| SHARED SACRIFICE THE JOURNAL OF PROGRESSIVE THOUGHT 5 MARCH 2009 |
AGENT
CRITICAL
ORANGE
5 March 2009
by Kevin Douglas Kuswa
by Kevin Douglas Kuswa
1.
The sky was Yellow and the Sun was Blue. I knew without asking the
gronds were approaching. The gronds rise up from the dark Brown ground
each month when the sun comes up and the moon’s light recedes. My
family and I lived near the war zone, and it was my job to exterminate the
gronds when they came to the surface. Along with a thousand others in our
sector, my sister and I were both exterminators. We lived with our three
children and our parents in a fairly lush dwelling on the outskirts of a large
outpost.
The gronds had surfaced on our planet ages ago. They did not arrive from
another galaxy and they do not have descendants lurking in other corners of
the universe (at least not that we know about). They are indigenous in
every sense of the word. The gronds took form at the very center of our
mass. We believe that they evolved through the intense pressure and
incredible heat beneath the surface of our planet, Nixoid. To us, they are
spawns of Hell. As far back as I can remember, my species has been
engaged in a frenzied war with these “tiny dirt-dwelling terrors.” We don’t
really know how the war started, only that compromise is impossible. We can’
t communicate with each other except through acts of violence.
Let me back up for a moment. I am an append, age 245. I grew up on the
unconquered half of planet Nixoid, and I am the first child of my parent. [1]
My job is to protect myself and the rest of the appends from the horrors of
the gronds. Only about ten percent of us have been struck by the gronds,
but the rate of contact is increasing rapidly.
The gronds operate on a molecular level, and when they swarm they surge
to the surface like an army of micro fire ants. The ingenuity of their
onslaught is in the bizarre symptoms of their infestation. You see, we
appends are similar to you humans. We experience death. We sustain our
population by consuming resources. We reproduce in cycles. We even
speak and sing to one another with sounds we make with the upper portion
of our bodies. Our bodies also contain deep Blue fluids similar to your
blood, organs made up of tissue, a skeleton (exo), and a genetic code. We
digest nutrients and excrete bile.
When the gronds encounter our bodies, though, they transform us in
irreparable and tragic ways. Most of us (about four out of five) die instantly
and decompose in a few short moments. These incredibly high fatalities are
not the only worry. A small percentage of us, strangely, escape death for an
even less explainable fate. In one out of every five instances, the gronds re-
structure our body chemistry and make us immortal. We find ourselves
incapable of leaving life: no matter what we do to ourselves we will always
occupy a physical presence for the rest of time. It is a twisted immortality, far
from utopia, because in our infinitude we are doomed to reproduce gronds,
not ourselves. When those who survive an attack give birth, they emit a
cloud of gronds who quickly disappear into the ground. In a sick twist of
biological fate, the immortal appends serve to perpetuate the grond species,
a species that threatens to destroy append society. Only myself and other
exterminators like me can fight the molecular scourge. The gronds may be
able to float beneath the surface in clouds of obscurity, but when they force
open a node in the ground, we will detect their protrusion and shower them
with our deadly spray.
Conservative estimates report over 12 million gallons of
herbicide unleashed on Southeast Asia between 1962 and 1971.
2.
All Vietnamese are the same.
None of the Vietnamese are the Same.
These statements are the same?
Vietnam. Do we know where it is or what it is? Can “we” ever know? For
those of us in America, it is hard to know it solely as a country. It is hard to
know it solely as a nation of 70 million people. It is hard to know it solely as
a narrow strip of land (128, 400 square miles in size). [2] Knowledge is
power. Vietnam is also a marker of defeat, a battleground, an exotic
mystery, and a syndrome. The memorial itself is like the Black shadow of an
invisible ghost, the counterpart shadow to the erect Whiteness of the
Washington Monument. The French always seem to put things well, and to
them the Vietnam War was la sale guerre -- the rotten war. According to Tai
Sung An, “Vietnam cost America its innocence and still haunts its
conscience.” [3] Certainly America (and the West) haunts Vietnam,
particularly through the invasion of capitalism in recent years, but the
Vietnamese “culture” has a much deeper array of specters to fear and
respect. Defining culture as a “unique” formation of language, folklore,
customs and arts, Ngo and Zimmerman contend that the Vietnamese culture
“dates back over 4,000 years despite a thousand years of Chinese
occupation and repeated attempts conquest.” [4]
Even though the American “moment” appears as a momentary blip on a
cultural calendar of such duration, the military operation in Vietnam from
1961 to 1973 brought devastation and destruction on a genocidal scale.
The American military, however, is inseparable from the American
philosophy and practice of Manifest Destiny. William Spanos explains how
these ideologies are continuous with liberal humanism and the very
production of knowledge:
3.
