engineer wrote:I'll keep an open mind on the issue, but there are several flags in the article that concern me.
- It targets US historical figures not highly thought of like McNamara and Nixon.
- It's sufficiently far in the past that many people aren't around to put the documents in context.
- It involves the US asking a foreign country to sacrifice their people in a callus manner instead of the US sacrificing its own. The upstanding folks in the foriegn country resist such evil pressure.
- It was planned because is secrecy "because the weapons were illegal under international law".
All these are traits of an Internet hoax. Each one on the very edge of believability. Every one knows Nixon was a crook and McNamara was the boogey man of Vietnam, a war that impacted the Aussies pretty hard. Everyone knows the US treats its allies like dirt. Everyone knows the US ignores international law. This must be true!
That said, Nixon and McNamara got their reputations for a reason, so if the diligent press down under can verify some of this, I'll have to shake my head and put down another black mark for Nixon, but for now, I maintain some skepticism. Please post links to any real journalism (as opposed to recycled stuff) that comes out on this. I disagree that the article should not have been posted on the politics forum, but for a different reason. US policies have been driving rifts between the US and its traditional allies. If this is a hoax or a gross distortion of something less sinister, it is an indication of how sour the US-Aussie relationship has become. That is worth discussing.
I agree with much of what you write but wasn't McNamara LBJ's Sec of Defense? How does Nixon enter the picture, except that it's a safe bet to associate him with American misdeeds.
As well, simply because this article was published doesn't prove that the US/OZ relationship is in shambles. Now if there is evidence that a majority of Aussies believe the worst of this story, you may be right.
The worst of this story and, the worst of the low way it is being spread through the Web, is the suggestion that the US wanted to test these chemicals on Australian soldiers. If you watch the linked video you will realize that no one is actually suggesting that is the case. An argument can be made that, if this a true account, the US was ignorant and callous in asking for Aussie soldiers to enter the rain forest after spraying to determine the effects of the chemicals, but there's no reason to believe the govt at that time would not have required US soldiers to do so too. The notion that the US wanted exposed Aussie soldiers to be in the area at the time of the spraying is fabricated.
Watch the video. A fairly pissed off Aussie scientist complains that the chemicals were so potent that if there was a hole in the Aussie soldiers' Haz Mat suits they could have been killed. Clearly this implies that even he doesn't believe that the US wanted to use Diggers as lab rats.
In addition, the thrust of the video's point is that the local environment, not Aussie soldiers would have been harmed.
Might the US government have had in 1963 a cavalier attitude about the long term impact on an Australian rain forest? Sure, but them what government during that time was particularly Eco-concious?
Is there any evidence that the US govt in 1963 wanted to test nerve gas on Australian soldiers? Absolutely not.
