Obama says the USA has a "moral and humanitarian obligation" to clear all unexploded bombs in Laos

[Enros]

In May this year I created a thread where I expressed outrage that the USA had done nothing about the 80 million unexploded bombs it dropped on Laos during the Vietnam war, which continue to kill 100 people or so every year. I argued that this was a pretty serious crime and some US politicians - those who put the bombs there, and those who oppose removing them - are comparable to the worst terrorists in recent memory.

Earlier today Obama said the US had a "profound moral and humanitarian obligation" to clear every single piece of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the country. He was speaking at a rehabilitation center for the victims of unexploded ordnance in Laos, on his final tour of Asia before leaving office. One of his final acts before leaving office will be to double spending in this area to $90 million.

While it's good that he has acknowledged the USA has this duty, $90 million is a laughably tiny amount and at this rate the UXO will never be cleared. The war in Afghanistan cost $685.6 billion. The US needs to offer funding on that order of magnitude in order for me to be persuaded it is not a country of mass murdering terrorists. I also believe there needs to be an International Criminal Court for the Vietnam war to put politicians like Henry Kissinger on trial. There needs to be one of those for every war the USA has fought since then as well. Really, Obama has only offered rhetoric and not justice.

EDIT: I like Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle's take on this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[tgoodenow]

Just out of curiosity, does this lip service by Obama change your view that he should be sentenced to life imprisonment for ethnic cleansing of the Chagos islanders or... no?

[Enros]

Just out of curiosity, does this lip service by Obama change your view that he should be sentenced to life imprisonment for ethnic cleansing of the Chagos islanders or... no?

It doesn't.

[Roma_Victrix]

Just out of curiosity, does this lip service by Obama change your view that he should be sentenced to life imprisonment for ethnic cleansing of the Chagos islanders or... no?

Ethnic cleansing? I thought they were just evicted, which is awful and evil, but that's not the same thing as mass-murdering them. Many of them have become British citizens and live normal lives in the UK and overseas British territories. However, they do need their home back and I think it's retarded that we still have a base there. The Cold War is over. There's no need for it anymore (not that there was much of a need for it to begin with, certainly not at the expense of the Chagossians).

It doesn't.

Hah! That's retarded. Obama was a small child when this eviction happened in the 1960s. He didn't become president until 2008. How is he personally responsible for something that happened 50 years ago? You clearly don't know how the law works, for starters.

As for your thread, I agree that more money could be spent, but suggesting that something to the tune of "$685.6 billion" is needed for land-mine removal is also perhaps one of the stupidest things I've ever read on this forum. So congratulations, your idea wins the stupid comment of the year award.

We also had this conversation ad nauseum in the original thread cited in the OP. I'd advise the mods to merge this thread into that one. It's basically the same thread, just dressed up a little differently but with the same brain-dead hyperbole.

[Condottiere 40K]

You tend to have some moral obligation when employing weapons of mass impaction.

[Love Mountain]

Well that's a nice thought Obama.

[Gallus]

So they'll spend about a dollar per bomb. Seems like a good plan!

[Enros]

Ethnic cleansing? I thought they were just evicted, which is awful and evil, but that's not the same thing as mass-murdering them. Many of them have become British citizens and live normal lives in the UK and overseas British territories. However, they do need their home back and I think it's retarded that we still have a base there. The Cold War is over. There's no need for it anymore (not that there was much of a need for it to begin with, certainly not at the expense of the Chagossians).

When I type the phrase "ethnic cleansing" into Google it tells me: "the mass expulsion or killing of members of one ethnic or religious group in an area by those of another." That clearly covers what the British did to the Chagossians.

As a matter of fact, the European Court of Human Rights noted while considering the former Yugoslavia that under one view held by a minority of scholars, it is possible to commit genocide without killing a single person. All that is required is the intent to destroy an ethnic group, regardless of how it is achieved. Expelling an ethnic group from its homeland and spreading them widely across other nations, where they will surely be assimilated and their culture destroyed, is genocide under this definition. Remember, Hitler didn't plan to kill every Pole, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Czech, and Slovak. He planned to expel many of them to Russia, where they would be assimilated into the Russian nation and their old ethnicity would go extinct.

