Aftermath of another war
February 7, 2007 9:38 AM Subscribe
Effects of Agent Orange Following Jonson's Hiroshima post, a (prob. NSFW) collection of images of Vietnamese children born to parents exposed to Agent Orange. Via a Matt Taibbi article on Joe Klein.
Ariana Huffington wrote about Klein recently, Klein responded, and Huffington re-responded.
posted by delmoi at 10:13 AM on February 7, 2007
posted by delmoi at 10:13 AM on February 7, 2007
*waits for post about u.s. atrocities in iraq*
C'mon guys, let's go for the trifecta! Never mind all the atrocities from other nations!
posted by keswick at 11:18 AM on February 7, 2007
C'mon guys, let's go for the trifecta! Never mind all the atrocities from other nations!
posted by keswick at 11:18 AM on February 7, 2007
So did John McCain drop Agent Orange from his plane? Since he thinks the antiwar crowd were and are so terrible, I wonder just what our country's military has to do before someone like him says enough?
posted by joseppi7 at 11:22 AM on February 7, 2007
posted by joseppi7 at 11:22 AM on February 7, 2007
C'mon guys, let's go for the trifecta! Never mind all the atrocities from other nations!
What a bankrupt world view you have there. One should care more for atrocities allegedly committed by one's own country more than those committed by others.
posted by bhouston at 11:32 AM on February 7, 2007 [1 favorite]
What a bankrupt world view you have there. One should care more for atrocities allegedly committed by one's own country more than those committed by others.
posted by bhouston at 11:32 AM on February 7, 2007 [1 favorite]
C'mon guys, let's go for the trifecta! Never mind all the atrocities from other nations!
Yeah, who cares about the atrocities as long as we can show how much we hate America?
Nothing personal, but that line of reasoning is just fucking ignorant. Unfortunately, it passes as reasonable nowadays; our whole foreign policy is based on it: Our bad behavior is O.K., because Saddam was worse. We are justified in abridging our citizens' civil rights, because the terrorists want to do worse. We obliterated Hiroshama and Nagasaki and Dresden, but we're for right and everyone else is for wrong.
Right and wrong is not a comparative science. It doesn't fucking matter what someone else does in determining if what you do is right or wrong. Conservatives used to berate the left for practicing "situational ethics", but I guess that's no longer an issue.
We are ignorant animals sometimes.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 11:41 AM on February 7, 2007
Yeah, who cares about the atrocities as long as we can show how much we hate America?
Nothing personal, but that line of reasoning is just fucking ignorant. Unfortunately, it passes as reasonable nowadays; our whole foreign policy is based on it: Our bad behavior is O.K., because Saddam was worse. We are justified in abridging our citizens' civil rights, because the terrorists want to do worse. We obliterated Hiroshama and Nagasaki and Dresden, but we're for right and everyone else is for wrong.
Right and wrong is not a comparative science. It doesn't fucking matter what someone else does in determining if what you do is right or wrong. Conservatives used to berate the left for practicing "situational ethics", but I guess that's no longer an issue.
We are ignorant animals sometimes.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 11:41 AM on February 7, 2007
It doesn't fucking matter what someone else does in determining if what you do is right or wrong.
You cannot possibly mean that.
posted by Bookhouse at 11:57 AM on February 7, 2007
You cannot possibly mean that.
posted by Bookhouse at 11:57 AM on February 7, 2007
Bookhouse: You cannot possibly mean that.
Why not?
Just because you're fighting a war doesn't mean that all the rules go out the window. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Attacks on military targets may endanger non-combatants. The laws of war recognize this, and require proportionality: the risk to non-combatants must be proportional to the military benefit of the action.
posted by russilwvong at 12:03 PM on February 7, 2007
Why not?
Just because you're fighting a war doesn't mean that all the rules go out the window. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Attacks on military targets may endanger non-combatants. The laws of war recognize this, and require proportionality: the risk to non-combatants must be proportional to the military benefit of the action.
posted by russilwvong at 12:03 PM on February 7, 2007
You cannot possibly mean that.