Gentle Angel (please protect us)
a Gentle or Angel
A gentle or angel
A gent(le) or ange(l)
Agent(le) Or ange(l)
Agent (le) Orange(l)
Agent Orange
The sky was Yellow and the Sun was Blue. I knew without asking the
gronds were approaching. The gronds rise up from the dark Brown ground
each month when the sun comes up and the moon’s light recedes. My
family and I lived near the war zone, and it was my job to exterminate the
gronds when they came to the surface. Along with a thousand others in our
sector, my sister and I were both exterminators. We lived with our three
children and our parents in a fairly lush dwelling on the outskirts of a large
outpost.
The gronds had surfaced on our planet ages ago. They did not arrive from
another galaxy and they do not have descendants lurking in other corners of
the universe (at least not that we know about). They are indigenous in
every sense of the word. The gronds took form at the very center of our
mass. We believe that they evolved through the intense pressure and
incredible heat beneath the surface of our planet, Nixoid. To us, they are
spawns of Hell. As far back as I can remember, my species has been
engaged in a frenzied war with these “tiny dirt-dwelling terrors.” We don’t
really know how the war started, only that compromise is impossible. We can’
t communicate with each other except through acts of violence.
Let me back up for a moment. I am an append, age 245. I grew up on the
unconquered half of planet Nixoid, and I am the first child of my parent. [1]
My job is to protect myself and the rest of the appends from the horrors of
the gronds. Only about ten percent of us have been struck by the gronds,
but the rate of contact is increasing rapidly.
The gronds operate on a molecular level, and when they swarm they surge
to the surface like an army of micro fire ants. The ingenuity of their
onslaught is in the bizarre symptoms of their infestation. You see, we
appends are similar to you humans. We experience death. We sustain our
population by consuming resources. We reproduce in cycles. We even
speak and sing to one another with sounds we make with the upper portion
of our bodies. Our bodies also contain deep Blue fluids similar to your
blood, organs made up of tissue, a skeleton (exo), and a genetic code. We
digest nutrients and excrete bile.
When the gronds encounter our bodies, though, they transform us in
irreparable and tragic ways. Most of us (about four out of five) die instantly
and decompose in a few short moments. These incredibly high fatalities are
not the only worry. A small percentage of us, strangely, escape death for an
even less explainable fate. In one out of every five instances, the gronds re-
structure our body chemistry and make us immortal. We find ourselves
incapable of leaving life: no matter what we do to ourselves we will always
occupy a physical presence for the rest of time. It is a twisted immortality, far
from utopia, because in our infinitude we are doomed to reproduce gronds,
not ourselves. When those who survive an attack give birth, they emit a
cloud of gronds who quickly disappear into the ground. In a sick twist of
biological fate, the immortal appends serve to perpetuate the grond species,
a species that threatens to destroy append society. Only myself and other
exterminators like me can fight the molecular scourge. The gronds may be
able to float beneath the surface in clouds of obscurity, but when they force
open a node in the ground, we will detect their protrusion and shower them
with our deadly spray.
Conservative estimates report over 12 million gallons of
herbicide unleashed on Southeast Asia between 1962 and 1971.
2.
All Vietnamese are the same.
None of the Vietnamese are the Same.
These statements are the same?
Vietnam. Do we know where it is or what it is? Can “we” ever know? For
those of us in America, it is hard to know it solely as a country. It is hard to
know it solely as a nation of 70 million people. It is hard to know it solely as
a narrow strip of land (128, 400 square miles in size). [2] Knowledge is
power. Vietnam is also a marker of defeat, a battleground, an exotic
mystery, and a syndrome. The memorial itself is like the Black shadow of an
invisible ghost, the counterpart shadow to the erect Whiteness of the
Washington Monument. The French always seem to put things well, and to
them the Vietnam War was la sale guerre -- the rotten war. According to Tai
Sung An, “Vietnam cost America its innocence and still haunts its
conscience.” [3] Certainly America (and the West) haunts Vietnam,
particularly through the invasion of capitalism in recent years, but the
Vietnamese “culture” has a much deeper array of specters to fear and
respect. Defining culture as a “unique” formation of language, folklore,
customs and arts, Ngo and Zimmerman contend that the Vietnamese culture
“dates back over 4,000 years despite a thousand years of Chinese
occupation and repeated attempts conquest.” [4]
Even though the American “moment” appears as a momentary blip on a
cultural calendar of such duration, the military operation in Vietnam from
1961 to 1973 brought devastation and destruction on a genocidal scale.
