Cleaning up Vietnam
18 Jun '10 14:021 editAnyone with a minimum knowledge of real history knows that the USA intervention in Indochina started during the First Indochina War and that American intervention in the Second Indochina War started with Kennedy.
The drunken debauched moron that was Kennedy decided that he knew better than any Vietnamese what would be good for them and started and engaged on a campaign of political disruption of the goals stated in the Geneva Conference of 1954.
Given that it was almost a total certainty that the people of Vietnam would choose the "communist" way in 1956 a campaign of terror was started:
1 - relocate the peasant population to areas where contact with the "communists" was avoided.
2 - Chemical warfare with remaining peasants that refused to leave their areas.
This vast campaign of terrorism and wanton slaughter was done with extreme ruthlessness and its effects are felt in areas of Indochina till this day:
Birth defects are a common occurrence in some areas and the mortality rate within birth defects babies is high. For the babies that don't die their health needs are of course beyond the possibilities of their parents (and communities) and so an even lower standard of living occurs in this cases.
The name of these programs were Subproject VI in Project AGILE and Operation Ranch Hand.
Agent Orange was indeed one of the herbicides used in this massacre but in no way it was the only one: it was part of the group called the Rainbow Herbicides and the people responsible for these clear acts of crimes of war (if not crimes against humanity should be put to justice).
Obviously no such thing is to happen in this world of ours and we have to be happy with the next best thing:
35 years its brutal assault on three countries, killing millions of people and having curtailed the level of life of countless more in Indochina, it appears that the USA government is finally showing some character (a tiny infinitesimal amount, but is showing it) and let us hope this is the start of a process of justice being done to the people of Indochina.
The drunken debauched moron that was Kennedy decided that he knew better than any Vietnamese what would be good for them and started and engaged on a campaign of political disruption of the goals stated in the Geneva Conference of 1954.
Given that it was almost a total certainty that the people of Vietnam would choose the "communist" way in 1956 a campaign of terror was started:
1 - relocate the peasant population to areas where contact with the "communists" was avoided.
2 - Chemical warfare with remaining peasants that refused to leave their areas.
This vast campaign of terrorism and wanton slaughter was done with extreme ruthlessness and its effects are felt in areas of Indochina till this day:
Birth defects are a common occurrence in some areas and the mortality rate within birth defects babies is high. For the babies that don't die their health needs are of course beyond the possibilities of their parents (and communities) and so an even lower standard of living occurs in this cases.
The name of these programs were Subproject VI in Project AGILE and Operation Ranch Hand.
Agent Orange was indeed one of the herbicides used in this massacre but in no way it was the only one: it was part of the group called the Rainbow Herbicides and the people responsible for these clear acts of crimes of war (if not crimes against humanity should be put to justice).
Obviously no such thing is to happen in this world of ours and we have to be happy with the next best thing:
Washington - Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, a joint U.S.-Vietnamese panel endorsed a 10-year, 300-million-dollar "plan of action" to deal with the deadly health and environmental legacy of the U.S. military's widespread use of "Agent Orange" during the conflict.
According to the Red Cross, an estimated three million Vietnamese have suffered adverse health effects from exposure to Agent Orange and related herbicides, including some 150,000 children born with serious birth defects, such as spina bifida.
...
Soil tests conducted in 2007 by a Canadian firm in and around Da Nang's airport, which served as Washington's largest air base during the war, found that dioxin levels there were 300 to 400 times higher than international limits.
Breast milk and blood samples from people who previously lived near the airport, which is now a major tourist destination, found the highest dioxin levels ever recorded in Vietnam, more than 100 times international limits, according to the report.
35 years its brutal assault on three countries, killing millions of people and having curtailed the level of life of countless more in Indochina, it appears that the USA government is finally showing some character (a tiny infinitesimal amount, but is showing it) and let us hope this is the start of a process of justice being done to the people of Indochina.
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