More On Agent Orange

Following up on my post on Agent Orange, the excellent Kotaji has more on its use in Korea during the late 1960s, something that the US government denied for a long while. In relation to the civil case brought by millions of Vietnamese against the manufacturers of this deadly stuff, Ken Herrmann, who is director of the Da Nang/Quang Nam Fund which provides aid to children affected by exposure to Agent Orange, has gone on record to explain precisely what the plaintiffs are seeking:

They're asking for environmental clean-up; they're asking for medical care; they're asking merely for justice. Now, whether that will involve billions of dollars or whether it will involve a variety of corporations assisting in renumerating the harm that was done, I don't know that. But I do know that it is a matter of mere social justice.

Other blogs are covering this ongoing scandal and the fight for social justice here and here.

There is also a very moving photo essay by Manuel Navarro Forcada entitled "Vietnam 21st century: On the track of Agent Orange" at Fifty Crows here. The blurb says this:

[It] investigates the horrific persisting effects of the dioxin-contaminated herbicide used by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. Although Agent Orange was officially deployed to defoliate the tropical foliage of the region in order to render visible those beneath, dioxin exposure to humans has proven extremely harmful, if not lethal. By visiting hospitals, schools, and orphanages in Vietnam and documenting the many birth defects and malformations of children born in the thirty-year aftermath of the Vietnam War, Forcada’s photographs serve as solemn reminders of the atrocities of war. They are also a plea to rouse waning global interest in the war-torn legacy of Vietnam.

And then tell me you're not moved to action.