Analysis Of The Unwinnable War : A Nature Of Herbicidal Warfare

Instinctivist theories on human aggressiveness often promote the notion that warfare is in the nature of humankind and therefore cannot be prevented. However Margaret Mead eloquently refuted this idea in her renowned essay Warfare: an Invention – Not a Biological Necessity. Mead states, “War is inevitable unless we change our social system and outlaw classes, the struggle for power, and possessions; and in the event of our success warfare would disappear, as a symptom vanishes when the disease is cured.” Through this statement Mead makes it clear that because aggression and subsequently warfare is a learned invention, it can be avoided. For the purposes of this essay, aggression will be defined as “a response that delivers noxious stimuli to another organism.” This essay will outline how and why aggression, and thus warfare, is not biological and is rather a behaviour that is learned as a reaction to social stimuli. Furthermore, it will be explained that violence is used by societies as a political weapon to achieve ostensible objectives.

During the peak of U.S involvement in the Vietnam War, between 1967 and 1969 the U.S employed a strategy that proved to be a disaster on many different levels. With over 500,000 of their troops serving in Vietnam at the time, the widespread use of herbicides, particularly Agent Orange began being sprayed over the Vietnamese jungle by planes. The aim of this was to eliminate the ‘invisibility' of the Viet Cong and offer a safe path for the American troops to follow. This was a good idea in theory, but what the American strategists didn't think of was the toxicity of the herbicides, and the fact that not only would the Viet Cong be exposed to it, but their troops and innocent South Vietnamese would be also. A widely speculated and argued repercussion of this is that many Vietnam veterans, and Vietnamese villagers began to give birth to babies with birth defects. However, a confirmed result

Kara Hinson The war in Vietnam started in 1955 and lasted until 1975. Many Americans believed it was a pointless war that had no meaning. The United States became involved in the Vietnam Warbecause they wanted to stop the spread of communism. This war took 50,000 lives and wounded 300,000 American men. Due to the My Lai massacre which killed hundreds of innocent and unarmed Vietnamese civilians, protests about the draft start all over the country, because of draft dodgers and draft deferment, and the government misleading people back home, this was known as the credibility gap, Americans are turning against the war in Vietnam. This leads to anti-war protesters, known as doves springing up across the United States demonstrating their opposition to the war.The Vietnam War is one of the most known wars in history, many innocent people were killed that had no involvement. United States soldiers came up with strategies to kill off the Vietcong, but occasionally the United States was not sure who were Vietcong and who were not. Napalm was a jellied gasoline that explodes when dropped in large canisters the napalm was usually dropped on villages. When the napalm was dropped on the villages, the Vietnamese houses and vegetation were destroyed. Napalm burned men, women, and children who were in the villages the clothes would burn completely off their bodies. Agent orange another substance used this was sprayed by an aircraft over the jungle. Agent

The first chemical to be discussed is Agent Orange; Agent Orange has been identified as a human carcinogen; this chemical was introduced during the Vietnam war as a defoliant for the thick Vietnamese jungle. Although Agent Orange contained a variety of herbicides, most of the pesticide contained Phenoxyacetic acid – based herbicide 2,4-D and 2,4, 5-T. The most common mixture of the Agent Orange used during

“We were told, ‘it’s totally safe and it won’t hurt you at all,” he added. “We were told you can drink it, you can brush your teeth with it, or you can bathe in it. It won’t hurt you. Those were lies.” (“U.S. Soldiers Sprayed Agent Orange across Korea” 1) Agent Orange was an herbicide used by the United States military forces in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to destroy their enemies’ food supply, land, and protection. Twelve million gallons of this toxin were sprayed. (Department of Preventive Medicine 1) It affected the Vietnamese and the American troops who were fighting in the same jungle. Little did the United States military know the effects of this dangerous herbicide. It caused many long-term complications, including health problems

Agent Orange, which contained the chemical dioxin, was the most effective herbicide available to US forces. It was later revealed to cause substantial health issues, including but not limited to: tumours, birth defects, rashes, psychological symptoms and cancer among returning war veterans and the families as well as the general Vietnamese population. This program has had intergenerational consequences on the Vietnamese population, such as the death or maiming of 400,000 Vietnamese civilians as a result of the conflict, 500,000 children born with serious, disabling birth defects (eg. The absence of eyes or limbs) as well as up to 2,000,000 people being diagnosed with cancer or other life-threatening diseases as a result of Agent

Vietnamese army had a major advantage over the U.S; they knew the forests well, and had

