September 02, 2006

The Vietnam Syndrome. "In the 1960s, the United States blanketed the Mekong River delta with Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant more devastating than napalm. Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the poisoned legacy lives on in the children whose deformities it is said to have caused." Photo essay by James Nachtwey, written essay by Christopher Hitchens. [Via C&L.]
posted by homunculus 18 years ago
  • Thank you for posting this.
  • I'm sure it was worth it to keep those evil communist North Vietnamese from taking over the whole of Vietnam and precipitating that whole domino theory thingy.
  • So good you had to post it twice? I don't particularly care, but it would seem benificial to keep these kinds of double posting to a minimum or otherwise we risk becoming a metamirror. I'm not opposed to double posts, but I would like to see the two sites have minimal overlap.
  • Well, we've allowed this many times before, from Gyan and other monkeys with dual citizenship, so I see no problem with it now.
  • Just because you(And I) visit both MoFi and MeFi doesn't mean everyone else here does, jccalhoun. I don't have the documentation handy at the moment, but IIRC posting the same FPP at both sites is quite acceptable.
  • I never visit the big blue, so I'm glad to have to posted here, too. A fascinating read. One of my grade school teachers was a Vietnam vet who had constant health problems due to his exposure to chemicals during the war. A wonderful, sweet, gentle man he was, and I thought of him a lot reading this article.
  • "The documentation"? What am I, a lawyer? Anyhoo, the FAQ.
  • Too heavy for me at the moment, but I fully support, nay demand, Dr. Dogg's right to post it e'rewhere. I wonder if the current regime will resort to Vietnam-era, as opposed to WWII-era, analogies for the current quagmire. Heh. No I don't. Not really.
  • from the FAQ: especially if you think us monkeys will have some unique things to say It should read "we monkeys". No, I don't have anything better to do on a Saturday night.
  • we should not let ourselves forget a wee wee monkey might be wet Not so exciting on the other side of the pond on this Saturday afternoon, either, Skrik.
  • Dare I say, enui? Of course I do.
  • That's astonishing! All problems afflicting people exposed to agent orange or whose parents were exposed to it are caused by that exposure! Not one single person ever exposed to agent orange ever would have developed any health problems had he not been so exposed. How in the world could any chemical be so selective in whom it harmed?
  • Jesus, you people. Didn't you RTFP? Didn't you look at the pictures? Libertarian, I don't know if you're a troll, but I'm leaning that way. When there are fifty-eight THOUSAND people in an area, when someone has dioxin levels ...200 times higher than "normal"...ya think there just MIGHT be a problem? Zumwalt apparently ended up thinking so. Sometimes chickens do go home to roost. I know victims of Agent Orange--AMERICAN victims that go through hell everyday. Anybody that thinks they can blow this off is either an idiot or an asshole. My husband handled this shit in Nam loading oozing leaking barrels barehanded. I thank God my children and grandchildren are healthy. VA monitors him, and the jury's still out on whether he will wind up with problems. Not everyone involved has had to suffer because of exposure to it, but we ALL should hang our heads with shame because of what was done to the people and to the land.
  • "Libertarian, I don't know if you're a troll, but I'm leaning that way" I won't even begin to list all the things I don't know you might be but it is long and sordid. As far as "AMERICAN victims" such as your husband apparently isn't, another term for them is "pesticide applicators". They're the ones who put the stuff there, for God's sake and it is unseemly for them to now claim victimhood.
  • You really aren't making any friends here, Libertarian. Do you think BlueHorse's husband ordered the Agent Orange, declared war on Vietnam, and shipped the thing over? He's a victim because he was ordered to do so by a bastard of a government and being in the army, it was follow orders or get court-martialed. Anyway, you have no sympathy for the people in Vietnam, and you have no sympathy for Americans who were in Vietnam, so who do you have sympathy for?
  • That is an astonishing amount of assholic ignorance there, Libertarian.
  • Well I for one find Libertarian's points to be well reasoned, coherently presented and informative to boot. I'm also given to understand that his personal hygiene is excellent and his fashion choices are impeccable.
  • Once again, Pete throws 30-weight on the troubled waters.
  • *ties rope around petebest's ankle, ties the other end to the 30-weight*
  • Step off my main man pete there. He's just releasing an Agent Pink (aka "killing them with kindness") bomb. Don't make me get my noodle spoon out.
  • *To the tune of the "William Tell" overture* Noodle spoon, noodle spoon, noodle spoon spoon spoon, Strudel soon, strudel soon, strudel-oodle soon Poodles groom, poodles groom, poodles groom groom groom Toodle-oooooo, it's a noodle spoon!
  • *stares* *blinks* *stares*
  • *rides horse-on-stick around thread, grinning goofily and waving noodle spoon*
  • Good for the Vietnamese!! Think we're saving up a whole shitpotload of trouble for ourselves in the Middle East?
  • Here's to fucking over Monsanto and Dow for a change! (In other news: this won't hurt them much at all. I wish it would, because corporations like this give biotech a bad name. Monsanto has a history of paying out numerous lawsuits to the tune of a Carl Sagan chunk of change through the latter half of the 20th and early 21st century, and they're still hopped up on saccharin economically speaking [in other words: they're growing fat like rats]... Problem: when they get sued for negligence, they sue farmers with more or less planted evidence using, quite literally, strong arm tactics.)