The American military, however, is inseparable from the American
philosophy and practice of Manifest Destiny. William Spanos explains how
these ideologies are continuous with liberal humanism and the very
production of knowledge:
- But to restrict this violence against an absolutely demonized “other” simply to the
context of military operations--the direct and visible use of force by the state--is
misleading in a way that disables criticism. For, like the representations of
American violence by the liberal humanist opponents of the war--even those who
raised the question of war crimes and genocide--to isolate critique to the site of
the overt manifestation of power is to lend such critique to the radical
discrimination between the military intervention and the cultural discourse and
practice accompanying it: to the rationalized conclusion that the American
destruction of Vietnam and its culture was the result, not the fulfillment of the
American ideological narrative, but of the betrayal of its liberal humanist
(disinterested) value system. What the actual events of this shameful period in
American history disclosed more dramatically and forcefully than any other
historically specific moment--even that extended period in the nineteenth century
bearing witness to the brutalities of slavery and the genocidal practices of
Manifest Destiny--is, to use an Althusserian terminology, that the cultural
apparatuses, the agencies of knowledge production, were absolutely continuous
with the (repressive) state apparatuses: that the American command that wasted
Vietnam in trying to fulfill its restricted narrative economy was not purely a
military/political command. It was, rather, a relay of commands extending from
the government through the military/industrial complex to the network of technical
advisory agencies (military, political, cultural, social, informational, economic,
etc.), and, as the protest movement made clear in exposing the complicity of the
university with these commands, especially the institutions of knowledge
production. [5]
3.
Gentle Angel (please protect us)
a Gentle or Angel
A gentle or angel
A gent(le) or ange(l)
Agent(le) Or ange(l)
Agent (le) Orange(l)
Agent Orange
4.
A debate that takes place in philosophy and medical ethics concerns the
practice of vivisection. To most, vivisection is “the act of dissecting the body
of a living animal especially for the purpose of scientific research.” [6] A
question exists over the morality of any form of vivisection, but a more
specific controversy surrounds human vivisection. Horror movies and
science fiction dramas often position the evil scientist as a human
vivisectionist. Picture some deranged genius in a underground lab injecting
her human “subjects” with toxins and then testing their reactions to electric
voltage, radiation, organ removal, and other experimental tortures. The X-
Files would even lead us to believe that governmental agencies have been
practicing human vivisection on the general populace for decades. Indeed,
the “alien” body discovered in Roswell, New Mexico may have been a human
being--a human being that had been submitted to incredible doses of
radioactive materials in the name of research. The government created the
extra-terrestrial scare because they needed a way to explain the corpses
that were generated through vivisection.
Such conspiracies have validity, but it may be counterproductive to simply
blame the government and assume that power operates from the top down.
Looking toward Foucault’s discussion of power (savoir), it’s useful to borrow
his notion that the State may exercise power in a given circumstance, but it
does not always possess authority. Conspiracies, for instance, can flow in
both directions. Foucault understands power “by something other than the
states of domination. The relationships of power have an extremely wide
extension in human relations.” [7] This does not imply, though, that
arrangements of domination do not appear in certain contexts or as
temporary transitions. Foucault also admits that the erasure or exclusion of
liberty is one possibility within an infinite network of power relations. He
writes: “This analysis of relations of power constitutes a very complex field; it
sometimes meets what we can call facts or states of domination, in which the
relations ... find themselves firmly set and congealed.” [8]
Thus, when we turn back to the vivisection quandary, we should consider
the possibility that the “subject,” or patient, gives something back to the
scientist performing the experiments. We should not assume that the
enlightened, yet sinister, scientist is exclusively dominating the object of the
experiments. Somewhere within the “being” of the vivisectionist is the need
to torture some entities in order to improve others. In the mad scientist
example, the “doctor” would be attempting to augment her own
knowledge/power by experimenting on another life. The patient as the
“Other” allows the doctor to colonize the “unknown” by learning from torture
and murder. The “Other,” simply by being placed in an expendable position,
allows the “Self” to conceive of itself in violent and cruel ways. The “Other”
says back to the vivisectionist: “I’ll tell you what you can learn through your
experiments. You can learn that the core of your being includes the utter
destruction of yourself.”
