This is just one of many of the long running destructive remnants of our generations War of Choice, an extremely destructive Weapon of Mass Destruction, Dioxin, Agent Orange and the others used as we occupied a small country Vietnam for over a decade. Destructive not only to the Vietnamese Civilians, then and now, but also to many soldiers who served in country and elsewhere, where it was stored and packaged for shipment to Vietnam and stored at bases to be sprayed over the country at the whim of the commanders of war.
Scientists have been raising the alarm about dioxins since the 1960s....>>>>>
Agent Orange Continues to Poison New Generations in Vietnam
Deformed fetuses at Ho Chi Minh City's Tu Du Hospital, where doctors blame the high incidence of deformities on the use of Agent Orange during the war. STR New / Reuters
This lonely section of the abandoned Danang air base was once crawling with U.S. airmen and machines. It was here where giant orange drums were stored and the herbicides they contained were mixed and loaded onto waiting planes. Whatever sloshed out soaked into the soil and eventually seeped into the water supply. Thirty years later, the rare visitor to the former U.S. air base is provided with rubber boots and protective clothing. Residue from Agent Orange, which was sprayed to deny enemy troops jungle cover, remains so toxic that this patch of land is considered one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in the country
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After years of meetings, signings and photo ops, the U.S. held another ceremony in Vietnam on Dec. 16 to sign yet another memorandum of understanding as part of the continuing effort to manage Agent Orange's dark legacy.....>>>>>
In 2007 and 2009, the US Congress allocated a total of US$6 million for efforts to ease the impact of dioxin in Vietnam.
The sum comprises US$2 million under cooperative agreements on providing health, education and social services for the handicapped in Danang. It is part of a larger sum of over US$46 million that the US has provided for assisting Vietnamese people with disabilities.
In September 2009, the US spent $1.9 million helping Vietnam set up a project to treat and contain dioxin left in the Danang airport after war...>>>>>
Put those monetary figures above into perspective, and just on the economic impact to those companies who's products are used in waging and fighting our Wars of Choice. Just take one years, out of the last couple of decades and more, compensation paid to the corporate heads of these companies add in the company perks, written off as company expenses, and the bonuses given. Now think of same for all the executives under these corporate leaders, and these are given out even if these executives prove to be incompetent or try and cover up the known within that corporate world. And that's not even looking at the wealth made from investors especially the big investors!
"If those were in Canada or in the U.S., they would require immediate cleanup," Boivin says.
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But critics believe the U.S. is playing a grim waiting game: waiting for people to die in order to avoid potentially costly lawsuits. For a country currently engaged in two wars, accepting comprehensive responsibility for wartime damages could set an expensive precedent. "They know what the problem is and where it is," says Chuck Searcy, country representative of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. "Why do they now need an environmental impact assessment? They are studying this to death."
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Dow and Monsanto, the chemical's largest manufacturers, eventually shelled out millions in damages to U.S. troops who were exposed to it while it was being used as a wartime defoliant from 1961 to 1971. The U.S. government still spends billions every year on disability payments to those who served in Vietnam — including their children, many of whom are suffering from dioxin-associated cancers and birth defects. In October, the Department of Veterans Affairs added leukemia, Parkinson's and a rare heart disease to the list of health problems associated with Agent Orange. Yet U.S. official policy maintains that there is no conclusive evidence that the defoliant caused any health problems among the millions of exposed Vietnamese or their children....>>>>>
Still, the Vietnamese people (and the government, though more quietly) contend it's the U.S. that should be doing more — much more. Some point out that the U.S. spends only a fraction on Agent Orange cleanup compared to the $50 million it spends every year on searching for the remains of American soldiers missing in action. Thao Griffiths, country director of Vietnam Veterans of America, which works on lingering war issues, points out that the legacy of each is equally painful. "The issue of MIAs for Americans holds the same importance that Agent Orange does for the Vietnamese," she says. And until the issue is resolved, the legacy of the war will continue to haunt both sides....>>>>>
Many Vietnam Veterans, like the VVA, have worked with the Vietnamese in trying to resolve the issues, and guilt, of what our country did to theirs as we occupied it for a number of years. Many were, and still do, travel to Vietnam in that advocacy even before this country finally normalized relations with we once called our enemies.
Faces of Agent Orange {2page pdf}
For Gary Jones, the puzzle that is Agent Orange can be explained, or more to the point, not explained, by two words — “circumstantial” and “coincidence.” The words are at once the core and the conundrum of his Agent Orange experience....>>>>>
Also members of Veterans for Peace helping to build and support orphanages and other needed facilities within Vietnam for the Vietnamese and what we left behind and our Government has yet to compensate for the death and destruction wrought. Like the Veterans Viet Nam Restoration Project and the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, in this there has been ongoing help in fighting the Chemical Companies in the United States Courts over these past decades.
The Chicago Tribune has a five part series on the legacy of the Dioxins, Agent Orange, left behind and still contaminating the Vietnamese people as well as the American Soldiers, our brothers, who haven't yet perished from their contact with while In-Country or handling it anywhere.
Photo Gallery: The Legacy of Agent Orange
Memories of the Vietnam War are dimming, but veterans and Vietnamese nationals who were exposed to Agent Orange and other dioxin-laced defoliants are still experiencing devastating health effects, and birth defects have brought the impact into a second generation. Yet the U.S. government has yet to make full amends, either in the U.S. or overseas.
Part 1 of 5: For U.S., a record of neglect
U.S. veterans exposed to Agent Orange face delays and a maddening bureaucracy as they seek compensation for related illnesses. In Vietnam, where untold numbers of people suffer from the same maladies and the chemicals continue to poison the environment, government officials wonder how the U.S. can ignore the ongoing effects of the defoliants....>>>>>
Part 2: 'Insult to injury'
For many U.S. veterans, the bureaucratic fight to be compensated for health problems linked to Agent Orange amounts to a new and unexpected war, long after the shooting ended overseas....>>>>>
Part 3: Born into controversy
The most contentious question surrounding the use of defoliants in the war is their impact on citizens, particularly the suspected link between the herbicides and birth defects....>>>>>
Part 4: A poison still potent
New research finds former U.S. airbases in Vietnam remain polluted from defoliants, underscoring the urgency of a solvable problem. The U.S. has done little to clean up the hot spots....>>>>>
Part 5: Danger not averted
The Tribune unearths documents showing that decisions by the U.S. military and chemical companies that manufactured the defoliants used in Vietnam made the spraying more dangerous than it had to be....>>>>>
At each, and on the main page, there are links to video's as well as side links to other information and photo's.
These are the Weapons of Mass Destruction used in mans waging of War and Occupations on others, long lasting, and the defoliants are only one of many remnants of these wars. As we are still occupying two other small countries, in this new century and generation, we are leaving behind many of these same remnants and even more in our use of the modern weaponry or just needs, like burn pits, as we occupy them.
These not only contaminate the ground but also the water supplies as well as getting into the air that is breathed, once in the air they can travel for miles as they are now in our atmosphere, collecting and trapped there and continually moving around the planet.
Add to them the contaminations and pollutions man produces, or uses, especially in industrialized nations, making that which we need or just the materialistic items we crave, and we are contaminating much of our earth, soil, the waters we drink and gather a food supply from, and the air we all breath, collecting and trapped in the atmosphere that sustains not only our lives but that which is living on this planet.
The more we contaminate the faster the planet evolves and that evolution, with the contamination by man, not only continues to kill after our wars but will cause and disfigurements and death of all living things on this planet many already gone and never to return. And we don't know what many benefits they might have had as to disease or in helping sustain a planet of life.
