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  inkjet at 09:12 AM JST - 3rd July

  yabits-you forgot 8 years in Afganistan.

  and with obama promising more. what can we do about this guy?

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  Noliving at 10:16 AM JST - 3rd July

  Yes I read the article yabits, thank you for pointing out something I already read. 15 milion tons used in vietnam war, 800k estimated to have been left undetonated in vietnam. My point was when it came to laos and cambodia, it shouldn't just be the US doing all the work in removing and funding the removal of the ordinance considering vietnamese also have ordinance left behind, definately not as much as the US as I had previously pointed out that its most likely that the majority belonged to the US in those countries, and the fact that they(vietnamese) were the reason why those countries became battlegrounds.

  Has got to be in the high 90's? Any actual evidence of this? I know that the US used more ordiance in laos then in all of ww2, so it is a possibility but considering how much ordinance was being passed along through those countries vietnamese it may also be a stretch to put it in the 90's.

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  Noliving at 10:19 AM JST - 3rd July

  Ok it seems to be that people, inkjet and yabits for example, misinterpreted my orignal post when I said it was from all sides of the conflict, I was saying that the US wasn't responsible for every single one of the 42,000 people killed by the left over ordinance. I was saying that the 42,000 were killed by left over undetonated ordinances from all countries that participated in that conflict, korean, austrailian, french, north vietnamese, russian(2k troops there), south vietnamese, american etc.

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  Noliving at 10:21 AM JST - 3rd July

  Chances are a good amount of those 42,000k heck maybe even more then half of them were killed by american munitions still left behind but not all 42000 of them..

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  yabits at 10:29 AM JST - 3rd July

  heck maybe even more then half of them

  LOL!! You ain't even close.

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  Noliving at 10:44 AM JST - 3rd July

  well what is the number then yabits?

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  yabits at 07:24 PM JST - 3rd July

  According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 15 million tons of bombs were dropped by the U.S. in Indo-China. (Over 80,000 bombing runs in Laos alone -- the most bombed country per head in the history of the world.) Nearly ten percent of the munitions did not detonate, according to VVMF.

  Source: http://www.vvmf.org/index.cfm?SectionID=285

  That makes approximately 1.5 million tons of unexploded U.S. ordnance.

  A released CIA document mentions two years of munitions supplies from the Soviet Union, China and communist bloc nations to North Vietnam during the years 1967 and 1968 as 91,000 tons and 55,000 tons respectively. (This was the height of the war.) If we estimate on the high side that 85,000 tons were sent for each year of the nine-year war, that comes to a total of 765,000 tons.

  Source: http://www.faqs.org/cia/docs/62/0000969858/COMMUNIST-MILITARY-AID-DELIVERIES-TO-NORTH-VIETNAM-DURING-1968.html Make sure you browse the original document from the link at the bottom of that page. The stats are on page 7 of 17.

  If we estimate again on the high side that twenty percent of the communist-supplied ammo did not detonate -- highly unlikely -- that brings 153,000 tons as opposed to 1.5 million tons -- a 1-to-9 ratio.

  Like I said, you weren't even close in your statement that "maybe more than half" were killed by U.S. munitions. The number is closer to 90% in Vietnam and nearly 100% in Laos and Cambodia, since the communist forces weren't the ones dropping ordnance on those two countries.

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  yabits at 10:01 PM JST - 3rd July

  A note on my post above, regarding two years of munitions supplies from the communist nations to North Vietnam:

  Those supplies include many tons of small caliber ammunition that would not fall into the category of the type of ordnance that is causing so much of the problem today. This serves to bolster the probability that it's U.S. ordnance that is more than 90% of the problem.

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  Noliving at 09:54 AM JST - 4th July

  that is not evidence yabits. I asked you for a breakdown of the 42,000 people killed and what they were killed by, like a mine, hand grenade, missile, mortor shell/artillery shell. What actual evidence do you have to support that nearly 90% of the 42,000 were killed by US munitions. do you have any evidence that shows the victims and the wounds they recieved and by what?

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  Noliving at 10:53 AM JST - 4th July

  All we have are facts and figures of how much munition was used by the US in the war. That can give us an idea of how much munition may remain and who it most likely belongs to but it is not evidence that 90% of the 42k killed were killed by US munitions. Again what actual evidence do you have that it is for certain 90% of those killed were killed by US munititions? again citing how much munition was used by the US in that war is not evidence. Remember your the one who is making the claim that it is a fact that more then 90% of those casualties are from US munitions. The fact that you are now changing your argument from fact to probability suggests you don't have any evidence for you "fact" claim that it is above 90%.

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  Noliving at 11:18 AM JST - 4th July

  Also another thing to think about is that I said probably more then half of them. well 90% is more then half of them isn't it? So how could you claim then I wasn't even close when what you said is the exact samething of what I said, just in a different way.

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  yabits at 09:14 PM JST - 4th July

  Also another thing to think about is that I said probably more then half of them.

  You said maybe more than half of them.