In a section called “The Surgical Removal of Otherness,” Jean Baudrillard
plays with an object-centered reality. He sees modernity as an exercise of
voluntary servitude. We lose our agency as we submit to an “enslavement
to data systems and calculation systems.” [9] The underside to these
practices of efficiency and performance includes warfare and the modern
military. Of course, the visibility of these technologies of destruction is
testament to an ironic sense of optimism. If agents of domination can be
discerned or imagined, they can also be resisted. The “end” has already
happened--it is happening--but it is not perfect. Baudrillard writes: “For the
crime is perfect only when even the traces of the destruction of the Other
have disappeared.” [10]
During the Vietnam War, the soldiers (on both sides) could not protect
themselves against herbicides because they were unaware of the many
ways herbicides could be absorbed into the body. Few, if any, of the people
on the “ground” in Vietnam were aware that toxic insecticides were in the
water and food. Most of the American veterans, for instance, were exposed
to the toxic herbicides over a twelve-month period. According to Fred
Wilcox, these people were exposed through “multiple routes.” They not only
ate and drank dioxin, they also inhaled it, swam in it, waded through it, and
wore clothes soaked in it. [11] Between 1965 and 1971, huge areas of
Vietnam were showered with Agent Orange. [12] Having stabbed at the
“Orange” [13] question in a footnote, we can open up the word: Agent. How
did these chemicals achieve agency? Do questions surrounding vivisection
shed light on chemical warfare? Have “global” considerations of politics and
ideology collided with “local” considerations of biology and agency? And,
who (or what) is learning from the agency of Agent Orange? Who (or what)
are the patients? Has the tiny dioxin molecule cajoled humanity into
producing an infinitely expanding amount of poison? And, how is it that a
poison could accumulate generation after generation in ever-increasing
amounts? Has life become a vessel, a vehicle through time, for dioxin?
5.
Agent Orange is a truly destructive substance. Although it was designed by
Dow and other companies as an herbicide, it does far more than “arrest
jungle growth.” During America’s war with Vietnam, roughly 1,500,000
Vietnamese lost their lives as did 58,000 Americans. [14] For the individuals
who escaped death during the conflict, the aftermath has not been any
easier. For thousands of veterans and perhaps millions of Vietnamese, the
two decades since the war “have been the latency period during which dioxin
would begin to slowly and more rapidly attack their enzyme systems, damage
their livers, weaken their hearts, and induce various types of cancers that
would eventually destroy their young bodies.” [15] Agent Orange and other
defoliants used in the conflict are primarily responsible for these deaths and
deformities. Most of the chemicals used in Vietnam were sprayed by the
Ranch Hand Project of the U.S. Air Force. [16] Conservative estimates
report over 12 million gallons of herbicide unleashed on Southeast Asia
between 1962 and 1971. [17] What glorious sixties!
Unlike napalm, however, defoliants can linger in the ecosystem for decades
if not longer. Agent Orange, in particular, is a fifty-fifty combination of two
commercial herbicides: n-butyl-2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetate (2,4-D) and n-
butyl-2,45-trochlorophenoxyacetate (2,4,5-T). The Army began
experimenting with these substances in the 1940s as part of an effort to
contain mosquitoes (chemical warfare). By 1959, “the first large-scale aerial
tests of herbicides for military defoliation were conducted at Ft. Drum, New
York.” [18] Little did Ft. Drum realize that its “drums” would soon transport
themselves by the thousands to Vietnam. The herbicides that would
eventually find a home in one of countless fifty-five gallon drums on the
other side of the world, “succeeded” in destroying plant growth in upper
state New York. The experiments were so impressive that Defense
Secretary McNamara was convinced to pursue further “testing on jungle
vegetation of Vietnam in 1961.” [19] The “agents” found themselves an
extremely safe and reliable method of transportation: the United States
military.
David Crosby, Steven Stills and Graham Nash (CSN) help to “personify” the
pilots of the Ranch Hand Project in their famous song, “The Tree Top Flier.”
The Tree Top Flier developed an incredible skill for flying right above the
trees in Vietnam, an act that also made those same pilots perfect for
smuggling operations after the war. The last verse of this vivid song
deserves repeating:
There’s things I am
and there’s things I’m not.
And I’m a smugglin’ man
and I could get shot.
I ain’t going to die
and I ain’t going to get caught.
‘Cause I’m a flyin’ fool
in an aeroplane.
I’m hot!
I’m a tree top flier.
A born survivor. [20]
The lyrics romanticize Vietnam pilots, but couldn’t the song also be talking
about Agent Orange. Ignore the gender reference, and picture yourself as
a drum of Agent Orange. You are being flown over the jungle canopy and
you “could get shot.” Even if you are shot, though, you won’t die and you
definitely won’t “get caught.” You really are a hot, flyin’ fool in an
aeroplane.
Agent Orange also carried with it an even more insidious companion:
TCDD. Arthur Galston, a biologist at Yale, observed that “vanishing small
quantities of dioxin in the diet produced adverse health effects.” [21] Most
Agent Orange only contained 2 parts of TCDD per million parts of herbicide;
nevertheless, between 1965 and 1971 over 240 pounds of TCDD were let
loose on Vietnam. This contaminant, distinguished from other dioxins by the
position of its chlorine atoms, may be “the most toxic molecule ever
synthesized by man (sic.).” [22] TCDD does not decompose, it accumulates
in fatty tissue and marches upward through the food chain in larger and
larger amounts. One animal can swallow a life-time of collected dioxin by
consuming a smaller animal in a single meal. Human beings have
experienced a plethora of pain at the hands of dioxin -- generations of birth
defects, miscarriage and death are only the last of a long line of symptoms.
