Second Report (First Report posted following this one)

Korea, U.S. begin Agent Orange probe
2011-05-27 19:06

U.S. tested highly toxic defoliants in 5 countries including Korea in 1960s

South Korean and U.S. officials on Friday began collecting groundwater samples near a U.S. army base in the south, a day after agreeing on a joint probe into the alleged burial of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange by American troops about three decades ago.

The investigation began after former U.S. soldiers told a U.S. television station early this month that they buried large amounts of the dangerous chemical in 1978 at a heliport inside Camp Carroll in Chilgok, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

Experts from the Environment Ministry and the National Institute of Environmental Research began taking groundwater samples at 10 locations around Camp Carroll with U.S. officials present.

“The groundwater samples will be analyzed by different environmental labs such as the NIER,” a ministry official said.

“It will take more than two weeks for the results to come out.”

Korea and the U.S. are set to begin a joint inspection inside Camp Carroll next week as soon as U.S. environmental experts arrive here. The survey within the U.S. army bases will be led by the USFK with the Korean officials watching.

Lt. Gen. John D. Johnson, commander of the 8th U.S. Army and lead investigator into the allegations, said Thursday that ground-penetrating radar devices will be mobilized next week to identify the substances buried at Camp Carroll.

“If we get evidence that there is a risk to health, we are going to fix it,” Johnson told a local radio station.

Early this week, U.S. Forces Korea said a 1992 study showed a “large amount” of pesticides, herbicides and solvents were buried at Camp Carroll in 1978, but were removed and taken to an unknown site during the following two years.

The USFK also said its review of records found “trace amounts” of dioxin in a 2004 test at the site, but the findings do not “directly” indicate that Agent Orange was buried there.

It has been confirmed, in the meanwhile, that the U.S. had conducted tested highly toxic defoliants in five other countries including South Korea in the 1960s.

According to a U.S. government document disclosed by a U.S. veterans group called “Vets Helping Vets,” a botanical research institute in Fort Detrick, Maryland, sent various kinds of defoliants to the frontline units in South Korea in 1968.

Fort Detrick is a U.S. Army Medical Command installation which was historically the center for the country’s biological weapons program between 1943 and 1969.

According to the document, the U.S. also sprayed Agent Orange in Cambodia in June 1969, sprayed or experimented defoliants in Canada in June 1967, Laos in December 1965, Thailand in 1965.

The U.S. forces also experimented defoliants in India between 1945 and 1946, Puerto Rico in 1956 and burned 2.22 million gallons of Agent Orange in the ocean in 1977.

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldm.com)
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail...=20110527000733


FIRST REPORT
S. Korea, US to probe reported Agent Orange burial

– Sun May 22, 4:39 pm ET
SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea and the United States will launch a joint probe of a site where US troops allegedly buried leftover Agent Orange, a highly toxic defoliant used in the Vietnam War, a Seoul official said Sunday.

The investigation follows a report by a US TV station that the substance was buried in 1978 at Camp Carroll, a US army logistics base at Waegwan, 216 kilometres (135 miles) southeast of Seoul.

"The United States... recognised the urgency and significance of the issue and actively sought discussions with us," Yook Dong-Han, a senior official at the Prime Minister's Office, told reporters.

The US military will share with Seoul internal records related to environmental conditions at Camp Carroll and allow a group of experts and area residents to visit the base for inspection, he said.

"We will soon have another discussion to determine... the length and scale of the joint investigation," Yook said.

[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]


During the Vietnam War US aircraft sprayed Agent Orange and other herbicides containing potentially cancer-causing dioxin to strip trees of foliage, in a bid to deprive communist forces of cover and food.

Vietnam says three million of its people have suffered the effects of wartime herbicides.

Citing three veterans who were once stationed at Waegwan, KPHO CBS 5 News, based in the Arizona city of Phoenix, reported on May 13 that an unspecified amount of Agent Orange was dumped in Waegwan.

One veteran insisted that there were about 250 drums of the defoliant in storage at that time.

Steve House, one of the three interviewed, said he received orders to dig a ditch nearly the length of a city block. "They just told us it was going to be used for disposal," he was quoted as saying.

