In the 1960s the United States was at war with Vietnam. In an attempt to counter the Vietnamese’s guerilla warfare, the United States sprayed herbicides all over Vietnam and this method of warfare has been controversial ever since. The use of herbicides in Vietnam has caused many deaths and suffering not just for the Vietnamese, but the United States’ veterans too. However, the United States denies that it caused these problems, continues to use herbicides today, and will not even help the victims medically or financially. It was and is a crime, if the United States wants to admit it or not, and if it is not studied and taken care of soon, many people will continue to suffer.
Before understanding why herbicidal warfare was and still is an important topic, one must know what herbicidal warfare is. Herbicidal warfare is a type of chemical warfare where the goal is to destroy vegetation and agriculture. In Vietnam, it was used so that the enemy could not hide in the vegetation and to destroy or damage food production. There are many different types of chemicals that were used during the Vietnam War and even still today. A total of fifteen herbicides, named by their color, were used during the United States’ Operation Ranch Hand but the most well-known is Agent Orange (Trautman, 1). Agent Orange is a mixture of toxic chemicals that kills vegetation and is mixed with kerosene and diesel fuel so that it sticks to plants for a long period of time (Trautman, 1). When sprayed onto vegetation Agent Orange kills it within days and also pollutes the soil and water. So what is the concern? Agent Orange and other herbicides destroy ecosystems, they have also been found in plants, water, fish and other animals, including humans. Since it began b...
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...nt pressure from its own citizens, the United States refused to change its tactics and the argument over this issue would not end with the war.
Works Cited
"A Ghost Of Battles Past." Nature 452.7189 (2008): 781. MasterFILE Main Edition. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
Hitchens, Christopher. "The Vietnam Syndrome." Vanity Fair 552 (2006): 106. MasterFILE Main Edition. Web. 4 Feb. 2014.
Moreau, Ron. "Of Peace And Poison." Newsweek (Atlantic Edition) 133.18 (1999): 88. MasterFILE Main Edition. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
Stellman, Jeanne Mager Stellman, Steven D.Christian, Richard Weber, Tracy Tomasallo, Carrie. "The Extent And Patterns Of Usage Of Agent Orange And Other Herbicides In Vietnam." Nature 422.6933 (2003): 681. MasterFILE Main Edition. Web. 4 Feb. 2014.
Trautman, Jim. "Petrified Forests." New Internationalist 323 (2000): 14. MasterFILE Main Edition. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
Laws exist to protect life and property; however, they are only as effective as the forces that uphold them. War is a void that exists beyond the grasps of any law enforcing agency and It exemplifies humankind's most desperate situation. It is an ethical wilderness exempt from civilized practices. In all respects, war is a primitive extension of man. Caputo describes the ethical wilderness of Vietnam as a place "lacking restraints, sanctioned to kill, confronted by a hostile country and a relentless enemy, we sank into a brutish state." Without boundaries, there is only a biological moral c...
As we move into the Twentieth Century the similarities are almost identical. The First World War has shaped not only modern warfare but even produced global attention to the brutal and inhumane death toll of the war. As stated in the Geneva Protocol, which prohibited the use of chemical weapons in warfare, which was signed in 1925? While this was a welcomed step, the Protocol had a number of significant short comings, including the fact that it did not prohibit the development, production or stockpiling of chemical weapons.
...’s decisions. Some citizens strongly oppose the idea that the United States should not get involved in any foreign affairs because it would put the nation into a period of chaos like it did during the Vietnam War.
Operation Ranch Hand lasted from about 1962 to 1971, and used various herbicide mixtures, such as Agent Blue, Agent White, Agent Purple, and Agent Pink to overthrow its prey, the communist North Vietnamese. However, the most legendary herbicide used was called Agent Orange.
"Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam." Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam. N.p., 1994. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. .
All in all, every year since 1975, Vietnamese have been killed or injured and they are so disappointed. The war causes chaos and is a sign of bad omen to Vietnam. This never-ending horror could be remedied if enough Americans cared about saving Vietnamese lives, as the stars of this documentary claim they did. After all, what kind of people seed a foreign land with hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives and then allow succeeding generations to lose eyes and limbs and lives? Only a “violent and unforgiving”
So many things influenced our involvement in the Vietnam War, and Lawrence examines the decisions we made in a greater context than just our own. He argues that international pressures controlled the attitudes and ideas of the United States, for the most part.
“It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder,” Albert Einstein. The Vietnam War was a war that America did not need. America believed they were doing good. They believed that they were protecting the people of Vietnam. America did not realise that they were only making a bad situation worse. America stopped nothing. They didn’t stop communism; they didn’t save the people of Vietnam. America caused the number of casualties in Vietnam to increase and had their own people killed. They caused diseases and destroyed the environment with the help of Agent Orange. America sent soldiers on a mission with a result of hundreds of civilians murdered. America did not help anyone. America sent people out to murder others and to be killed in the line of duty.
It had been decided that after World War I, that the United States did not want to get involved in any more foreign affairs. America had become an isolationist country which was unusual for us. Even as the first few invasions of World War II took place, the United States still did not jump in on the action mainly for the reason on how devastating the results were from the First World War.
In May 1961, John F. Kennedy sent investigators to Vietnam, thus turning the tide in favor of the United States and South Vietnam. Unfortunately, with the flow of infiltrators and weapons from North Vietnam, the United States and South Vietnam lost their upper hand (Tucker). Conclusively, 2.5 million Americans served and about 58,000 lost their lives in Vietnam (Vietnam Veterans Memorial). On April 30, 1975 Vietnam was finally reunited under a communist government. Once the war ended, Vietnam was devastated. Both the South and North Vietnamese economies were in shambles and they suffered from the chemical pesticides. The Vietnamese also lost about 3 million soldiers and civilians during the war. The United States also suffered due to the fact that the military was completely shattered and had to be rebuilt. The inflation was at an ultimate high from the failure to fact the actual costs of war. These situations forced Washington D.C. to reevaluate the power of the United States
The United States were unjustified in going
The Vietnam War of 1954 was a long and costly fight between North Vietnam, who was communist, and South Vietnam, who was allied with the United States. Author George Black stated, “Between 1961 and 1971, about 20 million gallons of herbicides were dropped on South Vietnam, exposing as many as 4.8 million people to toxic chemicals” (Black 19). The conflict of the war led to division among the Americans, before and after the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers in 1973. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American that spoke out against this war. By using ethos, pathos, and repetition in his speech, Dr. King encouraged his fellow Americans to speak out against the war. Ethos is the writer’s authority to deal with a topic, while pathos appeals to the listeners’
In this case, it led to more hostility and created the conflict because the states were antithetical in nature to each other. This drove the conflict, not material matters. Bibliography Nye, Jr., Joseph S. “Hard and Soft Power in American Foreign Policy.” In Paradox of American Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Up until the U.S. did get involved, the choice to stay isolationists was seen as encouragement for the fighting to continue (...
In comparison, “They also pointed out that factors other than exposure to the herbicide showed themselves as possible causes of some of the problems. These factors included alcohol consumption and heavy smoking.- the researchers said that they could not find among the ranch handers a set of symptoms or a pattern of symptoms to suggest a solid connection between present-day health problems and exposure to Agent Orange in the past (Dolan 76).” Although the damages of Agent Orange were given little attention, a few investigations and minor court cases attempted to settle the devastation. In an effort to research, “Maude De Victor tried to determine if Operation Ranch Hand aircraft sprayed ground