Henry-Finland

Read the article from Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/106/...victory:.shtml
or
look at about 800 different sites at
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=Agent+Orange

This has been news in Europe today. Deutsche Welle showed pictures that I do not want to describe.

Many sites tells that now the scientists begin/or has begun to make studies how this biological weapon effected on the soldiers of USA. "Used against his own people" - well, well.

Or maybe these hundreds of sites are just un-American?

Henry, un-American???

Cap'n Jack

Now you can see why the US doesn't want them used. Agent Orange was used to clear foliage and had a very horrible effect on people as well, you can understand why the US would be worried about proper chemical a biological weapons, being in the hands of the wrong people.

Russia also found out how dangerous even mild chemical (allegedly safe) weapons are when they used them during the Chechen hostage chrisis in a Moscow theatre.

Henry-Finland

So now the use of these weapons in Vietnam is to blame Saddam and Moscow?

All biological or chemical weapons are dirty, because there is no way to target the enemy. The user of these are just targeting people en masse.
The ironic aspect is that the only people that are ready for such a blow is the enemy soldiers.

It does not matter by whom these weapons are used. They are always dirty.

And as I asked in another thread:
If the very bad guy Saddam had them, why did he not use them?
I know that he was not shy to kill people.

But if US doesn't want them to be used, they have to attack some 20 countries, and how do they attack USA?
Do not say that US-politics is controlled by USA... Agent Orange, rings a bell?

Henry

Gurdur

...except by the USA
......and the USA also loves using napalm, a good non-specific broad-footprint weapon, albeit non-biological......... because the only "right" people are the USA.
...... mind you though, the fact that the Russian soldiers storming the theatre summarily executed all the still-living (most) but all unconscious Chechians with a bullet to the head for each was probably a little bit more lethal than the gas.

Of course, we can only hope they didn't summarily execute one or more of the hostages by mistake as well; the veil of secrecy thrown over the post-mortems is to spare our delicate sensibilities.

Cap'n Jack

No, neither.

They should have never been used, but they have and the only way forward is to make sure no-one else will make the same mistake.

As for Agent Orange, that a defoliant which turned out to have a nasty side effect. It was not intended as chemical weapon to kill people, it was used to clear foliage to make it hard for the VC to hide.

DarkBronzePlant

Cap'n Jack,

Hmm. So when WMD are in the hands of the right people, they are used and millions of people suffer. To paraphrase a cliche, with right hands like that, who needs wrong hands?

Cap'n Jack

I don't think anyone should have them. Surely someone can start to get rid of them? Whoever said there was the right hands for these weapons?

I was also merely pointing out that no-on is above anyone else, I hate the "we are better than you" attitude taken by some countries when they have done no better themselves.

Isn't about time people can start to do something about the WMD's in the world without pointing out what past governments have done implying no-one but the cleanest and most honest country can do this.

Mageth

......and the USA also loves using napalm, a good non-specific broad-footprint weapon, albeit non-biological

Supposedly, the U.S. stopped using napalm in the '70s and destroyed its last stockpile in 2001. But fuel air bombs are of course still in use; they're a similar concept.

Loren Pechtel

Get a dictionary!

Agent Orange was by no means a biological weapon! It didn't infect anybody.

It could be considered a chemical weapon but that was not its intent, it was believed safe when it was used.

Feather

Now now, LP. We can't have that sort of thinking interfere with the anti-war/anti-Bush/anti-US hysteria, you know.