Given that the defoliants destroyed an estimated 4.5 million acres of
Vietnamese countryside, it appears that TCDD and its fellow dioxins are still
among us. [23] As always, the question is whether the “containment” and the
“research” can keep pace with the production and dissemination.
"Containment" and "contaminant" are as similar as they look.
A debate that takes place in philosophy and medical ethics concerns the
practice of vivisection. To most, vivisection is “the act of dissecting the body
of a living animal especially for the purpose of scientific research.” [6] A
question exists over the morality of any form of vivisection, but a more
specific controversy surrounds human vivisection. Horror movies and
science fiction dramas often position the evil scientist as a human
vivisectionist. Picture some deranged genius in a underground lab injecting
her human “subjects” with toxins and then testing their reactions to electric
voltage, radiation, organ removal, and other experimental tortures. The X-
Files would even lead us to believe that governmental agencies have been
practicing human vivisection on the general populace for decades. Indeed,
the “alien” body discovered in Roswell, New Mexico may have been a human
being--a human being that had been submitted to incredible doses of
radioactive materials in the name of research. The government created the
extra-terrestrial scare because they needed a way to explain the corpses
that were generated through vivisection.
Such conspiracies have validity, but it may be counterproductive to simply
blame the government and assume that power operates from the top down.
Looking toward Foucault’s discussion of power (savoir), it’s useful to borrow
his notion that the State may exercise power in a given circumstance, but it
does not always possess authority. Conspiracies, for instance, can flow in
both directions. Foucault understands power “by something other than the
states of domination. The relationships of power have an extremely wide
extension in human relations.” [7] This does not imply, though, that
arrangements of domination do not appear in certain contexts or as
temporary transitions. Foucault also admits that the erasure or exclusion of
liberty is one possibility within an infinite network of power relations. He
writes: “This analysis of relations of power constitutes a very complex field; it
sometimes meets what we can call facts or states of domination, in which the
relations ... find themselves firmly set and congealed.” [8]
Thus, when we turn back to the vivisection quandary, we should consider
the possibility that the “subject,” or patient, gives something back to the
scientist performing the experiments. We should not assume that the
enlightened, yet sinister, scientist is exclusively dominating the object of the
experiments. Somewhere within the “being” of the vivisectionist is the need
to torture some entities in order to improve others. In the mad scientist
example, the “doctor” would be attempting to augment her own
knowledge/power by experimenting on another life. The patient as the
“Other” allows the doctor to colonize the “unknown” by learning from torture
and murder. The “Other,” simply by being placed in an expendable position,
allows the “Self” to conceive of itself in violent and cruel ways. The “Other”
says back to the vivisectionist: “I’ll tell you what you can learn through your
experiments. You can learn that the core of your being includes the utter
destruction of yourself.”
In a section called “The Surgical Removal of Otherness,” Jean Baudrillard
plays with an object-centered reality. He sees modernity as an exercise of
voluntary servitude. We lose our agency as we submit to an “enslavement
to data systems and calculation systems.” [9] The underside to these
practices of efficiency and performance includes warfare and the modern
military. Of course, the visibility of these technologies of destruction is
testament to an ironic sense of optimism. If agents of domination can be
discerned or imagined, they can also be resisted. The “end” has already
happened--it is happening--but it is not perfect. Baudrillard writes: “For the
crime is perfect only when even the traces of the destruction of the Other
have disappeared.” [10]
During the Vietnam War, the soldiers (on both sides) could not protect
themselves against herbicides because they were unaware of the many
ways herbicides could be absorbed into the body. Few, if any, of the people
on the “ground” in Vietnam were aware that toxic insecticides were in the
water and food. Most of the American veterans, for instance, were exposed
to the toxic herbicides over a twelve-month period. According to Fred
Wilcox, these people were exposed through “multiple routes.” They not only
ate and drank dioxin, they also inhaled it, swam in it, waded through it, and
wore clothes soaked in it. [11] Between 1965 and 1971, huge areas of
Vietnam were showered with Agent Orange. [12] Having stabbed at the
“Orange” [13] question in a footnote, we can open up the word: Agent. How
did these chemicals achieve agency? Do questions surrounding vivisection
shed light on chemical warfare? Have “global” considerations of politics and
ideology collided with “local” considerations of biology and agency? And,
who (or what) is learning from the agency of Agent Orange? Who (or what)
are the patients? Has the tiny dioxin molecule cajoled humanity into
producing an infinitely expanding amount of poison? And, how is it that a
poison could accumulate generation after generation in ever-increasing
amounts? Has life become a vessel, a vehicle through time, for dioxin?
