r/Documentaries • u/gullydon • 5d ago
American Politics The Vietnam War's Agent Orange legacy (2017) - Reporter travels to Vietnam to investigate the ongoing legacy of Agent Orange. [00:23:04]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMzJvwG2rsQ100
u/xoverthirtyx 5d ago
The VA just this last month officially acknowledged my dad’s health issues due to Agent Orange, 50+ years later.
19
u/fla_john 5d ago
Mine too, just a few years ago. It took a long time, but they're finally doing the right thing and he's getting good care. I hope it goes well for your dad.
19
u/xoverthirtyx 5d ago
Thank you, glad your dad is getting taken care of!
I have to admit though it feels more like they waited until these guys were too old to hold the govt accountable.
251
u/daibatzu 5d ago
The US has refused to show it's bombing maps to the Vietnamese and Cambodian governments so that these chemicals can be removed from the soil
120
u/DocCharlesXavier 5d ago
US has a pretty heinous and unnecessary involvement in international affairs
44
110
u/agitatedprisoner 5d ago
The American Elite and poisoning people. Name a more classic duo.
16
7
-40
u/Zhaicew 5d ago
American populace voted and worked together to make it happen. Let's not blame it all on rich.
6
u/agitatedprisoner 5d ago
Lots of people trust their political leadership to only start wars if there's no reasonable alternative. That means when a country's leaders do choose to start a war lots of citizens are inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Because citizens don't themselves much imagine knowing what's going on in other distant nations. Maybe groups in those distant nations have to be fought before they cause even bigger problems and get to starting world wars, so the thinking goes. Or maybe we're just that swell that we need to save them from themselves. It's possible, if another nation is really that backwards and if we're really that swell. But Vietnam wasn't that backward and we weren't just that swell. Had US leadership back then told the people the Vietnamese people were rising up against oppression much as colonial Americans had against the crown back in 1776 the America public would've gotten along with that narrative instead.
If you'd absolve our leaders that'd be to suppose they had no choice but to go along with it. Like maybe somebody had a gun to their heads. That's about what it'd take to persuade me they weren't pathological. Because it's not like they didn't have the intel and it's not like lots of people back then didn't know. Nations should aspire to find ways to have other than pathological leaders.
-8
u/ImaginationMajor5062 4d ago
Have you really compared colonial America to the Vietnamese striving for independence from France? Fuck me you yanks are as dense as a black hole.
6
u/agitatedprisoner 4d ago
In point of fact I didn't. I said a US president could've framed it that way and that the US public would've gone along with it. I'm not a historian.
1
u/FlingBeeble 3d ago
Maybe look up what a hypothetical is. It could help you because it seems like what you are struggling with here. Hate Americans if you want, but you may need to work on your reading comprehension, or you will keep looking dumb like this
48
u/omegaphallic 5d ago
The people involved in this deserve life in prison.
41
6
u/FlingBeeble 3d ago
Unfortunately one of the primary perpetrators recently died at the age of 100 and was highly celebrated. Henry Kissinger. Horrible war criminal and mass murderer responsible for extending the Vietnam War in order to bolster Nixon's campaign. Read what he did and then read his obituary and you will lose faith in humanity
47
u/gullydon 5d ago
Vietnam's Toxic Legacy: This episode investigates claims by doctors in Vietnam who believe that agent orange is causing life threatening health problems for a whole new generation of children. The toxic herbicide was dropped on Vietnam by US forces during the war over 40 years ago.
51
u/Roofer7553-2 5d ago
Can some of the billionaires help this hospital?
35
49
u/nardev 5d ago
Heads should fucking roll.
28
u/Ghoulya 5d ago
Heads didn't even roll for My lai.
4
u/Pavlovsdong89 4d ago
Hugh Thompson Jr received death threats and had dead animals left on his porch for years for trying to stop the massacre and reporting what he saw.
15
u/haribobosses 5d ago
Universal rights and redress for victims is an existential threat to the custodians of the status quo.
19
u/engineereddiscontent 5d ago
This shit is evil. The fact that this documentary came out 40-50 years after the bombing stopped and it's still happening is also absolutely vile.