The news prompted Seoul's environment ministry to send last week a team of officials and experts to the site to check soil and underground water around the camp.

Some 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea under a mutual defence pact signed during the 1950-1953 Korean War.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110522/pl_af..._20110522203930

**************************************************************************

If you are unaware of what damage Agent Orange can inflict on humans, hereunder are some graphic / horrifying and extremely tragic vids:

Agent Orange - Vietnam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJxb7CY13uc

Vietnam - Agent Orange -narration in German but images are plain and self-explanatory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSPKAqiAmY&

When War has Passed - Vietam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ug0btt9aoU

Al Jazeera - Agent Orange (1of3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXz9coH2vaY

2/3 of the series is missing from YouTube. if you can find it, grateful if you can post it on this thread!

Al Jazeera - Agent Orange (3of3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oPifGnaDJ0

the US military is truly a disgusting bunch. why didn't they bury this in their own country. plenty of space and empty deserts there.

Human Rights at their BEST!

This is just one of their dumping ground, there's another report of coverup by American.
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail...=20110524000906

Yes I know I'm off topic. But there is a similar case with the Hmong Genocide issue just like this news.

The Hmong blame Laotian Government for Agent Orange. But it was from the U.S Secret War leftover from the American agency who contaminated the Hmong Hill tribe in Laos. I mean how in competent are these Hmong in the U.S? They cannot blame the U.S for something they done, but rather blame the Laotian Government.

These Hmong America are a true manipulator and very transparent in both business and politic.

The US military buried all these agent orange chemicals in S Korea because back then, S Korea wasn't well-developed and the US gov. thought that they could get away with this.

Now that S Korea is one of the influential nations in NE Asia, the US gov should sure be sorry and compensate people in Daegu for secretly burrying agent orange chemicals in the ground.

I also hope S Koreans sue the US gov in court. Plenty of money to be made here.

Both U.S and Korea govs going to perform joint investigation, bad idea.
S.Korean gov should have probe it's own investigation.

U.S soldiers only brew the whistle because they needed evidence to back up their agent orange compensation lawsuit, if they didn't got sick then did U.S soldiers would have went to media & public?

I agree. If true, they need to pay up.

You are probably right on all counts.
But after 30 years of those soldiers dying from direct exposure to agent orange and being denied their rights in addition to needed health coverage, they are not really the ones to be blamed. Unfortunately the ones who made the decisions regarding that toxin aren't around to pay for their crimes against not only South Korea, but the rest of humanity.

naw this isn't even tip of the iceberg. they used to spray this on people. tens and tens of thousands of innocent vietnamese people were killed and deformed by agent orange. that was their magnum opus of human rights in the vietnam war.

i didn't know that. but it makes sense. they would never reveal this stuff for hummanitarian reasons. btw i agree with u, SK shouldn't conduct joint-investigation with the US

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!

You guys know they dumped this stuff in the US too, right?

OMG. i thought it was just vietnam! seriously human rights is a joke for america.

Why am I not surprised by these experiments.

Uhh who cares if they dumped it on there own soil, they dumped it on another countries soil.

..........

not even their own land. they probably dump it in native american reservations

they put dump nuclear waste on Indian reservations.

anyone seeking hegemony will dump just about anything on anyone that allows them to for any advantage.

think about that generation of koreans. all of you know their mindset. they were uneducated victims recovering from a brutal occupation, caught in the crossfires of the biggest superpowers in the history of mankind. they didn't have a chance. my mother still thinks that the US came to Korea for no other reason than the goodness of their hearts. it literally hurts when i think about it. 1 million koreans died in THEIR war, for THEIR cause, for THIER interests.. and she actually thinks the US heroically swooped down to save koreans for no other reason than jesus christ.

and the western press always takes the time to make fun of north korean propaganda as if the western world is that much better..

