US Secretary of State John Kerry landed in the UK yesterday. He is here to drum up support for escalating the war in Syria. Our Foreign Secretary William Hague is toadying up to the Americans, despite the fact Parliament has voted against us getting involved.
"I do believe very strongly the world must stand up to the use of chemical weapons and there is a debate now taking place in the US Congress and since our Parliament has spoken," Mr Hague told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.
As I said this week on this blog you can kill innocent men, women and children with cruise missiles, laser guided bombs, pretty much any weapon you like, but chemical weapons are over the top and unacceptable. Well, I hope if John Kerry is still here tonight he has the time to watch a documentary on BBC TV tonight on the Inside out London show called Vietnam's 'children of Agent Orange'. This tells the story of UK Plastic Surgeons working this summer in Vietnam doing their best to help children with horrific deformities caused by the US dropping chemicals on people during the Vietnam war.
From a recent (9th. August 2013) BBC story here.
“The US has begun a project to help clean up Agent Orange contamination at one area in Vietnam - the first such move since the war ended in 1975.
The US sprayed millions of gallons of the toxic defoliant over jungle areas to destroy enemy cover.
Vietnam says several million people have been affected by Agent Orange, including 150,000 children born with severe birth defects.
Agent Orange Victims Association Vice Chairman Tran Xuan Thu told the BBC that although the clean-up activities were "a little late", they were "greatly appreciated".
"They show that the US government now is taking the responsibility to assist us. I hope these efforts will be multiplied in future," he said.”
So there you have it folks. You can kill and maim people with chemicals, but make sure you call them ‘defoliant agents’ otherwise you might end up with a cruise missile in your backyard or a smart bomb blowing you on your way to eternity.
The US doing some gardening in Vietnam
The US compensates its veterans exposed to the defoliant, but does not compensate Vietnamese nationals.
Eddie
2 comments:
Does anybody truly believe that you can drop 700lbs of sophisticated explosives ( and that's just one missile ) into a crowded city centre without causing massive civilian casualties?
Will there be weapons inspectors counting the dead and maimed civilians after those nice clinical, none chemical, laser guided bombs are dropped on Damascus?
"The use of chemical weapons cannot go unpunished" they all bleat. Does anybody seriously believe a single perpetrator of this atrocity will be "punished" by Obama's bombs?
Staggering hypocrisy.
The use of chemical weapons went unpunished when Saddam gassed the Kurds. Only a handful of MPs turned up for the early day Motion to condemn it.That's not something I will ever forget.
Dear William does love his gunboats though. Why do they all aspire to be warlords?
It's not a party political thing - they are all alike.
Kath
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