Help Save People s World
The economic crisis has hit People s World hard. We need the support of all our friends and readers to continue publishing.
Toxic legacy: How the U.S. military’s use of Agent Orange poisoned Vietnam June 2, 2021 3:37 PM CDT By Amiad Horowitz
Neighborhood children look through a window at Tran Thi Le Huyen, 23, sitting in a wheelchair in her family home in Danang, Vietnam in this May 21, 2007, file photo. The young woman was listed by the Vietnamese government as a victim of Agent Orange contamination. Her family once lived near the highly contaminated Danang Airbase and her father was a driver for the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government during the war. | David Guttenfelder / AP
The following article is the first installment in a two-part series on U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam. Part one provides historical background to the issue; the next will cover the victims and their legal battles. Mr. Nguyễn Thanh Sơn was barely an adult in the 1960s when he joined the People’s Army of Vietnam, known to Americans at the time as the North Vietnamese Army, or the NVA. Mr.
Dissident Voice: here and here. I even did a review of that documentary,
The People VS Agent Orange, which highlights Tran To Nga‘s fight in France “Eternal Impunity of Capitalism’s Crimes“. Here’s one passage from that story I wrote:
Dr. James Clary was with the Air Force in Vietnam, which ran the program. He was ordered to dump the computer and erase all memory. Instead, he printed out a stack of documents two feet high – missions, sorties, coordinates, dates, gallons dropped throughout all of Southeast Asia and Laos.
“We had the information coming from Dow that there were real problems for people associated with this chemical. It was all locked up for 35 years.”
Story highlights
Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military employed approximately 19.5 million gallons of herbicides in South Vietnam to clear vegetation believed to conceal enemy troops and which provided food for them
Forty-six years have passed since the Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975. While some Americans may prefer to forget its atrocities, and Vietnam is focused on forgiveness and the future, the wounds of Agent Orange victims still demand attention.
Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military employed approximately 19.5 million gallons of herbicides in South Vietnam to clear vegetation believed to conceal enemy troops and which provided food for them, as part of Operation Ranch Hand. Agent Orange, the most widely used of those defoliants, destroyed five million acres of Vietnamese forests and damaged some 500,000 acres of cropland.
Opinion | America, Please Don t Forget the Victims of Agent Orange nytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.