Another chapter of American history ?

When I was a little girl my father encouraged me to read the daily newspaper. I was nearly scared to death when I read about “Agent Orange” at the age of 8.

Agent Orange is an herbicide, developed a weed killer in the 1940’s. During the Vietnam War this means was employed by Americans to destroy covering vegetation in order to detect their enemies. All in all, about 40 million litres Agent Orange were sprayed by helicopters.

The Austrian newspapers were then full of warnings concerning the long-term effects. The main problem was supposed to be the poisoning of the soil with dioxin for decades or even centuries. This was said to cause cancer of various kinds and children’s innate malformation even in the second or third generation. Neglecting all these warnings the presidents between 1961 and 1971, (John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon) and the Congress approved of using this substance.

All the sombre premonitions came true, nowadays the third generation is poisoned and the result is still horrifyingly deformed children. According to the Vietnamese Red Cross suffer still about 500.000 people from long-term consequences. Other estimations speak about 4 million victims.

In 1984, some chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange paid 180 million $ into a fund for United States veterans following a lawsuit. The Vietnamese victims didn’t receive any compensation. The Americans did not see a context between the malformations and the use of Agent Orange. The courts stated that Agent Orange was not considered a poison at that time. The fact that even then international scientists warned forcefully was completely insignificant. Should we not all take responsibility for our past actions?