It is easy to think of war as a past tense. While we aren’t exposed first hand to current situations like war in Afghanistan, we can recognize this horror across media and news updates. Then we can turn the tv off and look away. We don’t need to look any further to get the idea that something terrible is in motion, and with this power of privilege, we can ignore the effects of this war.

During my research essay, I became known to the idea of chemical war-product Agent Orange. Operation Ranchhand would take place during the Vietnam war from 1961-1971. The goal of distributing toxic chemicals was to expose the forestry and eliminate the food source that the opposition relied on. Thus was not all it did. For the people who survived, it destroyed everything. Nowadays, it is present in the back door and everyday lives of Vietnamese people.

One veteran who wouldn’t fight in combat (being a non-combat soldier) claims they were told it was a mosquito killer, to prevent people from getting malaria when it later was to be known as Agent Orange. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVpo6k3n6II

The US’s action was then later examined, and protest was charged as a war crime, which they have not replied with compensation for their generational destruction. Leading to “The companies have long said that dioxin was an unwanted byproduct of the manufacture of Agent Orange, but claimed that there was no conclusive link to the many serious health problems blamed on Agent Orange.”

Regardless of this, we see from many other sources of evidence that the effects are extreme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMzJvwG2rsQ&t=58s
How do the decisions of power still do cause a movement towards change? Yet they have changed everything in millions of people’s livelihood, in their memory, in their genetics, and in their country’s biodiversity. in the reminding scars of war landscaped throughout Vietnam today. How are these unjust actions kept justified in a court of law? With evident scars of war landscaped throughout Vietnam, is it deemed appropriate to question the weight of authority and demand? If this is presumed acceptable to slip through legal loopholes: how will the next cunning chemical warfare be accepted and written off in war? The implement of Agent Orange will not go away in a short amount of time and cannot be fixed with funding alone. Areas of Vietnam bombarded during the cold war are still exposed to this day. If we look at the explosions in Lebanon this year, we can take this prime example of what actions of war look like when it’s left in the past to be forgotten. When it has been turned a blind eye. It can not be identified how to control or eradicate the effects of Agent Orange in its hosting survivors. What I do understand is that whether we are in war or not it is still being lived through. I think that if the decision-makers of these laws were to encounter these situations first hand, it might be evident to an honest answer. But the fact that those who start war most of the time do not take part in the first-hand blood slaughter they create leads me to be a wishful thinker. I take hold of my privilege of ignorance and pray for those who have suffered the consequences of others’ actions.