Why couldn't I? Right and wrong exist above, and without, rationalization.
Sometimes we have to choose the best of bad options -oftentimes because of what someone else did- but that's a whole 'nother issue. Pragmatic doesn't always equal right; a concept many people and countries can't get their head around.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 12:05 PM on February 7, 2007
Why couldn't I? Right and wrong exist above, and without, rationalization.
Sometimes we have to choose the best of bad options -oftentimes because of what someone else did- but that's a whole 'nother issue. Pragmatic doesn't always equal right; a concept many people and countries can't get their head around.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 12:05 PM on February 7, 2007
I think maybe I misunderstood you. This:
Sometimes we have to choose the best of bad options -oftentimes because of what someone else did- but that's a whole 'nother issue.
precludes you from the absolutist vein of logic I thought you were advocating. My bad.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:16 PM on February 7, 2007
Sometimes we have to choose the best of bad options -oftentimes because of what someone else did- but that's a whole 'nother issue.
precludes you from the absolutist vein of logic I thought you were advocating. My bad.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:16 PM on February 7, 2007
Although I still don't agree with this:
Right and wrong exist above, and without, rationalization.
But I think it's a tenable position -- just not one I share.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:20 PM on February 7, 2007
Right and wrong exist above, and without, rationalization.
But I think it's a tenable position -- just not one I share.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:20 PM on February 7, 2007
We obliterated Hiroshama and Nagasaki and Dresden
"Do unto others", basically.
Using Agent Orange to reduce jungle cover and deny the insurgent enemy rice from poorly-secured/liberated (depending on your viewpoint) farmland was in fact quite screwed up, since that was a war that we ourselves blundered into.
Context, people, context.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:39 PM on February 7, 2007
"Do unto others", basically.
Using Agent Orange to reduce jungle cover and deny the insurgent enemy rice from poorly-secured/liberated (depending on your viewpoint) farmland was in fact quite screwed up, since that was a war that we ourselves blundered into.
Context, people, context.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:39 PM on February 7, 2007
"Do unto others", basically.
In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: maybe/maybe not - I think we could have a pragmatism vs. right and wrong discussion on those. Dresden, no. That was vengeance, completely, and wrong.
And, again, "do unto others" does not really go into the issue of right and wrong, anyway. And, FWIW, I'm not trying to be a semantic asshole - I'm just trying to point out that what most people claim are issues of right and wrong are not really that at all.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 1:04 PM on February 7, 2007
In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: maybe/maybe not - I think we could have a pragmatism vs. right and wrong discussion on those. Dresden, no. That was vengeance, completely, and wrong.
And, again, "do unto others" does not really go into the issue of right and wrong, anyway. And, FWIW, I'm not trying to be a semantic asshole - I'm just trying to point out that what most people claim are issues of right and wrong are not really that at all.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 1:04 PM on February 7, 2007
Why couldn't I? Right and wrong exist above, and without, rationalization.
Well, that's the rub right there.
posted by spaltavian at 1:23 PM on February 7, 2007
Well, that's the rub right there.
posted by spaltavian at 1:23 PM on February 7, 2007
My uncle, possibly one of the coolest guys I've ever met, was a member of Company A, 1st Bat., 6th Infantry. His life after the war was a bout of one small physical issue after another, until two years ago, when he had a heart attack. My aunt didn't discover him until his brain had been deprived of oxygen for over 2 hours, and the paramedics managed to revive him.
Fast-forward to today, and my uncle's in a state that the doctors say is similar to advanced Alzheimer's syndrome. He can't remember anything with certainty that happened after 1972, which means he doesn't remember his wife, his children, or his grandchildren. Starting in October of last year, his heart began randomly failing, and then restarting itself after nearly 45 seconds of no motion. The doctors, at that time, gave him days to live. He's still alive today, and still in the same condition.
My aunt tells me that of the men that went to Vietnam in his unit, half of them came back alive. Since that time, over 2/3rds have died from heart attack or stroke. At the link I've posted here, you'll find photos of the men in the field, making camp, drinking the water from the streams, and generally just living in the middle of the jungle. In nearly every shot, the trees are practically smoldering from the Napalm used to clear the area.
