to stop a country that decides to go to war anyway? By going to war with them?
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I dont know, his idea has some elegance to it. Iran says "screw you guys we're getting a nuke", we respond "oh yea? Well we're getting an IRAN. IN YOUR FACE."
I think it could work.
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> Make it legal to confiscate all the wealth of the countries that goes to war
Do you have any idea how much foreign money is invested in the United States? Or the EU, for that matter? And more importantly, how much of that money is invested by citizens of the few remaining countries capable of even pretending they could TRY to enforce such an edict against the US or EU, without getting themselves wiped off the map in retaliation?
War is not a board game. The highest-raking Generals and Admirals in the US
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Great idea. Except for the whole "couldn't help in WWII" thing.
Hey wait, we were ATTACKED in that war! That counts as a war on our soil... but I guess we "don't count" them.
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> What state of the US was attacked in WWII?
(keeping in mind that Hawaii wasn't technically a state at the time)
California -- http://www.militarymuseum.org/Ellwood.html [militarymuseum.org]
Oregon -- http://www.kilroywashere.org/006-Pages/06-BombOregon.html [kilroywashere.org]
And let's not forget the "Fu-Go" (Fire Balloon) attack --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon
On the other side of the US, the Germans sank a few ships off the coast of Florida, and had at least one sub that we know of in Biscayne Bay. Two German spies (planning to blow
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Oregon.
Northern Oregon: Bombardment of Ft. Stevens [wikipedia.org]
Southern Oregon: Japanese Submarine Attacks on Curry County in World War II [portorford...tation.org]
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. We (the USA, or rather the former Confedracy) last had a war on our soil in 1865
Wouldn't that still include the USA for all definitions of the USA? I can't understand your distinction.
(if you don't count a few skirmishes in WW2)
There were some US territories with skirmishes, but no state of the union received any direct damage. Two of the territories with skirmishes have since become states, but weren't at the time.
But the point was, this was an unnecessary war that was mostly being conducted because Lyndon Johnson couldn't figure out a way to withdraw that wouldn't result in people blaming him.
True of every president after him as well. Nixon didn't mind the blame because he was going down anyway, and Ford got no blame because he was just following Nixon's lead.
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The US didn't even manage to do that, though.
Back then the government of the UK had the sense not to get involved in whatever half-assed brawl the US decided to start. I wish they still did.
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Yeah, the US helped everyone by finally stopping supplying the Germans with oil, food and machinery. The Russians did the bulk of the work.
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War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means. There are many ways to win. One is to try and completely smash your adversary, another is to force them back to the negotiation table. In the case of Vietnam the USA tried very hard, including tactics that backfired pretty hard on its own people. They lost anyway.
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Actually, the US didn't try very hard at all.
If they had "tried hard", they'd have invaded North Vietnam.
As opposed to what we actually did, which was tell the North Vietnamese that we wouldn't ever invade them.
Tell the other guy he's absolutely safe in his own country, and you can never actually win the war....
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So you plan to build the next mars rover?
Not by myself, no. But if even people want one built then they should use their own money to built one. If not enough people want to build one, then one will not get built.
How about just the road to get to the place where the next mars rover will be built? Let us give private citizens and companies the power to do all of that and see how far they want to go spending their money.
People can spend their money on what ever they like. They should not have it forcibly removed from them so it can be spent on something that *someone else* likes.
Quit thinking like a child and realize that there is a reason you are taxed, and its a good one.
The end is not the important part here, the means is. And the end does not justify the means. Compuslory wealth redistribution is nothing short of corrupt.
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Compuslory wealth redistribution is nothing short of corrupt.
Then shut up and move somewhere it isn't practiced.
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Tragedy of the Commons. That's all I have to say.
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You realize that:
1) Agent Orange was a 50:50 mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D [wikipedia.org]
2) 2,4-D is still in widespread use today [wikipedia.org]
3) It was the impurities in the 2,4,5,-T [wikipedia.org] that caused the vast majority of the problems, not the 2,4,5-T, which, when properly manufactured, has relatively low toxicity [wikipedia.org].
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Great idea. The people harmed by colonialism must be compensated. The first step should be giving them back their land (including the Americas). So let's move the descendants of the colonialists back to their native countries. Then those countries can set up funds to help restart the economy of the now underpopulated continents.
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Ya, you shit the world, kill millions of humans, ruin their countries and let them deal with it....
Typical American.
You do realize Vietnam was a French colony, right?
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His point being that whether it was a French, British, or Dutch colony, it was already being shit on and exploited. Typical European colonists.
Sort of, it was more that much of 20th century history involved the US cleaning up after the messes left behind when European colonial powers walked away from their colonies. Now, did the US screw up a lot? Sure. Were we locked in a struggle with the USSR and use smaller countries as proxies? Sure.
But no one just decided, "hey, fuck, let's bomb some brown people and steal their oil!"
And, it's worth noting that it wasn't until after we withdrew from Vietnam, after Saigon fell, and after and the "peace" was e
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Note that Vietnam was "shit on and exploited" by that notorious European colonial power, Japan during WW2.
And that the most recent war Vietnam was involved in was against that other notorious European colonial power, China....
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'troll' or 'off-topic' --- take your choice
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While you are trolling, plenty of the same chemicals have been sprayed in the US.
The reason they were used is that (at the time) their hazards weren't widely known.
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Oh you DID have a choice. You didn't have to attend that war. Some years in jail should seem like a better deal than an agonizing death. OR you could have done what some other people did and sign up early for the NAVY or peace corps or other things. Not that we should expect much from teenagers being pressured... most wouldn't stand a chance in that situation.
MORE IMPORTANTLY their nation's partnership with the USA going forward has economic interests so they do come first. Capitalism above everything.