Readers of the foreign press may also hear the voices of mountain tribesmen in October 1991, as they "asked authorities for permission to shoot down a U.S. helicopter when they heard it was on the way to investigate evidence of U.S. soldiers missing in action." "It is not difficult to uncover the source of the pent-up aggression" here, Canadian correspondent Philip Smucker reports: "It is only a matter of locating which village has had a child recently maimed or killed by a `bomblet,' a tiny bomb left hidden in the soil for the past 18 years" in a region where "carpet bombing and dioxin spraying by U.S. aircraft...devastated the forests, leaving much of the countryside looking like a mountainous moonscape perforated with craters the size of Cadillacs," the soil "drenched with more than 200 litres [of chemical poisons] a square hectare," so that "the number of deformed children is much higher here than in the North where there was no spraying." In this isolated region alone, "more than 5,000 people have been injured and killed" from unexploded bombs since 1975. "I hate the man who dropped this bomb," a peasant says "standing in front of a crater 10 times his size that is literally at his doorstep," one of the relics of the B-52 carpet bombings that killed his wife in 1969. Another tells of his 8-year-old son, who had just been blown to pieces a few weeks earlier when he picked up a round metal object in the mud, another child's death that "will go unrecorded in the annals of the Vietnam War."³⁷

Surely there is nothing here to trouble our unsullied conscience as we scrutinize the deformed minds of the perfidious Japanese and the psychic disorders that so puzzle and intrigue us. Those who have memorized the guiding doctrine of the 500-year conquest will have no difficulty perceiving the moral chasm that lies between us and the Japanese: Morality comes from the barrel of a gun -- and we have the guns.

As if to highlight the point, the New York Times Science Section ran an article headlined "Study of Dioxin's Effect in Vietnam Is Hampered by Diplomatic Freeze." The "diplomatic freeze" is depicted with the symmetry that objective journalism demands ("Vietnamese and American officials move at a glacial pace in negotiations to improve ties," etc.), but the article is unusual in noting some unfortunate consequences of this curious mutual disorder. The problem is that the "17-year freeze in relations between Vietnam and the United States is hindering vital research into long-term effects of Agent Orange and other sources of dioxin on both military and civilian populations." This is most unfortunate, since much might be learned "about the potential dangers of industrial dioxin in the West by studying the people in areas sprayed during the Vietnam War with large doses of American defoliants containing dioxin."

"Vietnam is an ideal location for more research into potential links between dioxin and cancer, reproductive dysfunction, hormone problems, immune deficiencies, disorders of the central nervous system, liver damage, diabetes and altered lipid metabolism," the article continues, and may help solve the "critical" problem of determining "the level at which it might become dangerous to humans." That the creatures under inquiry might have some needs to be addressed, perhaps by the hidden agent, is a thought too exotic to be addressed, even hinted.

There are two reasons why "Vietnam could provide excellent opportunities for study." "First, a large number of Vietnamese of all ages and both sexes have been exposed to dioxin," including "many women and children," while in the West, industrial accidents or "neighborhood contamination" as in Seveso, Italy, and Love Canal "have involved small groups in confined areas," mostly men. Second, Vietnam "furnishes an extensive control group," since northerners "were not sprayed." Another useful feature is that "Many Vietnamese had substantial exposures to dioxin." "Eighty percent of the Vietnamese lived in rural areas and were frequently barefoot or in sandals," an American researcher comments. "Cooperation in Vietnam couldn't be better," but "we're letting a unique opportunity fade" to "study the health consequences for all of us" because of the continuing freeze; "Time is running out for studies of people exposed to spraying."³⁸

Perhaps this interesting research project might include a look at the children dying of cancer and birth defects or the women with rare malignant tumors in hospitals in the South (not the North, spared this particular atrocity), the sealed containers with hideously deformed babies, and other "terrifying" scenes reported occasionally in the foreign press or far from the public eye here. That inquiry too might yield benefits for the United States.³⁹

This critique of the mutual disorder departs from convention in at least suggesting that something may be awry. Like all too much else, it may raise in some minds the question whether the intellectual culture is real, or a script by Jonathan Swift. The critique recalls the occasional complaints about the heavy censorship in Japan under the American occupation, imposed in secret (references to it were censored) while the US designed a Constitution for Japan stating that "No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated," and General MacArthur "was emphatically telling the Japanese people and Japanese journalists that freedom of the press and freedom of speech were very close to his heart and were freedoms for which the Allies had fought the war" (Monica Braw). The censorship had been instituted at once and was maintained for four years, by which time the purge of dissidents made it less important. One motive, from the first days, was to prevent any discussion of the atom bomb or its effects. These were kept as secret as possible within Japan because of concerns that the truth might "disturb public tranquility" and imply that "the bombing was a crime against humanity," one censor declared as he barred an eyewitness account of the Nagasaki atrocity. Even Japanese scientific papers were barred. That did elicit some objections, but not because the censorship hindered treatment of survivors, an issue largely ignored; rather, because a unique opportunity to learn more about radiation damage was being lost.⁴⁰

³⁷ Smucker, G&M, Oct. 7, 1991.

³⁸ Barbara Crossette, NYT, Aug. 18, 1992.

³⁹ See NI, 38-9, citing Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk and US researcher Dr. Grace Ziem.

⁴⁰ Braw, Atomic Bomb.