History/Vietnam War

The Use of Agent Orange in Vietnam War

and its Aftermaths . The End that Disproves its Means

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October 26 , 2006

The United States entered Vietnam War by piecemeal , step by step in the period between 1950 and 1965 . In May 1950 , President Harry S . Truman passed a resolution of economic and military aid to France that was trying to hard to retain control over its Indochina colony , including Laos and Cambodia as well as Vietnam . After the Vietnamese Nationalist Communist-led Vietminh army

had beaten the French forces at Dienbienphu in 1954 , the French were constrained to accept the inevitable creation of a Communist Vietnam north of the 17th parallel the part south of that line remained non-Communist . Such arrangement was unacceptable for the United States

However , the point when the United States was committed most fully to the war is to be referred as August 1964 . At that time President Lyndon B . Johnson felt troubled over the instable situation with Vietnam and decided to support the South Vietnam in its attacks against the North Vietnam . After the American forces were allegedly fired on by the North Vietnamese soldiers Johnson demanded from the Congress to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression (Carnes , Garraty ,

. 805 . This event became known as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution . Following the spring of 1965 the sustained bombing of North Vietnam was authorized by Johnson . Now the United States was at war

The foundation on which the Vietnam War causes had raised can be formulated quite briefly : the struggle with the global Communism Primarily , every American president regarded the enemy in Vietnam - the Vietminh its 1960s successor , the National Liberation Front (NLF and the government of North Vietnam , led by Ho Chi Minh - as agents of global communism . For U .S . policymakers , as for the most Americans communism was the embodiment of the antithesis of all what was dear for them . Americans compared communism to a disease . U .S . policymakers were afraid that if communism captures one nation it may spread over to other contiguous nations too . So when in 1949 the Communists took hold of the power in China , the USA felt worried that Vietnam would become the next Asian country to fall to communism (Rotter , 1999 ) From this standpoint the war in Vietnam seems quite justified . However , the attention must be paid to the methods by which this war was fought and thorough speculation would reveal that these methods overshadow the noble goal This presents a detailed study of the use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War and its aftermaths for its participants

It is a sad fact that wars do not end when the battles stop , at least not in the cases when toxic chemicals are used in the fighting . During the Vietnam War , the United States defoliated an estimated 4 .5 million acres of Vietnamese countryside through the use of Agent Orange

The Vietnam...