http://www.blackcommentator.com/331/331_aw_meeting_agent_orange_printer_friendly.html
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
July 2, 2009
You mention "Agent Orange" and some people think that you are talking
about a spy movie. For others, particularly those who know anything
about the Vietnam War, they tend to think that it is something out of
the distant past, perhaps an unfortunate historical episode.
"Agent Orange" is the name for an extremely toxic defoliant that
contains TCDD dioxin, one of the most dangerous chemicals ever
invented by humans. During the Indochina War, the USA, in order to
destroy the jungles that served as hiding places for guerrillas (in
Vietnam, the National Liberation Front; in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge;
in Laos, the Pathet Lao), sprayed tons of this. In so doing, they set
in motion a time-bomb that has been a disastrous legacy to a disastrous war.
Agent Orange not only destroys plant life, it also destroys human
life. Roughly three million Vietnamese are suffering various
side-effects to Agent Orange exposure. In addition to this, thousands
of US veterans are as well. The impact of Agent Orange can range, but
its time-bomb-like effect unfolds with subsequent generations. Thus,
children are born mentally retarded and/or missing limbs. There are
various cancers associated with Agent Orange exposure.
The veteran's movement has received some compensation for the impact
of Agent Orange, but the Vietnamese, who were the targets of this
genocidal weapon, have received nothing from the United States. The
reasons for the silence by the USA go way beyond matters of the
status of legislation or litigation. In some respects, it shares in
common with discussions on US relations with Iran, an important
point: the US government and many of its people refuse to acknowledge
crimes that have been committed against various nations in our name.
To acknowledge Agent Orange is not only to acknowledge a particular
weapon, but it is to acknowledge, ultimately, the criminality of a
war that left more than two million Vietnamese dead, as well as the
more than fifty thousand US dead. There has been, in other words, no
collective summation of the Vietnam War. There are, however, periodic
efforts by the political Right to re-write (no pun intended) history
and act as if the Indochina debacle was somehow a crusade for
justice, when it was exactly the opposite.
Over the years following the end of the Vietnam War there have been
various efforts to raise the issue of Agent Orange before the people
of the USA. These efforts have largely failed to change US policy,
but not due to lack of effort. Despite the VISIBLE impact of Agent
Orange on the people of Vietnam, many of whom cannot be fully treated
due to the lack of resources by their government, we in the USA find
ourselves in a "see no evil" mode. Added to this has been the
complete ignoring of the impact of Agent Orange on the people of
Cambodia and Laos, something that seems to be treated to silence, due
to Agent Orange having been used during covert operations in those countries.
Agent Orange will not go away by itself. Not only is it in the
Indochinese soil, but it is in the blood streams of countless
Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, and, yes, US veterans and their
off-spring. The "Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility
Campaign" (www.vn-agentorange.org) is one important effort underway
to reverse US policy on the victims of Agent Orange. For it to
succeed, however, grassroots organizations and institutions need to
take this up as a moral, diplomatic and legislative matter.
As long as Agent Orange is not addressed, along with the reparations
that the US agreed to offer the Vietnamese, the Indochina War cannot
be considered over. Rather, it entered a different phase; a phase
without artillery and gunshots, but a phase in which millions
continue to suffer and die in agony.
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