5.
Agent Orange is a truly destructive substance. Although it was designed by
Dow and other companies as an herbicide, it does far more than “arrest
jungle growth.” During America’s war with Vietnam, roughly 1,500,000
Vietnamese lost their lives as did 58,000 Americans. [14] For the individuals
who escaped death during the conflict, the aftermath has not been any
easier. For thousands of veterans and perhaps millions of Vietnamese, the
two decades since the war “have been the latency period during which dioxin
would begin to slowly and more rapidly attack their enzyme systems, damage
their livers, weaken their hearts, and induce various types of cancers that
would eventually destroy their young bodies.” [15] Agent Orange and other
defoliants used in the conflict are primarily responsible for these deaths and
deformities. Most of the chemicals used in Vietnam were sprayed by the
Ranch Hand Project of the U.S. Air Force. [16] Conservative estimates
report over 12 million gallons of herbicide unleashed on Southeast Asia
between 1962 and 1971. [17] What glorious sixties!
Unlike napalm, however, defoliants can linger in the ecosystem for decades
if not longer. Agent Orange, in particular, is a fifty-fifty combination of two
commercial herbicides: n-butyl-2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetate (2,4-D) and n-
butyl-2,45-trochlorophenoxyacetate (2,4,5-T). The Army began
experimenting with these substances in the 1940s as part of an effort to
contain mosquitoes (chemical warfare). By 1959, “the first large-scale aerial
tests of herbicides for military defoliation were conducted at Ft. Drum, New
York.” [18] Little did Ft. Drum realize that its “drums” would soon transport
themselves by the thousands to Vietnam. The herbicides that would
eventually find a home in one of countless fifty-five gallon drums on the
other side of the world, “succeeded” in destroying plant growth in upper
state New York. The experiments were so impressive that Defense
Secretary McNamara was convinced to pursue further “testing on jungle
vegetation of Vietnam in 1961.” [19] The “agents” found themselves an
extremely safe and reliable method of transportation: the United States
military.
David Crosby, Steven Stills and Graham Nash (CSN) help to “personify” the
pilots of the Ranch Hand Project in their famous song, “The Tree Top Flier.”
The Tree Top Flier developed an incredible skill for flying right above the
trees in Vietnam, an act that also made those same pilots perfect for
smuggling operations after the war. The last verse of this vivid song
deserves repeating:
There’s things I am
and there’s things I’m not.
And I’m a smugglin’ man
and I could get shot.
I ain’t going to die
and I ain’t going to get caught.
‘Cause I’m a flyin’ fool
in an aeroplane.
I’m hot!
I’m a tree top flier.
A born survivor. [20]
The lyrics romanticize Vietnam pilots, but couldn’t the song also be talking
about Agent Orange. Ignore the gender reference, and picture yourself as
a drum of Agent Orange. You are being flown over the jungle canopy and
you “could get shot.” Even if you are shot, though, you won’t die and you
definitely won’t “get caught.” You really are a hot, flyin’ fool in an
aeroplane.
Agent Orange also carried with it an even more insidious companion:
TCDD. Arthur Galston, a biologist at Yale, observed that “vanishing small
quantities of dioxin in the diet produced adverse health effects.” [21] Most
Agent Orange only contained 2 parts of TCDD per million parts of herbicide;
nevertheless, between 1965 and 1971 over 240 pounds of TCDD were let
loose on Vietnam. This contaminant, distinguished from other dioxins by the
position of its chlorine atoms, may be “the most toxic molecule ever
synthesized by man (sic.).” [22] TCDD does not decompose, it accumulates
in fatty tissue and marches upward through the food chain in larger and
larger amounts. One animal can swallow a life-time of collected dioxin by
consuming a smaller animal in a single meal. Human beings have
experienced a plethora of pain at the hands of dioxin -- generations of birth
defects, miscarriage and death are only the last of a long line of symptoms.
Given that the defoliants destroyed an estimated 4.5 million acres of
Vietnamese countryside, it appears that TCDD and its fellow dioxins are still
among us. [23] As always, the question is whether the “containment” and the
“research” can keep pace with the production and dissemination.
"Containment" and "contaminant" are as similar as they look.
Professor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, at Tu Du
Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital is pictured with
a group of handicapped children, most of them
victims of Agent Orange. Photo by Alexis Duclos
Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital is pictured with
a group of handicapped children, most of them
victims of Agent Orange. Photo by Alexis Duclos
U.S. Military planes cropdusting in Vietnam during
Operation Ranch Hand which lasted from 1962 to
1971. Source: US Military Picture.
Operation Ranch Hand which lasted from 1962 to
1971. Source: US Military Picture.
Kevin Douglas Kuswa teaches rhetoric at the University of Richmond.
