hugohn

>The North Vietnamese that the Americans & South Vietnamese were fighting against were 10x worse than Castro (they executed 100's of thousands in the streets - and put millions in concentration camps after the Americans withdrew) - and using 'agent Orange' was an act of reasonable desperation on the part of the Americans as it was used only to clear foliage near American firebases, the casualties were mostly American and of course it was not done with the knowledge people would be hurt - the author of the note makes it seem like it was used on purpose to hurt Vietnamese which is a gross misrepresentation.

Wow, I am Vietnamese, and this is so shockingly far from the truth. FYI, the total number of American casualties in the Vietnam war amounted to something like ~50,000, while the conservative estimate for the total number of Vietnamese deaths was at least one million- the majority of which were civilian. What's worse, Agent Orange's effects were far reaching. Long after the war had ended it continued creating unimaginable damage, to the environment, to the people, to the economy [1]. Conveniently downplaying this horrible crime (which the US has still not owned up completely) is misrepresenting the facts. And yes, Western nations have done 'worse'. Much of the tragedies around the world in the 20th century had much to do with the Western countries' imperialiastic mindset.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Effects_on_the_Vi...