Agent Orange (the chemical)

[Shoqiyqa]

... did that film Jacobs Ladder have something to do with it?

That was about experimental use of LSD to make soldiers more aggressive or more easily "programmed" or some such.

Up to you whether you believe that [http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/1.html].

In the 1950's and continuing until the 1970's, The CIA tested LSD on citizens, mental patients, prisoners and soldiers, many of them unsuspecting. Some citizens were drugged without their knowledge and put under surveillance. The U.S. Army Chemical Corps also tested drugs such as LSD and mescaline on all of these groups. This included a group of 1500 soldiers that were tested with LSD and 2800 soldiers that were tested with BZ.

Sources:
Congressional Hearings, Human Drug Testing by The CIA, 1975-1977
The History Channel, "History's Mysteries: Getting High: A History of LSD"
"Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties and Beyond", Martin Lee, Bruce Shlain, Grove Press, 1986

 

[Naeo]

Yeah, Agent Orange was a pretty scary thing.

But then again there were the comparatively unknown brother/sister chemicals. Agent Blue, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Pink, Agent White, and I think one more. Most of them were never used due to extremely high levels of Dioxin contamination.

Don't forget Agent Blonde and Agent Brown...wasn't Agent Brown played by Quentin Tar-- I thought we were talking about Reservoir Dogs? [See what I did there?]
OT: Yeah, Vietnamese did some pretty fucked up stuff too. Fight fire with fire, right?

Teehee.

Yeah, the Vietnamese did do some pretty fucked up stuff, but it's not like America was being some saintly hero over there. A few of my teachers at school were in Vietnam during the war, and a few other people I know as well. The ones that actually were in combat usually say "You don't want to know what I saw" and at least two of them "You don't want to know what we did over there". Either way, fucking over their next generations probably about matches a lot of the other shit over there, since those effects last long after the war is over. Still to this day, even, though not as frequently/severely as back then, I think.

 

[Haunted Serenity]

i hate to say it but agent orange. yes it is bad against people however when fighting a war do you really care about the other side or what happens afterwards? no you rush in this chemical weapon and it works to an extent. if it works great let the future worry about what we just messed up.

Oh napalm is very useful. scary and really mean to use on another living person but hey it gets the job done

 

[Haunted Serenity]

war is bad in real life. we all can agree to that. but...that being said humans continue to find interesting ways to kill each other long after the war is done with.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

WP (White Phosphorous) is a murderously effective antipersonel weapon, simply because it will set most things on fire, and, if immersed in water, creates an acid.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

All true, but the band Agent Orange is awesome...

 

[grimsprice]

i doubt anyone will stick to the rules, especially if the chips are down. if someone is willing to kill someone for something then i don't really see why they would stick to the rules was my point.

That's because war is supposed to be a last resort and resolved as quickly as possible. If you're dicking around using chemical weapons to cause birth defects and cause suffering instead of just putting a few bullets in them, you're doing it wrong.

exactly. i agree. but what you're forgetting is America didn't use agent orange because it would cause birth defects or suffering. it was used to level the jungles, destroy the foliage so we could see VC and shoot them. even if we had known what it would have done... i doubt we would have stopped using it. like you said. no dicking around.

 

[Smack-Ferret]

Bwah! By god that lady looked like an IRL troll!

 

[Mekado]

I hate America and wish it unpleasant death.

See? The point of this thread is anti-americanism. Told you.

People forget that we could be much worse off. What if The Third Reich and Japanese Empire were current greatest superpowers? America is a fluffy kingdom of love and benevolence when compared to REAL bad guys,who killed innocent (and frequently their own) civilians FOR FUN.

Besides,Agent Orange is herbicide,not a chemical weapon. If they knew it was poisonous,they wouldn't use it.

Yes, of course, you're absolutely right about everything, and so are Hannity and Colmes.

If anyone criticised a past action of any other country, that'd be fine and maybe we could discuss it, and of course if an *trumpet fanfare* American criticised something another country did, that'd be just dandy and of course the *trumpet fanfare* American would be absolutely right, but if anybody, anywhere, whether in *drum roll* The United States Of America *orchestra hit* or not, criticises anything *drum roll* The United States Of America *orchestra hit* has done, that's a clear expression of a desire to see *drum roll* The United States Of America *orchestra hit* burned, levelled, irradiated, turned into a desert, wiped form the map and destroyed, the Jews driven into the sea, every church on the planet burned, science abandoned, the whole world go back to the dark ages, babies murdered in the streets, children raped, Islam take over everywhere, women be subjugated and made to wear the burka, non-Muslims be taxed, white people be exterminated and everyone be subject to totalitarian communist rule by rich sheikhs, because *drum roll* The United States Of America *orchestra hit* is holy, and any criticism at all is blasphemy ... obviously.

Meanwhile, if you really must sit around eating worms to show just how much everybody hates you, please do it somewhere else. You're going to kill the grass if you sit and cry on my lawn for another four days.

