US “Agent Orange” Ruling Disappoints Vietnamese; Pleases Monsanto, Dow Chemical
HANOI — Vietnamese victims of wartime “agent orange” were disappointed by a U.S. court’s dismissal of a lawsuit against chemical companies but believe they have gathered more support for their cause, an official said on Saturday.
“We anticipated this because it is not easy suing big and powerful U.S. companies on U.S. soil and under the U.S. court system,” said Nguyen Trong Nhan, vice chairman of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin.
Friday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York concluded the plaintiffs could not pursue claims against Dow Chemical Co, Monsanto Co and nearly 30 other companies.
Toxins left behind from the 1960s and 70s war are a thorn in otherwise friendly ties between the Communist Party government and Washington which have been built up around trade and business since 1995.
The lawsuit contended agent orange caused ailments, including birth defects and cancer.
Studies have shown the compound of dioxin, a component of “agent orange” herbicides sprayed during the war, is still present in so-called “hot spots” at levels hundreds of times higher than would be accepted elsewhere.
The United States has maintained there is no scientifically proved link between the wartime spraying and the claims of dioxin poisoning by more than 3 million people in Vietnam.
The U.S. government, which claimed sovereign immunity, was not sued.
Nhan, a former health minister, said “outside court we have been telling the international community, including American people and they have shown their support for our cause.
“We have more and more supporters all the time,” said Nhan, who spoke in his personal capacity. He said the victims’ group would make a statement on Monday.
Another Vietnamese official, scientist and dioxin expert, Le Ke Son, said, “I believe the victims group will take this to the U.S. Supreme Court”, which would be the next stage of appeal.
Efforts by the Vietnam and U.S. governments and non-governmental organisations have made progress in recent months toward cleaning up dioxin from an area of a former U.S. military airbase in the central city of Danang .
Reporting by Grant McCool and Nguyen Nhat Lam; Editing by Jerry Norton
© Reuters 2008
This is a shameful crime against humanity that needs accountability. In addition we now have spread DU weapons of mass destruction all over the Middle East which is causing horrific deformities in Iraq etc. This is not adequately reported by our media. Our empire has become evil. We need not an election but a non-violent revolution of change.
S T I N K S __ B E Y O N D __ H I G H __ H E A V E N
I’m not at all surprised..when our govt. denies Agent Orange harmed our very own troops.
And dioxin is sold in white paper products for our kitchens, one reason not touse paper towels in the microwave. Check it out for yourself.
However, I, too, am disappointed as well.
Wars do end up hurting people and the earth. Less of them is better all around. The trick is avoiding them.
Lawsuits after-the-fact are pretty much not allowed.
I’m not suprised by the ruling but it’s still disgusting.
For more information about efforts to help Vietnamese victims of Agent orange go to www.vn-agentorange.org. The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign is a project of Veterans for Peace.
Considering the travails Vietnam veterans had just getting treated for their exposure to Agent Orange and other deadly chemicals during their service from the government in the form of the Veterans Administration, is it any surprise the Vietnamese people get rebuffed by a US court? If this case does make it to the US Supreme Court, expect that fascist gas bag Scalia to intone some absurd justification while ruling in favor of his corporate buddies.
The Vietnam war, what was old is new again. Enter John McCain in the 80s and a long look back at a war that was suddenly winnable, just like a nuclear war with the Soviets.
Possibly Dow didn’t make enough naplam.
War isn’t a bad thing, just ask a majority of Americans. Those working for Dow, during the time the US was burning SE Asia, had a good job. Benefits, pension, and serene communities. Only a troubled cynic would say that dioxin was harmful, or John McCain is anything less then a hero for burning people alive.
We are no longer citizens of a republic
but only subjects of corporations.
Agent Orange
Bhopal
Depleted Uranium
Franken Food
Telcom Spying
Climate Change
You might like to take a look at this
essay I wrote following a recent visit to the homes of some Vietnamese families still dealing with the results of Agent Orange. The photo was taken by my fifteen year-old son.
Virginia, I read your essay. You’re a beautiful person.
Thank you Virginia, Your essay and compassion make the point clear and vibrant!
Whatever happened to American Justice? Rhetorical Question with Fascism at the helm.
How do we reclaim our nation’s honor?
yeah that is a powerful story Virginia, and it says just about all that needs to be said about this mess, and about legal appeals. They get so all tied up in legal jargon and procedures and what’s proved and all they need to do is follow you around.
or at least read your story.
i just would like to add that “defoliating the jungle” in Vietnam was a really monstrous crime just for what it did to the beautiful land. The human toll it took and continues to take just makes it that much more horrible.
I still see those little magnetic ribbons on the backs of pickup trucks that say “God bless the USA”. Do these people think we need to blessed by a forgiving God? I hope so. But I suspect most of them think we deserve it. We have a lot of work to do before we deserve it.