NOTES
1 The append ages slowly. During the lifetime of each append, reproduction is possible five or six times. Each adult can give birth without the assistance of a mate, but the parent append
cannot generate “twins.” Each reproductive event is, at most, capable of creating one “baby.”
2 Tai Sung An, America After Vietnam: From Anguish to Healing (Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate, 1997), p. 1.
3 Tai Sung An (1997), p.3.
4 Gloria Zimmerman & Bach Ngo, “Kampuchea, Laos and Vietnam,” in Encyclopedia of Asian Cooking (London: Octopus Books, 1980), p. 114.
5 W.V. Spanos, Heidegger and Criticism: Retrieving the Cultural Politics of Destruction. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 208.
6 American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1982), p. 1353.
7 Michel Foucault, “The Ethic of Care for the Self as a Practice of Freedom,” in Bernauer & Rasmussen (eds.) The Final Foucault (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1991), p. 3.
8 Foucault (“Ethic...,” 1991), p. 3.
9 Jean Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime. (New York: Verso, 1996), p. 114.
10 Baudrillard (1996), p. 115.
11 Fred A. Wilcox, Waiting For an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange (Bethesda, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1989), p. 138.
12 Peter Schuck, Agent Orange on Trial (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 1986), p.19.
13 Orange? The color orange rests between the orange fruit and “the Malay name for wild races of men misapplied by Europeans” (orang-outang). [Oxford Etymology Dictionary ed. Onions
(New York: Oxford Press, 1966), p. 630.] Orange is a secondary color somewhere between red and yellow. Orange is also the color of orange juice and of the Orange Julius. Orange juice
used to be O.J. until it was soured by the O.J. Simpson spectacle. Now it’s back to orange juice. Pumpkins are orange, giving Halloween a certain tint. The Denver Broncos have orange
uniforms, hence their appropriation of the soft drink Orange Crush. Their Orange Crush pales in comparison to the fluorescent orange worn by the old Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but that’s just
football. Orange is also the color of the drums that contained the deadly herbicide Agent Orange. Wilcox tells a funny (and sick) story about a Vietnam veteran who contacted his Congress
member to ask some questions about the possible link between Agent Orange and cancer. A few days later, the veteran’s wife received a call from the Congress member’s office. They
demanded to know who exactly this “Agent Orange” was and how her husband had gotten involved in an espionage ring. She should have answered back, “Yes, it was Mr. Orange in the
Observatory with the candlestick. Get a ....” Actually, the real demon in Agent Orange is not Orange. It exists in the Agent Blue and the Agent White that the U.S. also used to defoliate the
Vietnamese jungle. It is dioxin. Jean Williams defines Agent Blue as “a cacdylic acid herbicide--arsenical,” Agent White as a “picloram defoliant,” and Agent Orange as “a mixture of 2.4-D
and 2.4.5-T -- the most commonly used herbicide containing dangerous levels of dioxin.” [Jean Williams, Cry in the Wilderness: Guinea Pigs of Vietnam (Queensland, Australia: Homecoming
Press, 1995), p. 256.]
14 Tai Sung An (1997), p. 55.
15 It is more than surprising that such minimal research and commentary has occurred on Agent Orange. Citing a hearing in the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, F. A. Wilcox notes that “no chairs
have been endowed at universities for the study of TCDD-dioxin on human beings” even though the National Cancer Institute proves that “such programs can exist nationwide.” Wilcox (1989),
p. 144-5.
16 “Minister ‘Foolish’ on Agent Orange,” The Australian (June 30, 1988).
17 This figure doesn’t include spraying done by the CIA, other countries working with the U.S. (Australia and South Korea), or direct application from the ground. Soldiers would often apply
herbicide from riverboats or even from backpacks. The figures are even higher when we include all the forms of herbicide and insecticide at the disposal of the American military. Most
sources have statistics on Agents Blue, Green, Orange, Pink, Purple and White.
18 Before Agent Orange, was refined into the efficient killer it is, the Army developed its prototype “as an instrument of chemical warfare at Ft. Detrick, Maryland.” Wilcox (1989), p. xii.
19 Wilcox (1989), p. xii.
20 Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Tree Top Flier,” in the Universal Amphitheater (Nov. 1982).
21 Arthur Galston, “Herbicides: A Mixed Blessing,” Bioscience (Feb., 1979), pp 85-90.
22 Schuck (1986), p. 18.
23 Not to mention the huge amounts of dioxin used every year in the U.S. as pesticides and herbicides. Wilcox (1989), p. xii.
