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BobbyJoyesterday at 6:24 PM6 repliesview on HN

1) The US is not the only country to deploy chemical weapons. Are you forgetting all of WW1? It's the whole reason chemical weapons are a no-no now.

2) The US didn't use chemicals weapons in Vietnam. Agent Orange was used to kill off foliage, not as a weapon against people, and the side effects were unintentional and affected US troops as much as Vietnamese.

Edit: I originally noted WW2, but I was thinking of WW1's widespread use of things like mustard gas, and the resulting Geneva agreements.


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dubcanadayesterday at 6:45 PM

2 - is a little pedantic, they used agent orange to kill foliage to kill people...

They didn't gas people with chlorine or mustard, but they mass destroyed crops and foliage, to kill people.

And "affected US troops as much as Vietnamese" is just completely incorrect, US covered a nation in herbicide, went home, got cancer. Is completely different then having your soil destroyed for decades.

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Scea91yesterday at 6:47 PM

2) Unintentional side-effect affecting millions of Vietnamese people? Hundreds od thousands of children born with birth defects.

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nbhkvlyesterday at 6:54 PM

Chemical weapons didn't work well in WW1. The reason we don't see any chemical weapons around is because they are not really effective. Germans accidentally gassed a bunch of their own guys, while failing to use chemical weapons to achieve anything in the war.

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fhejfnenjdcnyesterday at 6:32 PM

WW2 is notable for not seeing widespread deployment of chemical weapons. Hitler had been subject to gas attacks as a foot soldier in WW1 and forbade the use of chemical weapons as inhumane.

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well_ackshuallyyesterday at 6:40 PM

"no see they didn't use it to give people cancer, they merely wanted to make the land they lived in so uninhabitable and devoid of life that staying there would mean death either by starvation or bombing"

War crime apologists are always funny

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FpUseryesterday at 6:37 PM

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