Oh, and here, you'll want this for your pity party:

Hehe i like that post.Some examples of the chivalrous USA at work :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_bomb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagasaki_bomb#Nagasaki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead

Note : no i'm not saying they're evil, just saying history is written by the winners and it's pretty easy to forget BOTH sides do questionable things in times of war.

Anwyays, yeah Agent Orange is disgusting, as was Zyklon-B, or napalm, or white phosporous, as was mustard gas, as is pretty much any chemical warfare "tool", these things aren't meant to kill quickly and cleanly (maybe except Zyklon-B but the application was far from clean...)

 

[timmytom1]

I was kinda hopeing this would be about the sodom album of the same name (which was terrible incidentally)however i strongly suspect that the US had no idea of the side effects of some of the various chemicals they were using at the time

 

[bigorexia]

I didn't realize that war killed people.

 

[tehbeard]

Daisy Cutters are fine to, they both do the same thing really. However, nothing quite matches that psychological terror that is Napalm. ('cept for Willie Pete that is)

Daisy cutters do not do the same job as agent orange.
Agent orange was a chemical defoiliant that took time to kill plants and was used to clear areas so the enemy couldn't hide.

Daisy cutters where designed for instant heli landing zones, throw it out the back of a C-130, it blows 3-6ft off the ground clearing a 100m radius of all life. Since its only explosive at most you have minute trace elements introduced to the surrounding area, not posioning of food chain and water table contamination.

 

[Scolar Visari]

Daisy cutters do not do the same job as agent orange.
Agent orange was a chemical defoiliant that took time to kill plants and was used to clear areas so the enemy couldn't hide.

Daisy cutters where designed for instant heli landing zones, throw it out the back of a C-130, it blows 3-6ft off the ground clearing a 100m radius of all life. Since its only explosive at most you have minute trace elements introduced to the surrounding area, not posioning of food chain and water table contamination.

Like I said, kinda the same. The methods may be different, and the end result might be slightly different but, they meet somewhere in the middle. You are right though, they aren't the same thing, that's why I said they're sorta similar, even if the wording wasn't clear.

 

[Silva]

See? The point of this thread is anti-americanism. Told you.

People forget that we could be much worse off. What if The Third Reich and Japanese Empire were current greatest superpowers? America is a fluffy kingdom of love and benevolence when compared to REAL bad guys,who killed innocent (and frequently their own) civilians FOR FUN.

If you won't allow people to criticise your country for some of the very questionable things its military has done, then you are the true anti-American here. America is founded on the ideal of free speech for a reason - it helps the country improve if people criticise it. This can lead to change out of otherwise stagnant political situations.

Besides,Agent Orange is herbicide,not a chemical weapon. If they knew it was poisonous,they wouldn't use it.

I don't think you'd worry about whether or not it counted as a herbicide if you had some thrown onto your face. It would feel like a chemical to you. So let's not pretend your argument here means anything.

Maybe it's just midwestern red states but in my rural high school... we went over vietnam a lot. Granted this was 15 years ago when people who fought in viet nam were teaching the history classess...

Okay, fair point. There are certainly states there that don't teach it, though, by memory. And you're right, it's probably in the Midwest.

EDIT: Here's one example (though not from the Midwest):
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-01/news/mn-61018_1_vietnam-war

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

OT: Yeah, Vietnamese did some pretty fucked up stuff too. Fight fire with fire, right?

Yes, but we were meant to be the good guys.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work out like that. You cant win a war without playing dirty at some point. Especially if your enemy is playing like that.

 

[Grand_Poohbah]

My grandfather was disabled by agent orange. My dad got free college for it though.

 

[Brett Alex]

OT: Yeah, Vietnamese did some pretty fucked up stuff too. Fight fire with fire, right?

Yes, but we were meant to be the good guys.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work out like that. You cant win a war without playing dirty at some point. Especially if your enemy is playing like that.

Then why pretend we're any better than them? Why fight them at all?

 

[AkJay]

I kind of feel bad, because my Grandfather was a military scientist who developed and tested it.

You come from GREATNESS! young sir.

 

[soren7550]

To the people who've said something or other about Agent Orange causing birth defects:
You should remember that back then, if something did what they wanted it to do, they didn't really question it until later. A.O. was used to clear away large areas of foliage and the jungle, and it worked. We didn't really have any reason to question it. Id did what they needed it to do, and it did it well.

Schools today rarely teach anything about Vietnam. The closest I ever got to learning about the war in school from a teacher was the Watergate scandal. (this is coming from nearly 12 years of attendance in NYC Public Schools.)It's a shame, really. I really want to learn more about the war, but no one ever wants to teach it. I give credit to my 11th grade history teacher though for trying. He wanted to show us Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, but after the disaster of showing the class Saving Private Ryan (there was next to no one who understood the basic concept of the Normandy invasion), he knew that he wouldn't be able to show either movie because he knew that both were too complex for everyone else in the class.