6
33
u/museum_lifestyle 5d ago
This is what happens when idiots voters put sociopaths in charge.
26
u/Gen8Master 5d ago
I think its pretty clear by now that sociopaths are all thats left on the US political stage.
3
u/QuantumTopology 3d ago
This is not the fault of common US citizens, this is the fault of the evil fuckers who have captured the levers of power. America is not a democracy.
2
u/thorsten139 5d ago
Vote left ...vote right....
You get the same people.
Hahahahahaha they are all family behind the scenes
4
3
u/Personal-Finish-9739 3d ago
The American Veterans Administration has refused to study the latent effects of Agent Orange on our Vietnam and Cold War Korean DMZ Veterans. The Canadian counterpart has and they found that dioxin is prevalent and persistent in soil for at least 20 years. Everyone in my unit, Joint Security Force and I think our backup unit 2/9 Infantry and all other Korean DMZ Veterans - most have the presumptive Agent Orange cancers and other maladies. The Korean DMZ was sprayed all during the Vietnam War as the North Koreans stepped up firefights. Spraying stopped in 1972. I was there in 1976 and later developed an aggressive prostate cancer that resulted in a prostectomy. My unit was IN the DMZ at PanMunJom 243 days, 1976-77. The 2nd Infantry Division units all patrolled in and along the DMZ southern boundary. We have all been left out of the PACT Act which recognizes (finally) everyone, Stateside, Vietnam, aircraft carriers, who handled the stuff. But the Korean DMZ people are left out. The "Forgotten War" continues.
18
u/DebateCareless3938 5d ago
Can not believe that to this day there are people who justify the Vietnam war there are truly ghouls amongst us that resemble humans
15
u/ImpenetrableYeti 5d ago
Agent orange there and then depleted uranium in the Middle East. We never learn
17
u/pomod 5d ago
Agent orange there and then depleted uranium in the Middle East.
We never learncare.The word is care. American foreign policy has been completely Machiavellian for decades; Vietnam, Latin America, you’re currently aiding and abetting a genocide in Gaza in plain sight and against the protests of 153 other nations. American doesn’t care.
2
3
u/MaryPop130 3d ago
I cannot understand how the USA is not doing everything in our power to help anyone affected by agent Orange, here or there. To see those innocents suffer is just too much- where is our conscience? If we can help them and prevent future effects of agent Orange through clean up, we need to do it. Bless this doctor and all she and her staff do.
3
u/aquila-audax 3d ago
There's a museum in Vietnam (Saigon iirc) where one of the rooms is just preserved fetuses with birth abnormalities due to agent orange exposure. It's horrific what was done to that country.
8
u/_CatLover_ 5d ago
Vietnam should have thought about this before they invaded the US.
After all, the US is a force of good and only fights for the rules based world order.
2
u/TrumpdUP 4d ago
So sad to be brought in to this world like that. Must really be a loving god up there? Right?
1
u/Dagwood3 4d ago
It's gotta be the worst thing the yanks have done
11
u/planchetflaw 4d ago
One of
4
u/Lankpants 4d ago
Topped only by doing literally the exact same thing to Laos, a nation the US wasn't even at war with without any of the developmental advantages that Vietnam had.
4
1
-6
-8
u/StonerCowboy 5d ago
Wtf. No nsfw tag?
6
u/QuantumTopology 3d ago
Fuck your NSFW tag. "Boo-hoo I saw something icky", imagine being born like this. Now imagine being born like this because some evil bastards from the other side of the world heinously deformed you like this!
The world needs to see this.
1
-19
u/DelirielDramafoot 5d ago
Thanks for making me look at a horribly deformed face of a child...
What is wrong with you!!!
Unsubbed!
3
-31
5d ago
[deleted]
23
18
u/Endreeemtsu 5d ago
It’s a real child from the documentary you potato. And this is a very legitimate documentary at that you extra deep fried potato.
15
•
u/AutoModerator 5d ago
Thanks for posting, u/gullydon!
Submission Statements Are REQUIRED. Please read rule #5 for details.
Please read all our sub rules.
If your video is flagged by the bot, don't worry. Our moderators will review and approve it as quickly as possible. Should you not find it within 24 hours, please send a modmail containing the post's link.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.