VIETNAM, THIRTY YEARS LATER:
AMERICA'S EMPOISONED LEGACY

The truth is out! The American invasion of Iraq was foisted upon the US and the world by arguments now generally recognized as false.

Thousands of innocent Iraqis met a horrible death or suffered lasting wounds and permanent mutilation under an avalanche of American bombs and unprecedented fire-power. But the famous “weapons of mass destruction” allegedly held by the Iraqis were never discovered, and Iraq’s links to Bin Laden were never demonstrated.

Meanwhile, in faraway Vietnam, tens of thousands of innocent people are to this day suffering from the effects of the deadly chemical products sprayed over vast areas of the country between 1961 and 1975 by the US armed forces. The military aims of those attacks are known: to deprive the local population of its food supply and to eliminate the abundant foliage that served as camouflage for the Vietnamese partisans defending their homes and farms. A United Nations report shows that one-fifth of Vietnam’s forests were destroyed by those American attacks. The result has often been described by scientists as the “greatest ecological disaster in human history.” In the process, the country’s rivers and lakes were hopelessly polluted, and livestock decimated.

Today, an unusual legal action is being launched by a group of Vietnamese citizens, victims of the chemical warfare waged by the US. They have formed an organization called the Vietnam Association for the Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, dioxin being the deadly poison sprayed over the forests of Vietnam thirty years ago and Agent Orange the name by which it is familiarly known because it was stored barrels painted orange. The victims are demanding financial compensation for the damage inflicted by a multiplicity of diseases provoked by Agent Orange - cancer of the prostate and of the lungs; blindness; grave birth defects and malformations, etc.

And who are the defendants in this significant civil suit? Since the US Government cannot be tried or sued for the consequences of its military operations, the designated defendants are the private companies that have been reaping fabulous profits producing and selling the herbicides in question: Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Thompson, American Home Products, US Rubber, and many others. In support of their claims, the Vietnamese plaintiffs are invoking an array of international and national laws and treaties - for example, the 1925 Geneva Agreement against the use of poison gas, the 1949 Geneva Convention for the protection of civilians in time of war, the 1945 Nuremburg Agreement for the prosecution and punishment of war criminals, the United Nations Charter, and others.

Back in the 1980’s, a group of American Vietnam war veterans won financial damages from the major chemic companies in an out-of-court settlement between the veterans and the firms concerned. But the Vietnamese victims received not a penny. That omission is now about to be challenged. The Eastern District of New York is scheduled to hear the claims of the Vietnamese plaintiffs in September. We heartily support this important class action. It throws a glaring light on the 'morality' and 'legality' of US actions on the world stage today and yesterday. And tomorrow?