Why Is Agent Orange Wrong

Agent Orange was used during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was, “a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States”

Chemical Warfare was also something that the Americans used that was drastically negative. Many innocent South Vietnam citizens were killed from a chemical called napalm. This jelly like substance stuck to a surface and burned. Much of it was dropped on villages

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

In 1961 to 1972 the United States was using more than 19 million gallons of herbicides in Vietnam. This herbicide was used to help clear out the forest lands so that the U.S soldiers could see where they were going, but did the scientist look at the long term effects? This herbicide, Agent orange cause many side effects, including 5 illnesses, different types of cancers and many more different health problems in people living in that time period and many generations to come. There is a major issue on whether scientist should be held morally responsible for the outcomes of their experiments. There are many arguments on whether scientist should be held morally responsible for the outcomes of their experiments because it is their responsibility

The U.S. was going to the extreme using chemical warfare tactics; this was counterproductive, riddling fields useless and sickening or killing not only the Viet Minh but also the Reunified Vietnam. At this point, they could not distinguish the enemy from the people they were trying to save. They angered the people of the Reunified Vietnam to the point of where they were switching to the communist side with a goal of getting the United States out of their country. Many United States citizens worried about what would happen if we pulled out of the war. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of the State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, wrote in a speech “if they [Viet Minh] achieved military or political success, it is certain that they would subject the people to a cruel Communist dictatorship taking its orders from Peiping and Moscow.”(Document F). He like many others knew that if the U.S. abandoned the Vietnam War they would encourage communism to continue its infectious spread through Asia and Europe. Ultimately, The United States intermeddled with countries in attempt to help but failed, giving them over to communism

The war in Vietnam was, and continues to be, one of the most controversial hot button topics in American history. The military’s use of dangerous pesticides, like Agent Orange, is a major part of this controversy. Agent Orange is a defoliant that was widely used to deforest dense jungle areas to reduce both hiding places and food sources for the Vietnamese. During the war, American B-52 bombers released over nineteen million gallons of Agent Orange over the Vietnamese countryside. After ten years of continuous dumping, 1971 finally marked the end of America’s use of Agent Orange and other herbicides. In 1974, the United States government, headed by Richard Nixon, swore the country would never again use chemical weapons in a first strike. (Levy and Scott-Clark)

Agent orange was sprayed in over 4.5 million acres in Vietnam forests and farms as a tactic to exterminate the foliage that Vietnamese soldiers used to camouflage and sneak attack the American troops (Silverman, 2008.) As well as eliminate crops that the Vietnamese people used as a

Agent Orange is a herbicide that was used to defoliate the jungles, meaning the United States military was trying to kill off the trees in Vietnam in order to take away places for North Vietnamese military men could hide (1). The Viet Cong did not fight conventionally against the American military, they could not do so and expect to win. This caused them to resort to guerilla warfare in order to strike and weaken parts of a division or unit. The Americans used Agent Orange as a defense strategy in order to take away hiding places for the Viet Cong to run to after hitting the American units (2). What is especially harmful to those who were around Agent Orange and where it was sprayed was the dioxin, which is a byproduct of one of the chemicals components. People still worked and breathed even with the residue of the toxin still in the air and in the soil, civilians and military personnel alike. The toxin carried in it a carcinogen that got its way into the water and in the soil. Slowly as the years have passed and Vietnam has been hit with a lot of monsoons clean water has washed away the toxic water, but not before it entered into the food chain and then started to accumulate into body fat and tissue in humans that was able to passed from a mother to their child threw breast milk. The American military, by word of the American government, dumped millions of gallons of Agent Orange onto the southern half of

The aftermath of the chemical use are second and third-generation exposure of dioxin (found in Agent Orange) causing birth defects and abnormalities. These birth defects are misshapen skulls, permanently askew eyes, and many other ailments discovered at time of birth. These defects have been affecting people for decades even though it was used four decades ago. Dioxin had changed the lives of various people, “The Vietnam Red Cross estimates that Agent Orange has affected 3 million people spanning three generations, including at least 150,000 children born with severe birth defects since the war ended in 1975” (Brown). The Vietnam Red Cross has witnessed the effects of dioxin on people over three generations and many people have suffered from birth defects ever since the end of war in 1975.

Hazardous Chemical Project: Agent Orange and the Environment Agent Orange; a chemical that stopped the Vietnamese military’s advantage and improved the chances of the American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War. For the Americans, it was a way to destroy the foliage that allowed the Vietnamese soldiers to move secretly through the brush and plot attacks. As it became increasingly difficult to find Vietnamese soldiers who used the environment to their advantage, the new chemical was developed and prepared to allow the Americans to catch up and destroy one of the most potent sources of power for the Vietnamese. While the use of this chemical caused a negative impact on many factors, the focus of this essay will be on the environmental impact of the chemical. The environmental factor of Agent Orange directly impacted other factors which had economic, political and health consequences.

Hazards and pollutants are apparent in a variety of outcomes. Possible outcomes include asthma, cancer and chemical poisoning (Gee and Payne-Sturges 2004: 1647). Furthermore, “Although debated, the main hypothesis explaining these disparities is that disadvantaged communities encounter greater exposure to environmental toxins such as air pollution, pesticides, and lead” (Gee and Payne-Sturges 2004: 1647). Therefore, disadvantaged groups, such as people of color and the poor, experience greater environmental risks. Additionally, “Blacks in particular are exposed to a disproportionate amount of pollution and suffer the highest levels of lead and pesticide poisoning and other associated health problems” (Jones and Rainey 2006: 474). People of color, essentially, compete to live healthily. For example, African-Americans and Africans alike, struggle with the negative affects of oil refineries and unresponsive governments. The same can be said for Hispanics in California and the natives of Ecuador, who are forced to cope with the pollution of the Texaco oil refineries (Bullard 2001: 4). Environmental racism not only exploits natural resources, it abuses and profits from the communities involved. Governments and polluting facilities will continue to capitalize on the economic susceptibilities of poor communities, states, nations and regions for their “unsound” and hazardous operations (Bullard 2001: 23).

In 1958, Communist-led guerrillas, eventually known as the Viet Cong, began to battle the government of the South Vietnamese. The United States then sent 2,000 military advisors t support South Vietnam’s government. This number grew to 16,3000 by 1963. The military force slowly deteriorated. By 1963 the fertile Mekong Delta was lost to the overpowering Viet Cong. The war rose in 1965, when President Johnson issued commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and ground forces, which had risen to 536,000 by 1968. The Tet Offensive by North Vietnam turned many Americans against the waging war. President Nixon, following Johnson, promoted Vietnamization, the withdrawing of American troops and handing over the great responsibility of the war to South Vietnam. Protesting of the war dramatically increased, especially after Nixon’s attempt to slow North Vietnam forces and supplies into the South by sending American forces to destroy supply bases in Cambodia in 1970, which violated Cambodian neutrality. This provoked antiwar protests on many of the United Stats’ college campuses. In 1968 through 1973 attempts were made to end the ongoing conflict through diplomacy. Then in January 1973, an agreement was reached. U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam and the U.S. POWs were released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North and Vietnam was once again united. The Vietnam War ended, but it took the lives of 58,000