A component of Agent Orange, 2,4,5-T was produced by Philips-Duphar (A chemical subsdiary of the industry giant) in the Netherlands. At the end of the Vietnam war the remaining stock was dumped in a polder just North of Amsterdam. When the scandal broke it was too late and the chemicals had reacted to form various dioxins which had leached in a gigantic plume into the ground water around the town of Broek In Waterland.<p>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.<p>Photo of the site during the cleanup:<p><a href="http://siebeswart.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jbBzIgQOwR4" rel="nofollow">http://siebeswart.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jbBzIgQOwR4</a><p>This is the entrance to the site as it approximately looks today:<p><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@52.42447,4.991151,3a,75y,103.82h,85.26t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s9BTzdD4dnGQjxXtQ2QAL5w!2e0" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/maps/@52.42447,4.991151,3a,75y,103.82...</a><p>It's one of the most expensive toxic waste operations ever in Europe and the most expensive one to date in NL.<p>People were living within 100 meters of this dump!<p>And that dump is a small fraction of what was dropped over Vietnam.
This is just absolutely disgusting. I wasn't quite sure what Agent Orange was, so I looked it up in Wikipedia... as a Y gen, I knew that the Vietnam War was bad, but not this bad... It is absolutely disgusting and atrocious what humans can do each other.<p>From the article (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam_War" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Use_in_the_Vietnam...</a>):<p>1. 20,000,000 U.S. gallons were sprayed<p>2. Military was told to destroy crops used to feed guerrillas.<p>3. Later discovered nearly all of the food they destroyed were being used to support the local civilian population.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>This stuff sickens me
<p><pre><code> 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.
</code></pre>
-- John Kerry, 1971<p>[<a href="https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerrytestimony.html" rel="nofollow">https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/johnkerr...</a>]
Does any one know...<p>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?<p>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?
From wikipedia: "Agent Orange was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides".[4] The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was contaminated with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."<p>When someone asks me why I don't want Monsanto to grow my food I think I need no other answer.
When I heard a vet recount how he was ordered to load AO straight instead of diluted, I realized it was as much a program of chemical warfare as defoliation.<p><a href="http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ao.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gulfwarvets.com/ao.html</a>
And let's also not forget more recent developments.<p><a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/" rel="nofollow">http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prov...</a><p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq</a><p><a href="http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigation_in_colombia" rel="nofollow">http://www.wola.org/commentary/time_to_abandon_coca_fumigati...</a>
Disgusting. When I visited HCMC a couple of years ago a photo exhibition was held showing the damage of Agent Orange. If you ever visit, check if it's still on.
Has any epidemiological studies been published on Agent Orange in Vietnam?<p>Birth defects happen even when no one is exposed to Agent Orange. Without a study, you wouldn't be able to determine how many <i>more</i> birth defects happened.
When trying to read this on iOS, the video traps me in the page. Once it starts playing and goes fullscreen, if you try to stop/pause/rewind/exit it, it just starts playing again and goes fullscreen again.
Germany paid big contributions to war sacrifices. I guess 'murica haven't paid any reasonable amount of compensations. I think it would be good for the country to pay compensations to 'murican war crimes sacrifices around the globe, hopefully it will prevent 'murican taxpayers from supporting new crimes(happening every day, in fact, e.g. innocent people killing in Pakistan with drones, <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/10/fewer-than-2-percent-of-drone-strike-victims-in-pakistan-are-senior-al-qaeda-leaders/" rel="nofollow">http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/10/fewer-than-2-percent-of-...</a> )