[Vision2020] Unexploded Munitions in Vietnam

[Nick Gier]

>Greetings:

Let me get this straight: someone on this list, who has yet to offer any 
documentary evidence in support of any of his views, always insists that 
others do what he has never done.  And when the person produces the 
evidence, it is deemed slanted or insufficient.  And then one who has no 
teaching credentials has the audacity to "grade" the success of the 
documentation!

Since the Vietnamese sapper, who has cleared unexploded munitions for 11 
years, and his international supporters are somehow "Commie" liars, let me 
take a more deductive approach.

It is well known fact that modern battlegrounds and areas that have been 
bombed are littered with unexploded ordinance.  Even today exploded German 
bombs are found in England and over the years they have killed many 
people.  U.S. supplied cluster bombs dropped by Israeli jets are now 
killing dozens of civilians in Lebanon.

In terms of weight dropped, the U.S. bombing of Vietnam was three times 
that in both the European and Pacific theaters of World War II. "The United 
States Air Force dropped in Indochina, from 1964 to August 15, 1973, a 
total of 6,162,000 tons of bombs and other ordnance.U.S. Navy and Marine 
Corps aircraft expended another 1,500,000 tons in Southeast Asia" 
(Clodfelter, Michael. (1995). Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of 
the Indochina Wars, 1772-1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland).

We don't have to take the sapper's word for it: we only have to embrace the 
logic of this evidence.  There are tons of unexploded ordinance in Vietnam, 
Cambodia, and Laos.

My argument therefore stands:  Vietnamese killed by U.S. forces during the 
war and after because of unexploded munitions and Agent Orange far 
outnumbers the total who died by Communist hands after the war.  And we are 
still waiting for the evidence of how many deaths that might be.  I would 
guess that far more died by the hands of pirates than by those ugly Commies.

Yours for fair and accurate history,

Nick Gier
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