Tag: cluster bombs

The Endless Tragedy of Vietnam, Part 3

Posted on by kathiemm

Part 3 in a series by Myra MacPherson, adapted from an article published in Consortium News February 16, 2015

A U.S. Air Force Fairchild UC-123B Provider C-123 Ranch Hand aircraft sprays defoliant over the target area of "Operation Pink Rose" in January 1967. During the Pink Rose test program target areas near Tay Ninh and An Loc, South Vietnam were sprayed with defoliation agents twice and with a drying agent once. Ten flights of three Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses each dropped 42 M-35 incendiary incendiary cluster bombs (per aircraft) into the target area setting fires that should burn the heavy growth as well as enemy fortifications hidden there. Image is in the public domain.
A U.S. Air Force Fairchild UC-123B Provider C-123 Ranch Hand aircraft sprays defoliant over the target area of “Operation Pink Rose” in January 1967. During the Pink Rose test program target areas near Tay Ninh and An Loc, South Vietnam were sprayed with defoliation agents twice and with a drying agent once. Ten flights of three Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses each dropped 42 M-35 incendiary cluster bombs (per aircraft) into the target area setting fires that should burn the heavy growth as well as enemy fortifications hidden there.
Image is in the public domain.

Back out of darkness, squinting in the sun, we walked to meet a nearby villager. His family thought him out of harm’s way; he was only four when the war ended in 1975. The man scooted over the ground like a crab, using his strong arms, pads protecting his knees. His legs ended in stumps just below. One hand was missing. He was not wearing his artificial legs, the ones he had to sell a cow to pay for. They were too cumbersome for the work he was doing, dragging pieces of used lumber to build a chicken coop. He was 20 in 1991, out looking for scrap metal, when an unexploded bomb, dropped 25 years before, blew up.

“He knew the risks, but he also knew he could sell the metal for cash income. It was purely economics,” said Chuck Searcy.

Cluster bombs dug six feet circle indentations that can still be seen as dips in the green land. They contained hundreds of small but very lethal bomblets that were supposed to explode on impact, but thousands, about 10 percent, did not do so, Searcy says, citing an old Pentagon estimate. All these years later, they bring the war home again, exploding in fields and villages, killing and maiming curious children, farmers tilling their fields, poor peasants searching for scrap metal to sell. Official estimates put the number of casualties from unexploded bombs in Vietnam at around 100,000, including 34,000 killed. The true numbers are probably higher, says Searcy.

 Myra MacPherson is the author of the Vietnam classic, Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation. She has continued to lecture and write about Vietnam and veterans.

How many times must the cannonballs fly?

Posted on by kathiemm

Ban the bombs…all of them.

Nuclear weapons:  The United States is the only nation in the world that has dropped atomic weapons onto a civilian population. Right now it has a stockpile of about 5,000 nuclear weapons, many of which can be launched within 15 minutes.

Cluster bombs:  The U.S. dropped thousands of cluster bombs (weapons that kill large numbers of civilians, even after an armed conflict has ended) in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. An international Convention on Cluster Munitions, sponsored by the United Nations, entered into force in 2010, yet the U.S.–along with Russia, China, and several other states–has been unwilling to sign the agreement. (See Feickert and Kerr [opens in pdf]).

Landmines:  The U.S. refuses to join its NATO allies and many other nations in banning the use of landmines.

Drones:  In secret meetings, the U.S. identifies individuals around the world as threats, then uses drones to kill them without trial or benefit from counsel.

Illicit arms sales:  A recent effort by the United Nations to establish an Arm Trades convention to help stop the illicit international sales of weapons failed in part because the U.S. government refused to sign off on the draft treaty. The National Rifle Association proudly takes responsibility for killing the agreement.

What can you do to help stop the U.S. government from acting like the world’s chief thug?

You can read The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb by Philip Taubman (see review).

You can support and volunteer for non-profits that strive to move the U.S. away from its preoccupation with power and destruction towards one of conflict resolution, reconciliation, social justice, and cooperation.

Engaging Peace, Inc. is one such organization, and we welcome your support in the form of reading and commenting on the blog, subscribing to the newsletter, as well as your financial donations.

In addition to Engaging Peace, here are some other groups you may want to learn about:

Please get involved in working to end the country’s headlong rush down the road to death for all.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Double-duty death: War and environmental destruction

Posted on by patdaniel

Book review of Barry Sanders’ The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism
By Pat Daniel, Ph.D., managing editor of Engaging PeaceThe Green Zone: The environmental costs of militarism

We are all too familiar with war’s impact on people and politics, but how often do we consider its damage to the Earth? The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism provides a frightening glimpse of the ecological menace known as the U.S. armed forces.

Barry Sanders’ research met obstacles at every turn. Information is secret, not measured or recorded, not available to the public. Nevertheless, this Pulitzer Prize nominated author substantiates a sobering and terrifying conclusion: The U.S. military is not only the greatest polluter on the planet, but also is playing the lead role in speeding us toward a global warming catastrophe.

The Green Zone is a must-read for members of both the peace and environmental movements. The arts community, too, will be awakened by the stunning images contributed by students of Pacific Northwest College of Art. Here is just a sample of the horrors that Sanders exposes, primarily from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Radiation poisoning

We fight conventional wars—not nuclear—right? Wrong.

  • Most U.S. munitions are made with depleted uranium that leaves behind radioactive dust. Easily absorbed, the dust is responsible for alarming increases in deaths, cancers, birth defects and other medical problems among citizens in war-torn countries, as well as U.S. veterans. Indigenous wildlife endures similar impacts.
  • Because of the long half-life of radioactive residue, the ecological destruction will continue for decades or centuries to come.

Air, soil and water contamination

  • Fragile soils, agricultural lands and natural vegetation have been destroyed by the impact of heavy vehicles, or made unusable by firebombing, land mines and unexploded cluster bombs.
  • Toxic chemicals from weapons, vehicles and military targets such as fertilizer plants pollute the air, fresh water supplies, and ocean habitats.

Energy use and carbon pollution

Ironically, while the U.S. military devotes much of its efforts toward insuring the flow of oil supplies, the institution itself is the world’s largest consumer of fuels:

  • In military speak, fuel consumption is measured in “barrels per hour,” “gallons per minute,” and “gallons per mile.”
  • The M-1 Abrams tank gets 0.2 miles per gallon; the Apache helicopter, 0.5; the Humvee, 4.0. The F-16 Fighter Jet uses 28 gallons per minute; the B-52 Stratocruiser, an astonishing 500 gallons per minute.

As Sanders demonstrates, if every aspect of the non-military sector instantly stopped generating greenhouse gases, the military’s carbon footprint alone will propel the world toward catastrophe.

“Indeed, if scientists are correct in telling us that we must reduce the burning of fossil fuels by seventy percent…then surely they must see the obvious: We must put a stop to war.”

Pat Daniel, Ph.D., managing editor of Engaging Peace