It's not agent orange. It's tear gas mixed with orange paint to tag the protesters for later identification. Agent orange isn't even orange. --http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/post/51960983385/important-...

I was also confused by the alleged use of agent orange. It seemed to make so sense to me.

A chemical weapons expert interviewed by a Swedish newspaper said that it is unlikely that Turkey actually used agent orange. They do refer to it Orange Gas but I don't know if that is actually different from Agent Orange?

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/polisen-anvander-kemiska-st... Unfortunately only available in Swedish, but Google translate should make it at least somewhat readable.

Pepper spray is orange, so more than likely it was that and people just don't know what to call it.

I'd find Agent Orange hard to believe, given that it did a bit more than deforestation in Vietnam. The Redditor describes it as "a derivative of the Vietnam era deforestation chemical Agent Orange. It is incredibly toxic and forbidden by the UN after the horrific effects it had on both the Vietnamese and Americans exposed to it.", but derived from could mean anything really.

I'd find it hard to believe that anything closely resembling it is used by any sane police force, that seems like it would be classified as chemical warfare?

my memory is a bit hazy but wasn't the most dangerous part of agent orange the fact that it was contaminated with very toxic dioxins rather than the toxic properties of 'clean' agent orange?

Why would Turkey resort to chemical warfare when they don't have to, why risk the wrath of the international community when you can 'just' use tear gas and such?

Yes, you are correct. The active ingredient in Agent Orange is routinely in use for weed control.

> > It is incredibly toxic and forbidden by the UN after the horrific effects it had on both the Vietnamese and Americans exposed to it.

It's not forbidden by the UN, the active ingredient is 2,4-D and is the 3rd most used herbicide in america.

The other ingredient 2,4,5-T is non toxic, but making it commonly contaminates it with the very toxic 2,3,7,8.

Thanks for the explanation, I wasn't aware of that. When they say it's a derivative, they probably mean closer to that herbicide then?

I still haven't heard anything about it actually being used there, but would that seem at all reasonable to you? A police force that uses tear gas and don't want to kill people, would they plausibly use such a derivative for the same purpose?

"When they say it's a derivative, they probably mean closer to that herbicide then?"

When they say it's a derivative, they most probably mean that they saw something orange, and that is why they call it Agent Orange. Unfortunately, the average person seeing teargas is fairly ignorant about chemistry and biology. It makes no sense to spread a herbicide in a demonstration. It is harmful in the long term but has no impact on people in the short term, thus is just no use in that situation.

Agent Orange was called AO because the containers it came in had an orange strip. The substance itself is colourless, just like the same herbicides today. And is not particularly toxic to humans, the problem in Vietnam was trace amounts of dioxin in manufacturing the 2,4,5-T component.

It would do absolutely nothing to a person. Some other people on the thread theorized that since pepper spray is orange people confused it with that.

I don't think it is aimed at at the protestors, but it is a chemical usable to attack trees and they are in a park.

It might very well be sort of 'we are going to kill this park one way or the other' type of situation. Once all the trees are dead, they could properly develop the park with relatively few protests.

It is insane, of course, but it seems that some governments are prepared to do absolutely anything to their citizens so long as they think they can get away with it and while they usually can get away with it they also have no understanding that getting away with these kinds of things are like a cliff-drop: you can go closer and closer to the edge and then you go one step too far and the entire thing unravels.

Usually at this point the governments try to oppress them a little more, rather than back away, and that is when the real explosion happens.

I'm not sure if you're serious, but what you're saying here is obviously grossly out of whack with reality. The police violence is crazy but Turkey is not that crazy. You may as well have claimed that Erdogan is planning to nuke the protesters.

Now _that_ is hyperbole, congrats!