In article , Arny
Krueger
wrote:
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

In article , Arny
Krueger wrote:
"David Looser" wrote in

Mind you the use of chemical defoliants sounds a lot like chemical
and/or biological warfare.

That is a really broad brush you're weilding there. The defoliants
were mostly 2, 4D which is a household chemical in the US.

That seems a very odd comment.

Bleach is a common household product. But is also sometimes used by
bank robbers to squirt into the eyes of people and make their robbery
easier.



Many simple 'everyday' chemicals can also be used for other purposes.
e.g. the use of such to make large car-bombs for terrorist activity.
As I think has been seen in the USA as well as elsewhere.

So I'm not sure why one chemical being "houshold" for some purpose
somehow means its use in a conflict for other reasons can be dismissed.

The problem I think David was referring to was the deliberate use of
'chemical agents' for (declared) purposes of defoliating lare areas of
land. Said chemicals then had all kinds of side-effects and damaging
consequences.

It would equally seem odd to me to dismiss dropping napalm on
civilians because "people use similar gels like vaseline at home".

The Vietnam war cost the US dear.

Not really all that bad.

All the deaths, the injuries and broken lives.

Vietnam 58,209 deaths Korea 53,686 deaths WW2 405,399 deaths WW1
116,516 deaths

It would be interesting to now compare those figures with the totals
for the two WWs. And perhaps with the total deaths in the earlier two.

Google is your friend!

For the last point I made, yes. But I doubt google could explain the
oddness of you other assertions about "household chemical" etc as if that
dealt with the use in conflict.

The executive summary - American losses in every major war we were
involved in after the Civil War have been minimal.

Your executive summary seemed to make no mention of the losses of your
allies. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

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