Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Wed 05/28/2025 View Tue 05/27/2025 View Mon 05/26/2025 View Sun 05/25/2025 View Sat 05/24/2025 View Fri 05/23/2025 View Thu 05/22/2025
2022-01-16 Southeast Asia
Beijing clears US bombs before constructing China-Laos railway
[TribunePakistan] Despite ending nearly 50 years ago, US military operations in Laos have left behind a legacy of destruction that still endangers lives today.
When did we go to war with Laos? I don't remember this. Was this under Nixon or LBJ?
On Dec 3, 2021, the China-Laos railway opened to traffic, connecting Kunming in southwest China’s Yunnan province with Lao capital Vientiane.

The railway is a landmark project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In addition to the extreme construction difficulty and risks of the project, what is less known is that the construction team also faced a deadly threat in the construction process -- a large number of unexploded ordnance (UXO) left by the United States during the Vietnam War are buried along the railway.

Laos, a close neighbour of China, is the only inland country of Southeast Asia, with mountains and plateaus covering 80 per cent of its 236,000 square kilometres.

The project took five years, during which countless hardships were experienced. Not to mention the long negotiation process, the project itself also had extremely rare difficulties and risks, such as poor meteorological and geological conditions, high environmental protection requirements, and even access to no man's land.

But what scared the workers the most was the deadly threat that they faced: a large amount of UXO from US carpet bombing during the Vietnam War, which Laos was embroiled in.

In order to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the supply route to the North Vietnamese forces, the United States covertly extended the battlefield into Laos at the instigation of the CIA, flying 580,000 bombing missions between 1964 and 1973, dropping more than two million tonnes of bombs (or 270 million bombs), with most being the dreaded cluster bombs.
Oh. There they are. The CIA. Again.
Within nine years, 270 million bombs in total weighing two million tonnes were dropped on Laos, equalling eight bombs per minute on average. The total number of bombs is more than that dropped during World War II.

At the time, Laos had a population of about two million people, giving each Laotian a tonne of bombs, making it "the most heavily bombed country per capita in human history."

Although the Vietnam War eventually ended, the Lao people are still living in its nightmare of destruction. According to CBS, about 80 million dropped bombs did not explode, which is 30% of the total.

For decades, these unexploded bombs have been a threat to the lives of the Lao people. Some parts of the land in Laos cannot be cultivated because of the bomb threat, and the country's national construction and economic development have been seriously affected.

From 1975 to 2008, more than 50,000 Laotians, many of them children, were killed by unexploded bombs, according to government statistics.

Ironically, the entire amount the US spent on clearing unexploded bombs in Laos between 1995 and 2013 was only equivalent to the cost of three days of bombing during the Vietnam War.
Billions for offense, not one cent for maimed children.
When then US President Barack Obama visited Laos in 2016, he promised an additional $90 million for clearing the unexploded bombs, but did not apologise for the bombing.
The apologizer-in-chief couldn't even apologize.
Posted by Omomolet Phutch9064 2022-01-16 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11137 views ]  Top
 File under: Commies 

#1 Lotta big numbers thrown around in there. I suspect this is Journalism Math™
Posted by Frank G 2022-01-16 07:28||   2022-01-16 07:28|| Front Page Top

#2 Still cleaning up what the 8th Air Force and the RAF left in Germany.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-01-16 07:49||   2022-01-16 07:49|| Front Page Top

#3 We were actually ar war with Germany when bombed them.
Posted by Too Old To Work 2022-01-16 09:54||   2022-01-16 09:54|| Front Page Top

#4 580,000 bombing missions?
Say What?
Posted by ed in texas 2022-01-16 10:52||   2022-01-16 10:52|| Front Page Top

#5  I suspect this is Journalism Math™

"We just kept pressing the times button and that's what we came up with."
Posted by SteveS 2022-01-16 11:02||   2022-01-16 11:02|| Front Page Top

#6 The people who won their side of the war and then promptly killed half a million Laotians really love talking about The Bombing.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2022-01-16 11:02||   2022-01-16 11:02|| Front Page Top

#7 Under the Hague Convention, a neutral state is responsible for expelling any belligerent force from its land. If the neutral is unwilling or unable, the other belligerent may take actions as deemed necessary.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-01-16 11:03||   2022-01-16 11:03|| Front Page Top

#8 I call BS. Nearly 200 bombing missions every single day of the year for all ten years -- over Laos alone? Really?
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-01-16 11:04||   2022-01-16 11:04|| Front Page Top

#9 Oh good! I'm glad someone came in to justify armed aggression against a neutral country. Say, what did we do when the Germans used the same excuse? Poland was launching attacks on German territory, the Germans *had* to invade to put a stop to it!

Oh that's right, they were hanged as war criminals. Tell me Kissinger doesn't deserve the same.
Posted by Punky Elmigum9411 2022-01-16 14:16||   2022-01-16 14:16|| Front Page Top

#10 Ok. Kissinger doesn't deserve the same.

Now fuck off.
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-01-16 14:24||   2022-01-16 14:24|| Front Page Top

#11 I figure some of those bombs musta got dropped 10 times or more. I guess they bounce.
Posted by ed in texas 2022-01-16 15:24||   2022-01-16 15:24|| Front Page Top

#12 Oh boy… some one thinks the Germans were telling the truth?
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2022-01-16 19:11||   2022-01-16 19:11|| Front Page Top

#13 Why not? People believe in 'Peace in our Time'...
Posted by CrazyFool 2022-01-16 20:38||   2022-01-16 20:38|| Front Page Top

13:54 mossomo
13:51 mossomo
13:50 NoMoreBS
13:50 Abu Uluque
13:44 Abu Uluque
13:41 NoMoreBS
13:39 Abu Uluque
13:36 mossomo
13:36 swksvolFF
13:32 mossomo
13:26 Frank G
13:12 Regular joe
13:12 mossomo
13:11 swksvolFF
13:08 Abu Uluque
13:00 swksvolFF
12:59 Regular joe
12:55 Skidmark
12:53 Skidmark
12:52 Abu Uluque
12:50 Abu Uluque
12:49 Skidmark
12:48 NN2N1
12:46 Skidmark









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com