The Face of War

1-20-2011 - Saigon [HCM City]

I stand before a minimalistic cube that is the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. It is the reason I am in this city [as you know - I'm not a city fan in general]. So many travelers I met here have passionately advised that I see it. And now I know why. 

 

I had NO IDEA just how much the 17 year-long War has devastated this country....and continues to do so. Much of the exhibits have been devoted to the effects of the chemical defoliants that were dropped by the megaton on the largely civilian territories. The grotesque birth defects of people 2 generations after the war are nothing short of horrifying, thanks to the uber-potent teratogenic properties of dioxins - Agent Orange in particular. Millions of civilians were affected by this "chemical plague" - napalm, phosphorous bombs and all the other dioxine "Agents" [later studies in Columbia University have declared dioxine to be the most potent man-made toxin. A table-spoon of it dissolved in water can easily kill 8 million people].  Now I knew what happened to the folks I saw walking around with all kinds of deformities. I will not waste words - I'm simply posting the photos I saw in the museum. Many of the victims tell their heart-breaking stories that had me sit in the hall for a bit exhausting the local kleenex supply. 

 

Another exhibit was devoted to to the civilian cruelties that happened during the War....how does one look at one human being holding 1/4 of the shell-shattered body of another human being as a trophy? How does the word "human" even apply here? The photos of the poor farmers pleading for their lives before they are shot... Pregnant women and babies in the state of flight laying on the road with fatal wounds... And right next to all that - the mighty weapons that were designed to better tear and annihilate human flesh in all their 3D glory [including a few never-before used experimental weapons such as a mini-bomb that shatters into a myriad of little sharp, nail-like pieces]. 

There was a brilliant exhibit "Requiem" that was a collective image of the war by 77 photographers, most of whom lost their lives making this record. There were also life-sized "tiger cages" [human-sized barbed wire boxes] in which some Vietnam patriots were kept in the Pho Quoc island prison....There were also sheets of data that were, in many ways, scarier than the atrocities in the photos - like that 100% of the north Vietnam's powerplants were destroyed, along with most of the railways and irrigation systems [which, given that much of the Vietnam's economy is based on rice production, is more than a "below the belt" blow]. To quote one of the G.I.'s [shown in the exhibit] they were "bombed into stone-age." Most of the infrastructure ceased to exist as they knew it. 

Need I say that my perspective on the country has shifted in an afternoon? Being in general a-political, I in my ignorance had simply no idea of the extend of devastation that one piece of humanity has caused to its fellows in this country....Now instead of being mildly annoyed at some of the inconveniences of the country [while I try to be open, some things just hit the nerve, waking me up to my biases], I walked in mild amazement as to how much the country has been able to rehabilitate....and I really got just how much it has to rely on tourism, given that many of the other resources have been rendered unusable by the war. The excellent transportation, the more than decent sanitation, the overall cleanliness of the streets, the heavily English-speaking population, the general level of the education.....and much of that re-created from scratch in the past 35 years. 

I am still reeling from vicariously seeing this face of war....Much of what has transpired would more than fit the criteria of the crimes against humanity subject to the Nurenberg trials. Yet, no such trials took place...."you'll never know, poor guy, what your money can buy!"