And We Were Never At War With Laos!!

Or were we, Shhhhhhhhhhh…………!!

On thursday, 6.11.09, I caught a short report about one of the legacies, more like the left over WMD’s, of our Wars and Occupations and their destructive power years later, and how we just walk away unconcerned and certainly uncaring, it’s now their problem, move onto the next War of Choice by the few, seeking their wants of power, wealth and glory in their sorry lives.

This report was on the NPR show, out of Boston, from WBUR’s Here and Now: Feeling the Pain in Laos, and was about a BBC journalist Jill McGivering reporting from Laos.

This report by Jill McGivering was in print the day before People of Laos suffer bomb legacy.

I met Mr Ta on his veranda there, as chickens, dogs and pigs scratched and snuffled below. We sat looking out at the mountains, which were covered with lush tropical rainforest and low morning mist.

The serenity of the scene stood in contrast to Mr Ta’s horrific injuries.

Snip

“I can’t look after myself,” he said. “I can only eat like a dog. My wife has to feed me and care for me, as well as looking after our children.”……….

This is the Here and Now report:

Feeling the Pain in Laos

Four decades later, evidence of the US war in Vietnam is still all over the place, and it’s exploding. Heavy and steady U.S. bombings of North Vietnamese supply routes through the neighboring country of Laos left behind countless un-detonated cluster bombs which are killing and maiming innocent villagers all these years later. The BBC’s Jill McGivering has the story………

And we were Never at War with Laos, yet they have lived for decades with what we did to their country and left behind from our Debacle in Vietnam, and cluster bombs are only one of many remnants of War that whole region is still suffering from, as we went on our merry way!

Some photo’s of our Secret War on Laos

Years of bitter revolutionary struggle culminating in the American secret war between 1964 and 1973 have left Laos as the most bombed country in the history of warfare…………

Sound familiar? But now we use pilotless planes, controlled from thousands of miles away, to bomb a country we’re not at War with, killing untold innocent victims as well as another allusive enemy. Than we count bodies and label them as the enemy unless there are survivors to dispute our claims.

The above led to another BBC journalists report on the ‘cluster bombs’ we left behind, millions of them, as well as other ordinance dropped from the sky.

Bomb Hunters

During the nine years of the Vietnam War the US dropped more cluster bombs on neighboring Laos than it did world wide during the whole of World War Two.

Snip

With the global increase in the demand for steel, led largely by Chinese expansion, this has driven up the price of scrap metal and unexploded ordinance is now a very valuable asset.

In this documentary, Angela Robson traveled around the province of Xieng Khoang, where scrap metal yards have become the new fields of gold………….

{This short audio documentary is about 23min long}

The cluster bomb controversy

As British forces drop cluster bombs on Iraq, BBC News Online looks at where they have been used in the past and why.

Eighteen months ago, in western Afghanistan, a 15-year-old boy picked up what he thought was a packet of food – it blew his head off.

Snip

Cluster bombs contain as many as 200 smaller bomblets and up to 30% of these fail to explode on impact but, like landmines, remain deadly for many years.

This is particularly the case when the weapons are dropped from medium or high altitude…………..

There’s already growing controversy of what we are doing and will leave behind in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Pakistan. Pakistan, our new not so secret War Theater!

Cluster Munition Coalition

Banning Cluster Munitions, Government Policy and Practice was released on 29 May 2009. The report documents the creation of an international treaty banning cluster munitions. It looks at governments’ engagement in the Oslo Process, a diplomatic initiative started by Norway in February 2007 to create a legally-binding instrument outlawing cluster munitions and establishing a framework for clearing contaminated areas and meeting the needs of cluster munition victims…………..