More Help for Agent Orange's Victims - Essay Example

And apparently, America did not learn from the tragedy they had brought about, as they used another, equally destructive weapon against civilians during the Vietnam War, where history yet again repeated itself in the form of the biological weapon known as Agent Orange. While not nearly as infamous as its earlier use of nuclear weapons against Japan, this act on America's part unsurprisingly drew condemnation from various sectors. And considering how the Vietnamese in particular continue to suffer as a result of Agent Orange, such condemnation is at least partly justified - which makes the lack of restitution on the part of America rather confusing and, indeed, maddening.

Though weapons may come in all shapes and sizes, there is rarely doubt that these are meant to be used against armed targets. However, as demonstrated by the terrible, terrible damage wrought by Agent Orange on the Vietnamese people, this is not always the case. This paper thus aims to explore the plight of the Agent Orange victims, first by examining what happened on that fateful day. The idea is to spell out to the American government the consequences of what they did - and from there, convince them to make the necessary reparations to the Vietnamese people. . Whether from deprivation of food due to the herbicide-induced destruction of food crops, or from poverty brought on by forced draft urbanization, the Vietnamese people as a whole suffered as a result of Agent Orange (Kolko 144).

In fact, Agent Orange was known to have directly resulted in 400,000 deaths, while also causing 500,000 more children to be born with birth defects (York and Haley, “Last Ghost of the Vietnam War”). This is not unlike the aftereffects of the aforementioned bombings, which claimed millions more through the side-effects such as radiation, leukemia and others. Unfortunately, the US Military has always had a reputation for being good at what it does, and Agent Orange was no different. Taken in this light, the use of anthrax and other chemical weapons by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda may be considered as karmic retribution - or, for extra irony, even directly inspired by - the Agent Orange used by the United States at the time.

From what has transpired since, it can thus be said that their chemical warfare operation was one that had gone horribly right. Indeed, no less than the Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that Agent Orange has had at least a million victims, all of whom continue to feel the effects of a weapon used against their parents and grandparents decades ago (King, “US in first effort to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam”). Tragically, yet unsurprisingly, it was the children who suffered the worst of it, developing multiple health problems and abnormalities as a result (York and Haley, “Last Ghost of the Vietnam War”).

The breast milk of expectant mothers became saturated with abnormally