In both past and present, the traces of Agent Orange have drastically affected the ecosystems of Vietnam. The causes for the effects of Agent Orange are due to its main, and most dangerous component: Dioxin. Many of the separate Agent compounds contained dioxin, but Agent Orange contained Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD,) one of the most potent forms of Dioxin. TCDD is responsible for many of the sub-lethal effects on wildlife in Agent Orange spray zones, causing tumors and birth defects, along with a variety of cancers to animals who ingest it [HowStuffWorks Science]. Almost every living animal has small amounts of Dioxin located in their body fat, but the mutagenic effects of Dioxin occur when it enters an ecosystem in large amounts. The body can process small amounts of dioxin, but in vast quantities, like the millions of gallons of Agent Orange dropped on the forests of Vietnam, it is a very powerful poison. After the Dioxin soaked up into the plants and ground of the Vietnam forest it worked its way up the food chain, as herbivores ate the Dioxin-infused grass, then become Dioxin-laced themselves, eventually everything became infected with the Dioxin and slowly died out, eventually, all the plants and animals were gone, leaving a barren wasteland. That is how the forests of Vietnam eventually withered away, and some did not return [HowStuffWorks Science]. This is very clearly a violation of environmental justice,

Today, the Agent Orange case is a serious threat to public health as veterans and generations affected up onto today are still suffering. A large amount "Herbicide Orange" was used in Vietnam has been of major belief to many that contributed to the most tragic environmental and public health problems. Scenarios such as a U.S. troop who was just an electrician said he saw "no action" in the war, decades later this veteran developed Type 2 diabetes. A lot of others experience their scars from this exposure right away, especially the troops who were in the first line of exposure. The newly releases troops complained about skin rashes such as chloracne, cancer of all sorts, other health issues, but one devastating of them all, birth defects in their children. They all believed the spraying of AO have contributed to the root of the issues. Although, the spray was normally diluted with oil and waterways, it is also believed to have long-term effects on rivers and lakes. Also causing the civilians of the affected areas to be a long lasting effect upon them. Agent Orange herbicide was not just an ordinary herbicide. It was mixed with a unique amount of two different components, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The U.S. introduced this chemical as a design to destroy plant life in the war in 1961. It was commonly used to destroy or defoliate dense, forest broad leaf plants, trees, shrubs and food crops. Because the North Vietnamese had a war advantage from heavy jungles and camouflage hiding

War causes a myriad of effects in varying degrees of severity on the land and consequently among humankind. In the scenario of Vietnam with Agent Orange, no one anticipated the birth defects, cancer, and brain damage that would affect the lives of our nation’s veterans, the people of Vietnam, and thousands of unborn children for years to follow. Despite the evidence linking the Agent Orange to these injustices, there has been little done to right these wrongs. There should be more policy protecting the environment and its inhabitants, especially when detrimental effects are exacerbated by war. As mentioned previously, most of society may not even be aware of the effects war has on our environment. This piece is aiming to serve as a bridge for the gap between what science knows and what the people know about war’s effect on the land we

Agent Orange was widely used throughout the entire Vietnam war by Anti-Communist forces. In 1962, 85% of the food sources in Vietnam were targeted to be sprayed with Agent Orange from the air. Helicopters and planes were used in order to do aerial drops consistently and easily. On top of the use of Agent Orange on the forests of Vietnam, United States military bases used this herbicide daily if not weekly in order to keep the lands on the bases clean and low amounts to no vegetation on the bases. Many United

In 1961, during the early phases of the Vietnam War, United States and South Vietnamese soldier could not see how they were getting trapped and attacked by the enemy. The thick wilderness brush in Vietnam was the ideal environment for the North Vietnamese Army to cover themselves from U.S forces. The U.S reacted by making a new weapon called Agent Orange, an herbicide that Air Force planes planned to release above the treetops. This created fields of fire thus, leaving the enemies nowhere to hide. This bio-chemical was very powerful, and the United States utilized it for a long time.

This piece of work was intriguing because it is two Vietnam veteran’s explanation of how Agent Orange was viewed at during their time at war and what the effects brought after the war. The retired Air Force veterans shared their experiences with the chemical weapon. Huge Kendall and Ed Rodgers were the two men that watched the U.S. spray down the fields with the chemical substance. Directly from the source, Kendall said, "’We'd watch them drop that stuff up in the mountains,’ Kendall said. ’We didn't know at the time that it was hazardous. We were glad to see it, because it got rid of the undergrowth where the Viet Cong used to hide.’" Ed Rodgers said to the interviewer, "’We were situated by a river, and all of our water, for both bathing

Used expansively during the Vietnam War, Agent Orange was a chemical defoliant designed to remove the extensive jungle cover that the enemy used to hide their operations. Agent Orange was utilized as part of Operation Ranch Hand (from 1961 to 1971) a military tactic that used a host of newly-developed chemicals to reveal the enemy in this grueling conflict. However, the long-term environmental and health impacts of Agent Orange were not fully understood, and it is only now, several decades after the end of the conflict, that the widespread effects are

There was a variety of chemical weapons used during the Vietnam War. One was Napalm. Napalm was used extensively by the U.S. Napalm was first used in flamethrowers for U.S. ground troops; they burned down sections of forest and bushes in hopes of eliminating any enemy guerrilla fighters. Later on in the war B-52 Bombers began dropping napalm bombs and other incendiary explosives. They created an aluminum soap mixed with naphthenic acid from crude oil and palmitic acid from coconut oil. The new agent, when combined with gasoline, made for a cheap, brutally effective weapon; Napalm. Another chemical used during the Vietnam