Posted on 03/10/2005 4:00:08 PM PST by neverdem
In a decision that could close a controversial Vietnam-era chapter of American history, a federal judge in Brooklyn today dismissed a damage suit filed on behalf of millions of Vietnamese that claimed American chemical companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with the defoliant Agent Orange.
The civil suit, filed last year, had sought what could have been billions of dollars in damages and the environmental cleanup of Vietnam. The suit drew international attention for its claims about Agent Orange, which was widely used by the American military to clear the jungle until 1971.
The suit claimed that the defoliant, which contained the highly toxic substance dioxin, left a legacy of poison in Vietnam that caused birth defects, cancer and other health problems and amounted to a violation of international law.
But Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the United States District Court sided with the chemical companies and the Justice Department, which argued that supplying the defoliant did not amount to a war crime.
"No treaty or agreement, express or implied, of the United States," Judge Weinstein wrote, "operated to make use of herbicides in Vietnam a violation of the laws of war or any other form of international law until at the earliest April of 1975."
Because of sovereign immunity, the United States government was not sued.
In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford adopted a national policy renouncing the first use of herbicides in warfare. Also in 1975, the Senate ratified an international Geneva accord dating from 1925, which outlawed the use of poisonous gases during war.
The suit claimed that because of the dioxin in Agent Orange, spraying it amounted to the use of poison during war.
But Judge Weinstein concluded in a 233-page decision that even if the United States had been a Geneva signatory during the Vietnam War, the accord would not have barred the use of Agent Orange.
"The prohibition extended only to gases deployed for their asphyxiating or toxic effects on man," said the decision, issued in response to a motion for dismissal by the defendants, "not to herbicides designed to affect plants that may have unintended harmful side-effects on people."
William H. Goodman, a lawyer for an association of Vietnamese that filed the suit as a class action, said the decision would be appealed. He said the United States Supreme Court could eventually decide the issue.
"The judge missed the point," Mr. Goodman said. "He ruled as a matter of law that what these defendants manufactured was not a poison, whereas even these manufacturers recognized that it was at the time."
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.
Over many decades, American veterans of the Vietnam War filed suits making health claims similar to those now being pressed by the Vietnamese. Judge Weinstein also handled those cases.
Seven American chemical companies settled the veterans' cases for $180 million in 1984.
The same chemical companies, including Dow, Monsanto and Hercules, were sued in the Vietnamese case.
Spokesmen for some of the companies applauded the decision today.
"We believe the defoliant saved lives by protecting allied forces from enemy ambush and did not create adverse health affects," said Scot Wheeler, a spokesman for the Dow Chemical Company.
Glynn Young, a spokesman for Monsanto, said Judge Weinstein's decision was correct.
"The judge said they didn't make the case," Mr. Young said. "That's a very difficult message for a lot of people to understand because there's so much emotion wrapped up in cases like this one."
Though he ruled against the Vietnamese plaintiffs, Judge Weinstein agreed with many arguments put forth by their lawyers. He rejected arguments of the Justice Department that the court had no place in reviewing military strategies adopted by President John F. Kennedy and his successors.
Saying "presidential powers are limited even in wartime," Judge Weinstein said American courts had the power to decide whether presidential decisions about the conduct of a war violated international law.
"In the Third Reich," the decision said, "all power of the state was centered in Hitler; yet his orders did not serve as a defense at Nuremberg," where war crimes trials were conducted after World War II.
Similarly, he rejected an argument from the chemical companies that they were shielded by rules that typically protect military contractors from suits for providing war materiel.
Clearly writing to influence courts in the future, Judge Weinstein used sweeping language and employed extensive citations to historical, military, scientific and legal writings.
If supplying contaminated herbicide had been a war crime, Judge Weinstein wrote, the chemical companies could have refused to supply it. "We are a nation of free men and women," he wrote, "habituated to standing up to government when it exceeds its authority."
GUN MAKERS CONTRIBUTE TO PUBLIC NUISANCE
Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than has dioxin.
Looks like the parasites lose one.
They've had their revolution. Let them enjoy it without our money.
Over many decades, American veterans of the Vietnam War filed suits making health claims similar to those now being pressed by the Vietnamese. Judge Weinstein also handled those cases.
Seven American chemical companies settled the veterans' cases for $180 million in 1984.
And what did the veterans get?
Jack sh*t.
Who do you work for? The VA is one of the tightest federal agancies there is when it comes to paying the bills. Even they agree that
>>The number of diseases that VA has recognized as associated with, but not necessarily caused by, Agent Orange exposure has expanded considerably during the 1990's. The following conditions are recognized for service-connection for these veterans: chloracne (a skin disorder), porphyria cutanea tarda, acute or subacute peripheral neuropathy (a nerve disorder), and numerous cancers [non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin's disease, multiple myeloma, prostate cancer, and respiratory cancers (including cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus)]. In addition, Vietnam veterans' children with the birth defect spina bifida are eligible for certain benefits and services. Furthermore, VA has recently proposed that certain benefits, including health care be authorized for children with birth defects who were born to women Vietnam veterans. VA has also asked the IOM for a special review of the relationship between exposure to herbicides in Vietnam and the development of diabetes.<<
Yes, some of these skin conditions and diseases are a direct relation to troops being handling or sprayed with AO. You ought to see the condition of some of the then kids who loaded the planes with AO. They look like monsters, unrecognizable as a human!
It would be nice if you had an idea about what this relates to.
>>Finally, in 1988, under pressure from the former commander of the U.S. Navy in Vietnam, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the Pentagon compiled a classified report with data linking Agent Orange to 28 life-threatening conditions, including birth defects, skin disorders, neurological defects and almost every cancer known to medical science. <<
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=7469
Sorry, It was a flippant comment.
What I was trying to say is that these class action suits, FORTY some years after the fact, by large numbers of people (Vietnamese civilians in this case), going for deep pockets, is bogus. It is bogus like the tobacco and abspestos cases. I've seen too many of the latter to not know the class action greed suit.
It took the VA 25 years to admit there even was a problem but yes, I agree 40 years is a long time to bring forth a suit.
Of course we are paying a WWII suit (the gold train), so who knows.
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