I wonder how long it will take before the victims of depleted uranium get any justice? Based on this and other past actions of our government/corporations, a hell of a long time. Can you get medical care posthumously?
It’s Okay, we all are gonna die anyway. Even those corrupt judges who rendered this ruling.
“I believe the victims group will take this to the U.S. Supreme Court”
Better save their money, there is no justice left in American court system for victims, only corporations.
~GLENN GOODMAN~~ The victems of DU contamination will be long dead before any action is ever taken to correct that disasterous blunder.___ It takes about two minutes to read this link on that subject.
http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_blowinginthewind.htm
Thanks Kem,
Good Link. DU pales Agent Orange as the gift that keeps on giving for 45-billion years. That’s ten half-lives of 4.5 billion years.
Both do the same thing!
So this is what the “War on Terror” is about! Well we are terrorizing our own people, our own soldiers. Yea, we’re killing the enemy alright.
The ignorant ones that believed; are too arrogant to see.
Open an Agent Orange Julius in DC next to the Senate, Congress and the lobbyists and let them demonstrate on TV how safe it is to drink! It killed soldiers and Vietnamese citizens and many veterans suffer from the effects. US Government, as usual, denies all responsibility. United States is so generous. Not only gave Agent Orange, but likes to leave nasty cluster bombs around for decades to kill civilians and also depleted uranium. Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Iraq will be dangerous for civilians for decades. Yes, there is no justice in Amerikan courts, no way to fight the rich corporations. Immoral bastards, getting away with murder. Don’t even think about giving them the benefit of the doubt - they know what they did, are still doing it and know the toxic effects very well.
Thank you Virginia. We have destroyed and ruined so many lives in pursuit of money and power. Our country is so far off the path of right action we don’t even know what it is anymore. Americans, who like to think we are generous and charitable, are fully complicit because we are unwilling to consider living with less even if it means others have to die or live in slave conditions to provide for our lifestyle. Turning our eyes away from the reality of our country’s actions while we indulge ourselves makes us equally criminal.
I can’t think of a better outcome than for Monsanto and Dow to be bankrupted by lawsuits.
kathyodat
A guy goes to jail for 10 years for posession of Marijuana, but those responsable for the poisoning of thousands..skate…sounds like team spirit to me..could those judges be Bush Appointees? or at the very least stock holders? or simply do not care about “real” crime..yeah that’s it..they just DO NOT CARE…
So..THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT:
STOP PAYING THEIR SALLERIES..STOP PAYING FOR THE ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES OF THE CORPORATE FASCIST THEOCRACY…
STOP PAYING YOUR TAXES..DO NOT FILE, DO NOT PAY!
IF YOU CAN’T DO THAT, THEN GO FOR “BAD CREDIT” WHICH WE ALL HAVE ANYWAY..STOP PAYING YOUR CREDIT CARD BILLS..
FOLKS, WE HAVE ONE POWER LEFT TO US AS CITIZENS..THE POWER OF THE PURSE..IT IS ALL WE HAVE LEFT…SO STOP PAYING..YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT..MAKING IT POSSIBLE..PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS AND DO NOT PAY TAX…INCOME TAX IS ILLEGAL ANYWAY..IT REALLY IS…
It’s all about the election, and the election is all about appointing real judges to appeals courts and justices to the supreme court.
The Canadian military, with help from the U.S. Army and Fort Detrick, sprayed the components of Agent Orange (2,4-D & 2,4,5-T, either singly or in combination) on Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in the province of New Brunswick Canada from 1956 until 1964. Thereafter Agent White (Tordon 101) was the prefered herbicide. These facts were concealed from the hundreds of thousands of people who resided there, both military and civilian, until mid-2005.
The amount of Agent Orange sprayed on Gagetown is estimated at being in excess of 200,000 gallons. The amount of Agent White is estimated at 3,263,000 litres and pounds. Due to the much smaller size of Gagetown compared to Vietnam, Gagetown’s contamination is estimated to be two to three times that of Vietnam.
The Agent Orange Association of Canada’s (AOAC) figures are estimates because of the veil of secrecy drawn around these events by the governments of the USA and Canada.
Why would this atrocity have been concealed from us for 50 horrific years of illness, death, deformities, DNA damage and psychological harm?
The answer can be found if you compare the spray schedules of Gagetown with those of Vietnam. Without exception, what was first sprayed on Gagetown was next sprayed on Vietnam. It is obvious that Gagetown New Brunswick was used as the proving ground for the chemical war in Indochina and the subsequent poisoning of millions of people.
Kelly Porter Franklin
2619 Randle Road
Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
V9S 3X3
email:kelly_franklin@telus.net
Mainstay asks:
“Whatever happened to American Justice? Rhetorical Question with Fascism at the helm.
How do we reclaim our nation’s honor?”
*******************
How do we reclaim our nation’s honor? The better question is how are we going to save our own butts? and our nation itself?