This is my Uncle Steve. Uncle Sam can go fuck himself.
posted by thanotopsis at 1:34 PM on February 7, 2007 [3 favorites]
Fast-forward to today, and my uncle's in a state that the doctors say is similar to advanced Alzheimer's syndrome. He can't remember anything with certainty that happened after 1972, which means he doesn't remember his wife, his children, or his grandchildren. Starting in October of last year, his heart began randomly failing, and then restarting itself after nearly 45 seconds of no motion. The doctors, at that time, gave him days to live. He's still alive today, and still in the same condition.
My aunt tells me that of the men that went to Vietnam in his unit, half of them came back alive. Since that time, over 2/3rds have died from heart attack or stroke. At the link I've posted here, you'll find photos of the men in the field, making camp, drinking the water from the streams, and generally just living in the middle of the jungle. In nearly every shot, the trees are practically smoldering from the Napalm used to clear the area.
This is my Uncle Steve. Uncle Sam can go fuck himself.
posted by thanotopsis at 1:34 PM on February 7, 2007 [3 favorites]
keswick writes "C'mon guys, let's go for the trifecta! Never mind all the atrocities from other nations!"
Amen! I do, after all, hate the US with a passion!
posted by brundlefly at 3:37 PM on February 7, 2007
Amen! I do, after all, hate the US with a passion!
posted by brundlefly at 3:37 PM on February 7, 2007
We are ignorant animals sometimes.
Fixed that for you.
posted by davejay at 4:40 PM on February 7, 2007
Fixed that for you.
posted by davejay at 4:40 PM on February 7, 2007
C'mon guys, let's go for the trifecta! Never mind all the atrocities from other nations!
I'm sorry for your mental and social retardation, keswick. I do, however, congratulate you: presumably you've yet to murder a few whores on the basis that Pickton murdered forty-nine of them, which would make you a comparitively great guy.
Asshole.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:24 PM on February 7, 2007
I'm sorry for your mental and social retardation, keswick. I do, however, congratulate you: presumably you've yet to murder a few whores on the basis that Pickton murdered forty-nine of them, which would make you a comparitively great guy.
Asshole.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:24 PM on February 7, 2007
So did John McCain drop Agent Orange from his plane? ...
Discussion of McCain's cognitive dissonance aside, joseppi7, I doubt like hell that he ever dropped AO -- he was a brownshoe Scooter driver (US naval aviator flying the A-4E Skyhawk), and they do tactical air, firing rockets and missiles and dropping bombs (and occasionally strafing) ground targets. Operation Ranch Hand -- Only we can prevent forests" -- was an Air Force thing -- it wouldn't have been a Navy mission because it would've required a kind of aircraft the Navy has comparatively few of.
posted by pax digita at 4:25 AM on February 8, 2007
Discussion of McCain's cognitive dissonance aside, joseppi7, I doubt like hell that he ever dropped AO -- he was a brownshoe Scooter driver (US naval aviator flying the A-4E Skyhawk), and they do tactical air, firing rockets and missiles and dropping bombs (and occasionally strafing) ground targets. Operation Ranch Hand -- Only we can prevent forests" -- was an Air Force thing -- it wouldn't have been a Navy mission because it would've required a kind of aircraft the Navy has comparatively few of.
posted by pax digita at 4:25 AM on February 8, 2007
I have two knees. Don't you?
posted by five fresh fish at 7:44 PM on February 8, 2007
posted by five fresh fish at 7:44 PM on February 8, 2007
The US has agreed for the first time to help towards cleaning up a site in Vietnam which stored Agent Orange and other chemicals during the Vietnam war.
posted by homunculus at 9:54 PM on February 9, 2007
posted by homunculus at 9:54 PM on February 9, 2007
It's nice to hear of the USA doing something good.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:52 PM on February 9, 2007
posted by five fresh fish at 10:52 PM on February 9, 2007
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posted by delmoi at 9:58 AM on February 7, 2007