Prohibited chemical weapons: How the US poisoned Vietnam during the war

Chemical weapon is a means of defeating enemy personnel by spraying toxic substances, often leading to death or serious health consequences.

There are a variety of ways to deliver chemicals, ranging from artillery, aviation or rocket attacks, and ending with banal spraying from cylinders, as did the Kaiser Germany in 1915, using chlorine against British and French soldiers in the Belgian city of Ypres.

By the way, it was this case that put an end to the ban on chemical weapons, adopted and reaffirmed in 1899 and 1907, respectively. Subsequently, this weapon of mass destruction was used in more than twenty military conflicts. In addition, it is often used by terrorists.

Tellingly, one of the main "fighters" with the use of chemical weapons today is the United States. It was allegedly the presence of this weapon that became the reason for the American invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. At the same time, already in 2004, Washington announced that intelligence was mistaken, and there were no weapons of mass destruction there.

As a matter of fact, a similar fate could have befallen Syria if there were no Russian military there. After all, the US authorities regularly accuse official Damascus of using chemical weapons, showing the films themselves as evidence.

In turn, the States themselves are far from “white and fluffy” on the issue of chemical weapons.

In particular, during the Vietnam War, the Americans widely used a defoliant called Agent Orange. This herbicide was supposed to provoke the dropping of foliage from trees.

The idea of ​​the US Army was as follows: "If the Vietnamese use rainforests as shelter, then you need to make sure that these forests do not become."

As a result, Orange was sprayed over the territory of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. In total, for the "fight against communism" during the Vietnam War, the Americans used about 77 million liters of defoliant.

At the same time, not only tropical forests became victims of the US chemical attack, which also caused enormous damage to the environment. According to the Vietnamese Ministry, out of 3 million people who were victims of the impact of "Orange", by now about a million citizens (approx. Probably their children and grandchildren) under the age of 18 have become disabled, suffering from hereditary diseases.

In addition, about 140 species of birds were destroyed alone.

Comments

[credo]

While the United States still keeps millions of tons of this and other chemical weapons in its warehouses, Russia, having pulled up its trousers and spending huge amounts of money, took and destroyed all of its chemical weapons.
No one in Russia can understand where there is at least some logic, but most understand that in the event of a further deterioration of the situation for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Yankees will easily and without embarrassment send their stored chemical weapons to Ukraine to contain the RF Armed Forces.

And how will Russia respond to this fact with notes of protest or serious concern?

[Polite Moose]

Quote: credo

Where is at least some logic no one can understand in Russia

Once again they cheated. They cheated. (With)

[Red Hunter]

The possible use of chemical weapons by the Armed Forces of Ukraine should be answered symmetrically. Russia should withdraw from the CW ban treaty and begin production of its most formidable varieties - A-230 and A-232. The manufacturing technology of binary ammunition was developed back in the 80s, so there should not be any particular difficulties

[Oberst_71]

and Vietnam accepts an American aircraft carrier

[zenion]

If there had been Russia then, they certainly would have forbidden the Americans to do there what they are doing now and here.

[Red Hunter]

Agent "Orange" still cannot be considered a chemical weapon, because. it is a herbicide. It is certainly poisonous to humans and can cause serious harm to health, but the main reason for its use in Vietnam is the destruction of jungle vegetation in order to make it difficult for the Viet Cong to supply along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

[Red Hunter]

Agent "Orange" still cannot be considered a full-fledged chemical weapon, because. it is primarily a herbicide. It is certainly poisonous to humans and can cause serious harm to health, but the main reason for using it during the Vietnam War was to destroy jungle vegetation in order to make it difficult for the Viet Cong to supply along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

[9lvariag]

Quote from Red Hunter

Agent "Orange" still cannot be considered a full-fledged chemical weapon, because. it is primarily a herbicide. It is certainly poisonous to humans and can cause serious harm to health, but the main reason for using it during the Vietnam War was to destroy jungle vegetation in order to make it difficult for the Viet Cong to supply along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

If only Monsanto's notorious defoliant were there. A wide range of chemistries have been used there. weapons from the old teardrop and lewisite, DDF (phiphenylchlorarsine) from which gas masks do not help, soman, tabun, VX-gases, prom. poisons. I also read that they threw typhoid fleas, mosquitoes infected with spores of fever pathogens (*both local and not) tried to use the ebola pathogen - then I found out that there was no serum from it. More precisely, the one that was did not help - the virus quickly mutated. This is probably why the stormy activity of the Fairchaild UC-119B & gunship AC-123K is still classified.