[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;37148936]I always believed Agent Orange was just silly codename for orange kool-aid![/QUOTE]
insensitive
41 million dollars, what a joke.
They probably can't even build the facilities they'll need to process the contaminated material with 41 million dollars.
However this IS a very good lesson in international diplomacy. By admitting fault, and giving funds to clean it up, the US is giving the Vietnamese government a way to sell their people on closer ties with the US. There is oil offshore of Vietnam, the US can help the Vietnamese protect it from the Chinese and of course the US can always use more oil.
In contrast, to this day the Japanese still will not acknowledge what they did to their neighbors during WWII. So their relationship with the Chinese is not going to move forward any time soon, and any gains the Japanese might reap from a better relationship with China are lost.
God that was a nasty war
America fucked up big time
Agent Orange is scary . I remember looking it up a few years back on Wikipedia because I had read about it somewhere. The pictures of the mutated stillborn babies and the man with red bulbous skin are disturbing as fuck.
The use of such a thing with such a malicious and long lasting effect on it's intended targets and even those who inadvertently were involved in being around it is nothing short of a war crime. At least they are finally doing something other than shoveling money at the country in an attempt for them to stop digging up the past.
My dad was in the Vietnam War as a navigator for the EP2E's dropping napalm and agent orange into areas, and about five years ago he went in to the doctors because of a bad cough he had. Turns out that the agent orange had caused tumors to develop within his lungs and have been there for 40 years.
after how long
40 years?
[QUOTE=WhatAmI;37191595]God that was a nasty war
America fucked up big time[/QUOTE]
You mean the French.
[QUOTE=Resfan;37192254]You mean the French.[/QUOTE]
No pretty sure it was America
[QUOTE=WhatAmI;37193034]No pretty sure it was America[/QUOTE]
No, pretty sure the French started the whole ordeal.
Pretty sure it was the US who used Agent Orange
Pretty sure that's the main point of this thread
Still, had the French not started this, cried to us for help, then backed out.
There wouldn't be any agent orange.
I see where this is going
[QUOTE=Clavus;37149828]At least the use of chemical weapons no longer flies during wartime. Same goes for napalm and cluster bombs. That's one thing you can credit the US military for: they've been hard at work to make sure they're only killing the things they want to kill. Plenty of times they still fuck up and kill civilians, but it's no longer a huge free-for-all during wartime like in the past. Now hope they figure out a way to avoid war altogether.[/QUOTE]
Well that's not true, the US still uses DU ammunition, which has caused cancer rates to jump incredibly in countries like Serbia, Bosnia, Puerto Rico, and Iraq. It might not be a free-for-all, but that does not make the actions the US takes in military zones in anyway understandable or acceptable.
Grandpa was a navigator on a plane during the war and an agent orange canister leaked or whatever and years later it turned into lung cancer.
[QUOTE=W0w00t;37150632]soldiers dont try to kill civilians.
(except the nutjobs. and nutjobs can be found anywhere)[/QUOTE]
I don't want to be killed by soldiers.
[QUOTE=Resfan;37193079]Still, had the French not started this, cried to us for help, then backed out.
There wouldn't be any agent orange.[/QUOTE]
Don't underestimate the hard on we here in the US had for stopping the spread of communism. That's how the Vietnam war was sold to the public, it was not sold as a fight for France's honor, lol.
[QUOTE=Resfan;37193079]Still, had the French not started this, cried to us for help, then backed out.
There wouldn't be any agent orange.[/QUOTE]
You are blaming the french for something they had not done, caused or had any involvement with other than bringing the people who were to use it into the conflict? That is like hiring a bodyguard and then he goes on a shooting spree then blaming his employer for something clearly their own crime.
Agent orange before it was called that was a common defoliant, we just produced and used so much of it that we eventually got contaminated batches of the stuff that caused the whole problem.
[url]http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormoslyr[/url] for one such trade name for it's use in sweden.
Only difference between the common one used, and agent orange is the contaminant.
Also here you go, someone drinking what agent orange is supposed to be;
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZssCEZKX-ds[/url]
[QUOTE=Resfan;37193079]Still, had the French not started this, cried to us for help, then backed out.
There wouldn't be any agent orange.[/QUOTE]
Had the United States not used Agent Orange, there wouldn't be any Agent Orange.
Can't just keep backtracking to blame somebody else for a decision the United States made. Unless the French government had the power to order the United States to escalate the war or something.
[QUOTE=Kinversulath;37199334]Had the United States not used Agent Orange, there wouldn't be any Agent Orange.[/QUOTE]
The dangers of Agent Orange weren't known yet.
My uncle died of cancer before I could get to meet him.
We don't know the details, but my family blames Agent Orange for it.
[QUOTE=Resfan;37193057]No, pretty sure the French started the whole ordeal.[/QUOTE]
err no. This is how it went down.
Uprising successfully defeats the french in the north, while the French remained in control of the South. Creating the North / South divide.
It was no longer in France's interest to maintain the colony so they drew up plans that afterwards the two parts of the country will be unified in a nationwide elections.
The Southern government were a buttfuck nasty dictatorship, who with American support veto'd the democratic elections on the pretext that the Communists were going to win the elections.
Thus began one of the most senseless and dramatic modern failures of western foreign affairs we've ever had the miss-fortune of inflicting upon the world - that destroyed millions of lives because we feared they would 'vote the wrong way' in democracy.
EDIT: oh yeah, and agent orange is fucking nasty and I've seen the damage with my own eyes. Entire strips of completely destroyed biodiversity, affectionately called 'American Grass'. Because that is the only plant life that can still grow there.
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