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  yabits at 10:04 PM JST - 4th July

  The fact that you are now changing your argument from fact to probability suggests you don't have any evidence for you "fact" claim that it is above 90%.

  LOL! Imagine a pistol with a ten-chamber cylinder, nine of which are loaded with U.S. bullets, and the tenth a communist bullet. Then line up a thousand mannequins, spin the barrel, walk up to the first one and fire into it. Then replace the spent cartridge with exactly the same type of bullet, spin the barrel and repeat the operation on each mannequin.

  The laws of statistics provide the basis for the claim that roughly 90% of the targets will have been done in by U.S.-made bullets.

  But there are two other significant factors which further tilt the odds that it is U.S. made ordnance that is causing more than 90% of the casualities. The first factor is type of ordnance. We got our 9:1 ratio by assuming that ALL of the communist supplied munitions were of the type that would remain a serious danger. This can't be the case.

  The second factor is location. The North Vietnamese did not bomb themselves, and they did not bomb Laos or Cambodia. The U.S. pulverized those places with millions of tons of bombs, and heavily bombed areas of South Vietnam too. The thousands killed and maimed in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam in the years since the end of the war have a certainty in the high-90 percent range as being caused by U.S. ordnance.

  At some point, common sense has to take precedence over the delusional, unfounded belief that the United States, while responsible for well over 90% of the most dangerous unexploded ordnance, is somehow only responsible for "maybe" a shade over "half" of the victims.

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  Noliving at 10:06 AM JST - 5th July

  ya exactly yabits I said maybe because I don't know because there is no official reports. Maybe means its a possibility and that is might not also be a possibility. Point still stands, saying maybe more then half is the same thing as saying 90% just different. So there is no way I could be way off.

  Your mannequins examaple doesn't work because there is more then enough ordinance by your own citation that would be more then enough to kill 42000k just by the vietnamese side of the war.

  My issue isn't the ratio or the actual number of them dead or how much of a percentage the US is responsible for, my issue is that you claimed I was way off and the only numbers you have are just munition numbers.

  Your ratio also means we can't assumbe all US supplied munitions were of a type that would remain a serious danger either. Lets say for the moment it is indeed a 9:1 ratio, the ratio alone does not mean that 90% of those killed goes to US, it just means that there is a 90% chance they were killed by a US munition, in fact you could make the claim that all those killed were actually killed by vietnamese ammunition.

  Second factor, ah the north vietnamese may not have necessarily bombed themselves but that doesn't mean that it is impossible that there own munitions lying around in ammo dumps didn't pose a danger after the war ended nor does it that hidden weapon cache don't pose a danger. Also when it comes to laos and cambodia, you don't have to bomb them in order to have ordinance, you can transport it by hand or by truck and leave it on the side of the road. Well considering how much ordinance was being sent through by the vietnamese and considering how many times they were targetd by the US it is very much possible a significant amount of vietnamese munitions were left behind or were not retrieved after those airstrikes. Look at how much munition was left behind by the vietnamese when the US did that ground assault with south vietnamese troops into cambodia that was ordered by nixon that basically gave away just how far we were going to go and so all they had to do was just pullback and wait.

  I'm not doubting that that there could be or most likely be a certaintly high percentage, maybe even 90%, but I'm not going to go around and say that it is as a fact.

  Whoa where did I say a "shade over half of the victims". I said maybe over half because it isn't a confirmed fact, the other reason why I said over half instead of three quarters or 90% percent is because there is no hard facts for how many the US ordinance did kill, as a result leaving it at over 50% instead of 90% leaves a lot of room for error. I wasn't saying it was over 50% but under 55%. I was just saying it was over 50%, so any number over 50% is a possibility.

  It is a possibility though that vietnamese munitions could be the cause of more then 10% of the deaths, again having 90% of left over munitions does not mean you are responsible for 90%. For example lets say I flip one hundred coins, heads and tails, since the possibility of it being either heads or tails is 50% then by your argument heads should come up around 50% of the time as is tails or atleast very cloes to 50%, but if you do it in real life you don't always get it to be 50/50, in fact it is possible that it could end up being 75 heads and 25 tails or 100 heads and 0 tails, so would you say then that it is delusions and unfounded belief that heads or tails could come up 75% of the time? How about 90 or even 100%? Is it common sense that it is not possible that you could have heads come up 75% of the time? There is more then enough vietnamese munitions left to have caused every single one of those 42000k deaths, as a result it is possible they caused more then 10% of the deaths.

  As you can see my issue here is you claiming that it is a fact that it is around 90% were killed by US munition without real hard evidence, meaning a list of the 42k poeple and what munition they were killed by.

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  Klein2 at 07:40 PM JST - 5th July

  The ordnance has killed a lot more than that. Almost everything that the US left behind was used up in wars with China and the Khmer Rouge. Heck. It is what I would have done. And if somebody steps on a poorly laid mine years later, I could blame it on the Americans.

  In case people have not heard, the blame the Americans game is going strong these days, just like the blame Obama game, the blame Bush game, and all the rest. Sooner or later, we will all be guilty of something.

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