Operation Ranch Hand

This operation took place during the Vietnam War as part of the herbicide program that was sprayed over at least 20% of Vietnam's forest to "deprive Viet Cong of food and vegetation cover". Their main motto was "Only you can prevent a forest". The Rainbow Herbicides, talked about in another older blog post by me, was one of the primary weapon used in the operation. It contained about 65% or more of poisonous substance, most of them a known human carcinogen. The operation was based in a place called Bien Hoa Air Base and began its spraying in August 10 of 1961 to test out how well the spray works against the vegetation. (Once again, refer to the Rainbow Herbicide blog post for more details regarding information about the types of sprays.) As for the impact on people in Vietnam, it left a variety of things behind, such as health defects, ecological defects, and etc. Some of the obvious immediate damages are deforestation, increased cancer risks caused by dioxin (found in many different herbicides, made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and chlorine atoms, their toxicity dependent on the position of which the atoms arrange itself), violation of the Geneva Records, and etc. This was definitely one of the war tactics proven to be unethical because of the way it may have accidentally involved innocent civilians by spraying the herbicides over vegetation that may or may not have Viet Cong hiding in them.