THE AGENT ORANGE BOOMERANG…. Decades after the U.S. military sprayed Agent Orange on the jungles of Vietnam, the long-acting toxin is still damaging lives in that country. Now, after years of silence, the government of Vietnam — an increasingly important U.S. ally — is demanding compensation.
In a special report in the latest issue of the Washington Monthly, Walter Isaacson argues that the time has come for America to face this final legacy of the Vietnam War; Geoffrey Cain and Joshua Kurlantzick make the case that doing so would be profoundly beneficial to U.S. strategic interests; Clay Risen explains why militaries almost never clean up the environmental messes they leave behind; and Phillip Longman reports that hundreds of thousands of American GIs who served in Vietnam but aren’t receiving VA care have contracted chronic diseases that, according to new medical research, may be linked to Agent Orange exposure.
Tomorrow, the New America Foundation will host a panel discussion on the report at its D.C. office at 4 p.m. The panelists include Paul Glastris, the Washington Monthly‘s editor in chief; Phillip Longman, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation; Dr. Michael F. Martin, an analyst in Asian trade and finance at the Congressional Research Service; and Clay Risen, Democracy‘s managing editor.
If you wish to attend in person, you can register here. If you want to watch the event online, a live webcast is available at the same link. (You need not register to the webcast.)
