Agent Blue
Agent Blue;(CH3)2AsO.·OH, obtained by the oxidation of cacodyl, and having the properties of an exceedingly stable acid; is one of the "rainbow herbicide" that is known for its use by the United States during the Vietnam War. Largely inspired by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency, killing rice was a military strategy from the very start of US military involvement in Vietnam. At first, US soldiers attempted to blow up rice paddies and rice stocks, using mortars and hand grenades. But grains of rice were far more durable than they understood, and were not easily destroyed. Every grain that survived was a seed, to be collected and planted again. In a report to the International War Crimes Tribunal (founded by Bertrand Russell) at the end of 1967, it was stated that: "The soldiers discovered that rice is one of the most maddeningly difficult substances to destroy; using thermite metal grenades it is almost impossible to make it burn and, even if one succeeds in scattering the rice, this does not stop it being harvested by patient men. So they went to a bigger and better option that will actually kill off the paddies. The purpose of Agent Blue was narrow-leaf plants and trees (grass, rice, bamboo, banana, etc.) "Operation Ranch Hand", was military code for spraying of herbicides from U.S. Air Force aircraft in Southeast Asia from 1962 through 1971. The widespread use of herbicides in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War was a unique military operation in that it was meant to kill the plants that provided cover. The continued use of Agent Blue, one of the "Rainbow Herbicides", by the United States was primarily meant as an operation to take away the enemy’s advantage on the terrain as well as deprive them of the resources they gained from the plant life. Between 1962 and 1971, the US used an estimated 20 million gallons of herbicides as chemical weapons for "defoliation and crop destruction" which fell mostly on the forest of South Vietnam, but was eventually used in Laos as well to kill crops in order to deprive the communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops of food. It was sprayed on rice paddies and other crops in an attempt to deprive the Vietcong of the valuable crops the plants provided. Unable to control the Vietcong's access to food supplies or their grassroots village support, the US military response was simple: If you can't control it, kill it. Agent Blue is a mixture of two arsenic-containing compounds: sodium cacodylate and cacodylic acid. Agent Blue is chemically unrelated to the more infamous Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the war.
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