When in October the pResident quietly signed into law his right to take over the National Guard of each state … and even local law enforcement … to quell disturbances and other generalized troubles … in case of an emergency [unspecified] somewhere in our nation, and, of course, to declare martial law, GW essentially became Dictator.
Doing away with Habeus Corpus, the right to drag anyone away to the secret “dungeons,” American citizen or not, and all the other freedom-killing fiats that are on the books with little resistance from the Congress, without much media coverage, and a sleeping, often working-worn-out, uninformed public still snoozing in front of TV’s NO-REAL-NEWS IS-FIT-TO-PRINT programming, we not only have no honor when it comes to U.S./Mega-Corporate policies imposed on other countries by war and destruction, rape of resources, and financial skullduggery, our basic Constitutional Rights of U.S. citizenry are GONE! And there’s no question that something is in the works, in the wind … either prior to or after the new Selection.
Yes, citizens like Virginia have honor and integrity and compassion. And there are many Virginias… and Sams and Janes and Joes among us with all of the above too.
But if you think we the people count in affecting policy, especially policies to help those we self-righteously destroyed or injured in some old war or some new war. Forget it. This bunch who govern us, who sell us out, are cold-blooded pythons without conscience, honor, integrity, compassion, but with lots of pure, unmitigated GREED.
A sidebar comment in a HARPER’S MAGAZINE report [March 2008], Ken Silverstein’s “Beltway Bacchanal”- how Congress lives high on the contributor’s dime:
“Since 2005, at just ten (10) of D.C.’s priciest restaurants, House members have spent more than $5.4 Million of Political Funds” [mostly Corporate & Leadership PAC campaign contributions].
And that’s just House members.
The FEC [Federal Election Commission] has rules, but they are, in a word, “flexible.”
One NY Democratic Congressmen WAS cited [10/07] for spending $6,230 on a personal trainer to “alleviate stress” brought on by “the candidates duties,” but it seems to have been just a slap on the wrist for form. The FEC has to appear “honor”able once in a while, likely to make it easier to overlook all those purged voters and other shenanigans that get folks elected who the voters didn’t/don’t really want.
Another sidebar: “The most powerful members of Congress dispense vast sums for purposes that hardly seem essential to their reelection.”
No wonder impeachment isn’t on the table. No wonder the trying-to-really-save-the-nation candidates, such as Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich are given short-shrift by the corporate media. They HAVE honor. They DO care about the people.
No wonder “… political donations continue to underwrite legislators’ nightly entertainment in Washington — helping to maintain the hermetic Beltway bubble in which lawmakers fraterernize with precisely those people from whom ethics laws, and the demands of good governance, aim to separate them.”
Agent Orange? … Dioxin? … children with canoe-shape feet? rampant cancer? … deformities of all kinds? Reparations? … Vietnam? Hey, we have our hands full with reconstructing Iraq now …
[More like a cancer on the Presidency? … Deformities throughout the Halls of Congress? … throughout the Nation? …]
Hey, have an appetizer. “… $18 for the crabmeat, lobster, shrimp cocktail.” … “Well, why settle for one when you can have all three”? … and by the way, LET’S DRINK UP! The Night is Young.
NIGHT IS FALLING, FOLKS …
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves.” Dresden James.
=
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” Dresden James.
=
“Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings…” Patrick Henry
“GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!” Patrick Henry
**************
Honor? Courage? … I think we are finding out and are going to find out who we are.
It’s no wonder
considering the amounts of agent orange we sprayed on that nation, it is ludicrous for the U.S. to claim that that had nothing to do with the level of contamination in Vietnam. This is one more reason for the rest of the world to hate us, and we’re already in bad odor.
THE BEST HOMELAND SECURITY IS A JUST FOREIGN POLICY!
corentan - what are you smoking?
Your post would be funny if not of the smell of a neocon tool planting seeds of ‘Islamofascism’ bs.
First - post charges with some more specifics and logic and not waste your time
Second - the muslim nations are doing their best just to keep control of their people’s aspirations for self-rule.
And finally - focus your post on the topic of the story -Agent Orange or find a way to make an honest living
My father upon hearing the early denials of the hazards of agent orange said he wasn’t stupid enough to believe anything that could defoliate a jungle could be safe. Of course it couldn’t be but somehow people believe government and corporate reports that spout even sillier stuff everyday and it is swallowed hook line and sinker.
Of my own knowledge, I can’t confirm or deny global warming. Things I have read are compelling, in addition to that, consuming 22 million barrels of oil in the US a day plus coal and destroying vegetation on a planetary scale HAS to do something bad. My conclusion is we should conserve and switch to energy that seems safer just because it is logical and fights global warming or whatever else we are doing.
Unfortunately, too many see profit in stupidity and too many are just stupid.
whats that quote about the victor never having to say hes sorry…
Virginia,
Thanks for the essay. It is heartbreaking and a reminder that we live in a society where corporate greed trumps innocent life.