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."
Re:Five million acres (Score:3, Informative)
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-term effects to however much of the human element of the ecology that was exposed to it. Agent orange was the chemical version of the nuclear option.
monsanto (Score:1, Informative)
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.
Re:No, you are not (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:No, you are not (Score:0, Informative)
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).
Re:No, you are not (Score:2, Informative)
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 the only major power who refused to agree to broad treaties restricting their use.
And just to clear the record- We didn't lay down the minefields in Iraq which are going to keep killing people. They are deployed as a defense tactic, not as part of an offense. We had some fields setup as part of defensive areas around bases and other military installations, and those were cleared when we closed down the facilities. The ones which are going to keep killing people are the unknown and unmarked ones the Iraqi's put down themselves.