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US bombs killed or injured 50 000 in Laos, survey finds

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G_j Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 10:19 AM
Original message
US bombs killed or injured 50 000 in Laos, survey finds
http://www.citypress.co.za/International/News/US-bombs-killed-or-injured-50-000-in-Laos-survey-finds-20100715

US bombs killed or injured 50 000 in Laos, survey finds
2010-07-15 10:00

Unexploded bombs dropped on Laos by the US military during the Indochina War have killed or injured around 50 000 people since the mid-1960s, state media reported today.

Lao Deputy Prime Minister Lieutenant General Douangchay Phichit said unexploded ordnance killed or injured an estimated 50 000 people between 1964 and 2007 and at least another 480 people between 2008 and 2009, the Vientiane Times reported.

The government in 2008 launched a survey of 8 477 villages still affected by unexploded bombs, the results of which are due to be presented to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Vientiane from November 9-12.

It is estimated that around 80 million of the 270 million cluster bomblets US forces used on Laos during the Indochina War failed to explode.

Between 1964 and 1973, US warplanes dropped more than 2 million tons of ordnance on Laos, making the country the most heavily bombed per capita in history.

..more..
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indepat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 10:23 AM
Response to Original message
1. UXBs: the gift that keeps giving
:P
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Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 11:07 AM
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2. K&R and it stayed at '0'
FUCK YOU, UNREC COWARDS.

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G_j Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 11:22 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. too bad we can't undrop
those bombs
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Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #4
5. And that is the point, my Friend. What Santayana said re history.
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G_j Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 02:35 PM
Response to Reply #5
9. it is really a tragedy how little history
survives in our consciousness. The most heavily bombed country in the world?
How many know the answer? How many of us forgot?
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Soylent Brice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 11:12 AM
Response to Original message
3. K&R
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Forkboy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 11:55 AM
Response to Original message
6. K&R
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gratuitous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 12:00 PM
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7. Gee, that's a darned shame
But at least some military contractors got rich off these people's decades-long continuing misery, so it's all right. In fact, it's so all right that we keep doing it over and over again. Tens of thousands of people must die so that a few hundred people can get rich. Or are you some kind of socialist who hates capitalism?
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Rageneau Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 02:26 PM
Response to Original message
8. How can we expect BP to clean up their mess when we refuse to clean up our own?
Seems to me that -- from an ethical perspective -- polluting tiny, poor, unoffending Laos with 80 million unexploded anti-personnel bombs is at LEAST as bad as polluting the GOM with oil. The malfeasance of BP is not still blowing people to bits 45 years later, whereas Laos has the highest per-capita percentage of amputees in the world. And the reason for that is the official policies of our country, the old land of the free and home of the brave.

This was OUR "bomb spill" and it was our job to make the situation right.

Which, in the America I grew up in (pre-Reagan) we were a kind and responsible enough nation to do.

We can't seem to keep right-wingers from starting wars and waging them without mercy or compassion, but we USED to have enough liberals in the government to eventually TRY to make things right. But no more.
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G_j Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-10 07:26 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. +10000
:applause: :think:
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