Laos bomb statistics are staggering

joeyowen

from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37286520

"Eight bombs a minute were dropped on average during the Vietnam war between 1964 and 1973 - more than the amount used during the whole of World War Two.

The US flew 580,344 bombing missions over Laos, dropping 260m bombs - equating to 2m tons of ordnance, with many targets in the south and north struck time and again as part of efforts to isolate Communist North Vietnamese forces."

I can't comprehend it

ICBM

And they still lost.

If you want to think about something even more frightening, the energy of a typical H-bomb is roughly the same as this amount of explosive, or a bit more. In one bomb.

scrumhalf

When I was there our guide said, if I remember correcdtly, that a 747-worth of ordnance was dropped somewhere over Laos every 25 minutes.

There are still huge swathes of the country where it's dangerous to go off the beaten path.

It's an unbelievably beautiful country.

wave100

Well I haven't been there, but my daughter has. She told me that a lot of the bombs were dropped so that the planes didn't run out of fuel when returning from unsuccessful missions.

RandallFlagg

Which is why the post Vietnam thinking is that an air campaign alone will not win a war, ground invasion or nukes is the only way to win a conventional territorial war. Both are bloody and costly.

War is vile, as we sit here in our 'Safe European Home' can you imagine what it must be like to be civilians living with air raids and bombs falling from the sky? or tanks rolling down your road and shelling your house? soldiers taking your wife and children hostage and raping them?

Winning the war against random acts of terrorism seems to have the West stumped, no amount of soldiers, armies, planes or bombs will beat it. 

digitalscream

RandallFlagg said:

Which is why the post Vietnam thinking is that an air campaign alone will not win a war, ground invasion or nukes is the only way to win a conventional territorial war. Both are bloody and costly.

Just as a small correction...I'm not entirely convinced that nukes can - in any way - win a territorial war, on the basis that the territory is generally worthless once nukes have been used. The only thing they can really do in international-scale wars is scare the ever-living fuck out of your opponents so that they back off.

RandallFlagg said:

Winning the war against random acts of terrorism seems to have the West stumped, no amount of soldiers, armies, planes or bombs will beat it. 

As suggested by the NI conflict...the only real way to put a stop to terrorism is to do the one thing that every western country has publicly vowed not to do: talk to them and come up with a way out in which nobody loses face.

scrumhalf

There was a three-part documentary on the Vietnam war on one of the Discovery/History channels last night. Very interesting.

Not much mention made of Laos, strangely enough.

JezWynd

digitalscream said:
As suggested by the NI conflict...the only real way to put a stop to terrorism is to do the one thing that every western country has publicly vowed not to do: talk to them and come up with a way out in which nobody loses face.

It's hard to talk to people who walk into the negotiating room, scream 'Allahu Akbar' and then blow themselves up. While I'd agree that talking is usually the best way to a resolution, in the case of Islamic terrorism it won't work as the other side have no interest in a peaceful resolution.

digitalscream

JezWynd said:

digitalscream said:
As suggested by the NI conflict...the only real way to put a stop to terrorism is to do the one thing that every western country has publicly vowed not to do: talk to them and come up with a way out in which nobody loses face.

It's hard to talk to people who walk into the negotiating room, scream 'Allahu Akbar' and then blow themselves up. While I'd agree that talking is usually the best way to a resolution, in the case of Islamic terrorism it won't work as the other side have no interest in a peaceful resolution.

I think you're making the assumption that their motivations are as advertised. I strongly suspect otherwise. Sure, the grunts with boots on the ground might be thinking that they're working towards the goals of their religion, but the guys calling the shots? It's almost always a case of more earthly motivations.