1 The append ages slowly. During the lifetime of each append, reproduction is possible five or six times. Each adult can give birth without the assistance of a mate, but the parent append
cannot generate “twins.” Each reproductive event is, at most, capable of creating one “baby.”
2 Tai Sung An, America After Vietnam: From Anguish to Healing (Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate, 1997), p. 1.
3 Tai Sung An (1997), p.3.
4 Gloria Zimmerman & Bach Ngo, “Kampuchea, Laos and Vietnam,” in Encyclopedia of Asian Cooking (London: Octopus Books, 1980), p. 114.
5 W.V. Spanos, Heidegger and Criticism: Retrieving the Cultural Politics of Destruction. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 208.
6 American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1982), p. 1353.
7 Michel Foucault, “The Ethic of Care for the Self as a Practice of Freedom,” in Bernauer & Rasmussen (eds.) The Final Foucault (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1991), p. 3.
8 Foucault (“Ethic...,” 1991), p. 3.
9 Jean Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime. (New York: Verso, 1996), p. 114.
10 Baudrillard (1996), p. 115.
11 Fred A. Wilcox, Waiting For an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange (Bethesda, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1989), p. 138.
12 Peter Schuck, Agent Orange on Trial (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 1986), p.19.
13 Orange? The color orange rests between the orange fruit and “the Malay name for wild races of men misapplied by Europeans” (orang-outang). [Oxford Etymology Dictionary ed. Onions
(New York: Oxford Press, 1966), p. 630.] Orange is a secondary color somewhere between red and yellow. Orange is also the color of orange juice and of the Orange Julius. Orange juice
used to be O.J. until it was soured by the O.J. Simpson spectacle. Now it’s back to orange juice. Pumpkins are orange, giving Halloween a certain tint. The Denver Broncos have orange
uniforms, hence their appropriation of the soft drink Orange Crush. Their Orange Crush pales in comparison to the fluorescent orange worn by the old Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but that’s just
football. Orange is also the color of the drums that contained the deadly herbicide Agent Orange. Wilcox tells a funny (and sick) story about a Vietnam veteran who contacted his Congress
member to ask some questions about the possible link between Agent Orange and cancer. A few days later, the veteran’s wife received a call from the Congress member’s office. They
demanded to know who exactly this “Agent Orange” was and how her husband had gotten involved in an espionage ring. She should have answered back, “Yes, it was Mr. Orange in the
Observatory with the candlestick. Get a ....” Actually, the real demon in Agent Orange is not Orange. It exists in the Agent Blue and the Agent White that the U.S. also used to defoliate the
Vietnamese jungle. It is dioxin. Jean Williams defines Agent Blue as “a cacdylic acid herbicide--arsenical,” Agent White as a “picloram defoliant,” and Agent Orange as “a mixture of 2.4-D
and 2.4.5-T -- the most commonly used herbicide containing dangerous levels of dioxin.” [Jean Williams, Cry in the Wilderness: Guinea Pigs of Vietnam (Queensland, Australia: Homecoming
Press, 1995), p. 256.]
14 Tai Sung An (1997), p. 55.
15 It is more than surprising that such minimal research and commentary has occurred on Agent Orange. Citing a hearing in the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, F. A. Wilcox notes that “no chairs
have been endowed at universities for the study of TCDD-dioxin on human beings” even though the National Cancer Institute proves that “such programs can exist nationwide.” Wilcox (1989),
p. 144-5.
16 “Minister ‘Foolish’ on Agent Orange,” The Australian (June 30, 1988).
17 This figure doesn’t include spraying done by the CIA, other countries working with the U.S. (Australia and South Korea), or direct application from the ground. Soldiers would often apply
herbicide from riverboats or even from backpacks. The figures are even higher when we include all the forms of herbicide and insecticide at the disposal of the American military. Most
sources have statistics on Agents Blue, Green, Orange, Pink, Purple and White.
18 Before Agent Orange, was refined into the efficient killer it is, the Army developed its prototype “as an instrument of chemical warfare at Ft. Detrick, Maryland.” Wilcox (1989), p. xii.
19 Wilcox (1989), p. xii.
20 Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Tree Top Flier,” in the Universal Amphitheater (Nov. 1982).
21 Arthur Galston, “Herbicides: A Mixed Blessing,” Bioscience (Feb., 1979), pp 85-90.
22 Schuck (1986), p. 18.
23 Not to mention the huge amounts of dioxin used every year in the U.S. as pesticides and herbicides. Wilcox (1989), p. xii.
| Human beings have experienced a plethora of pain at the hands of dioxin -- generations of birth defects, miscarriage and death are only the last of a long line of symptoms. |
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