I don't know, maybe it's better to let her hold on to that.. she gets upset evertime i try to explain how ridiculously naive that is. ..no matter how utterly disgusting it is, that generation has suffered enough.

i think it's because they dont think in macro. they only think in the micro and about their own immediate concerns. they never bother to imagine what others are thinking. it's always like "oh they attacked us! please come and help us america!"

it's interesting to note, i read an article about americans DELIBERATELY infecting guatamalans with STD's in order to experiment drugs that would prevent their soldiers from contracting diseases abroad from fu-king so much. in a separate article i read how prostitution to american GI's was encouraged by south korean government. because the busines was so rampant the south korean authorities (at the behest of the US no doubt) would regularly sweep towns to check women for STD's. the ones that were infected were locked up and isolated, so US soldiers wouldn't get the disease. then a new fresh supply of women would fill the spots to take their place. this has been going on for DECADES. i think this type of sensitive material should be taught in every school in china, middle-east, africa so they will be warned about the hazards of western imperialism... i'm glad i dug out this stuff.

reality bites doesn't it?

It's got to be taught in the US as well. I had several history teachers here who took the time and the risk to show the cold war from the perspective of it's victims (Korea, Afghan, Vietnam, etc..). Most Americans actually believe that the US is spending all this money to protect Koreans instead of helping to rebuild their trailer park ("Oh how generous"). It's utterly ridiculous propaganda but that's the company line and most people are nothing more than cattle.

Telling the truth ended after Vietnam. You're not gonna see to many afghan children running down the street, screaming with terror and pain. Along with the truth went the public outcry over war.

generally keeping the populace ignorant is essential to keep them aligned and loyal. so i doubt they will ever make a serious effort about exposing this stuff in public schools: they have more important things to teach. and it frankly doesn't make any difference; anyone can dig this stuff out on his own volition if he's reasonably curious or sceptical. anyway, i'm grateful enough that these things haven't sunk into total oblivion (which the US government would have no doubt wanted). since the US has always been active in covering up some of their dirty dealings and evidences, i wonder how much more remains hidden...

There is no way that the governments would want to tell the public the truth on any matter at all. Seriously, what are the public going to do if they found about the atrocities. They would come after the politicians and bankers that created the chaos around the world.

the goal is to keep people docile, not necessarily to hide the truth. i remember a german exchange student telling me how shocked he was about the candor he saw all around him. I replied "of course, there's just too much to hide and if govt. tried to impede free speech the repercussions would be alot more harsh than if they just admitted to it in the first place. interesting strategy. besides, trying to hide it would be like advertising it. kinda like the kid who keeps staring at the closet he hid the cookie and hoping that no one will notice."

At least at the university + level, they don't hide anything. the strategy is to act like a bleeding heart liberal to those who can think for themselves. this gives the impression that the atrocities of the past is just a history lesson and that govt. is on their side now. it's kinda like a wife beater giving that "i'm so sorry baby. i won't do it again. it's cause i luv u so much" line.

of course the vast vast majority could care less as long as their belly is full so until the economy actually crashes, nothing will change.

Actually, although I really hate the US, the US military, and this country as a whole, the Americans who bombed Hiroshim and Nagasaki did a great deal of starting the process of returning the Korean peninsual back to Korea.

Had it not been for the Atomic bombs on Japan, the Japanese would NOT have surrendered and they would have continued on with their murderous war rampage.

Korea would still be a part of japan and Koreans would be speaking that awful japanese language.

hate and vengence is self defeating.

Japan sought hegemony and lost. For the common Japanese citizen, this "defeat" has been a huge benefit, especially considering their history of brutal clan warfare. Ever see "7 samurai"? They don't have to fight, die, and starve anymore..

USA is doing the same and starting to realize it's not that easy, quite possibly unatainable, an eldorado of global domination. Once they realize that global domination isn't the answer, the lives of common people will improve greatly.

As long as a nation is seeking hegemony, it will justify just about any atrocity. No need to hate the Japanese for what they did. No need to hate US. What good does it do anyway? Heck Korea would have done just as bad if not worse in the same situations.

I'm not saying Korea should allow aggressive nations to take advantage as they have in the past. I'm just saying, if you must take a stand, do it with a clean heart. First understand the motives of the opposition. More importantly understand the source of your goals. Only then should you decide. Decide with the positive elements such as honor and justice rather than the negative emotions like hate and vengence.

you made some really good points. most people won't care as long as their bellies are fed really. people will ADAPT to anything. that is the true problem.