I argue that what the UK (with US support) did to the Chagossians was genocide. If you read the accounts of British officials at the time, they are totally racist. They talk about how they must keep secret the fact that the Chagossians had a longer history on their islands than white people had in Australia. They called them savages and compare them to Friday from the book Robinson Crusoe.

Hah! That's retarded. Obama was a small child when this eviction happened in the 1960s. He didn't become president until 2008. How is he personally responsible for something that happened 50 years ago? You clearly don't know how the law works, for starters.

As for your thread, I agree that more money could be spent, but suggesting that something to the tune of "$685.6 billion" is needed for land-mine removal is also perhaps one of the stupidest things I've ever read on this forum. So congratulations, your idea wins the stupid comment of the year award.

Obama has never proposed US withdrawal from the British Indian Ocean Territory. If we judge him by the same standards as we judge the war criminals at Nuremberg and Tokyo, he is a criminal and deserves a long prison term. Although I said a life sentence before, I don't actually believe in life sentences. Nor do I believe in the death penalty.

America could find trillions of dollars to kill brown people in Iraq and Afghanistan. What does it say about the country's priorities if they can't spend them same amount to save lives in Laos? Ideally the President should announce a "war on unexploded ordnance in Laos", and the USA should spend a similar percentage of its GDP on clearing the UXO as it did on other wars. Heck, even spend as much as is spent on the war on drugs. Doing anything else is pure evil.

We also had this conversation ad nauseum in the original thread cited in the OP. I'd advise the mods to merge this thread into that one. It's basically the same thread, just dressed up a little differently but with the same brain-dead hyperbole.

In my USA-and-Allies vs Khmer Rogue thread I found people who agreed with me.

I don't use hyperbole at all. What happened to the Chagossians was undeniably ethnic cleansing, and genocide under a less common definition of the term.

[alhoon]

Ethnic cleansing? I thought they were just evicted, which is awful and evil, but that's not the same thing as mass-murdering them.

Ethnic cleansing doesn't only mean killing them. Forced relocation that changes the demographics is ethnic cleansing.

About the thread's OP: Whether you consider it enough or not (I understand you don't), doubling the money per year to clear the bombs is a step towards the right direction.
Now as for being a war crime to not spend billions to quickly clean bombs that take civilian lives: I don't think it's a war crime.

Then, there's the matter of one putting his country's interests before correcting wrongs. If Obama suggested to the congress a plan to spend 60B$ (let alone 600B$) to send thousands of trained personel with metal detectors to find and diffuse the bombs, cordoning off areas while paying recompensation to the victims and rent for the areas they cordon off for cleaning... it would be downvoted and Obama would be ridiculed in the news for years as the idiot that wanted to protect "a few" foreigners at the expense of the USA taxpayer.

Asking the American congress to approve 600B$ "just" to save the lives of 100 Laos civilians per year is the same as asking the nobility in 1650 to not buy new dresses and jewelry for their wives and mistresses for the annual royal ball, but spend that money on charity because famine hit their peasants. It would earn you ridicule and if you pressed it too much, you would lose your head.

[Himster]

The US has the same moral and humanitarian obligation to clear all unexploded bombs in Laos as any other country.

[Condottiere 40K]

Half of northern France was seeded with ordnance; so were the major cities of Germany and Japan.

The Ho Chi Minh trail was deliberately cut through Laos and Cambodia.

[Roma_Victrix]

With your reasoning, Enros, a classic case of reductio ad absurdum, we should all be suing the Chinese and putting them through the Hague. After all, the Chinese were the first ones to invent land mines in the 14th century (as described in the Huolongjing manuscript). Clearly the present-day Chinese are at fault for what the Ming-dynasty Chinese have done and must face international sanctions as a result.

Asking the American congress to approve 600B$ "just" to save the lives of 100 Laos civilians per year is the same as asking the nobility in 1650 to not buy new dresses and jewelry for their wives and mistresses for the annual royal ball, but spend that money on charity because famine hit their peasants. It would earn you ridicule and if you pressed it too much, you would lose your head.

Now THAT is a good analogy. Bravo.

Half of northern France was seeded with ordnance; so were the major cities of Germany and Japan.

The Ho Chi Minh trail was deliberately cut through Laos and Cambodia.

To this day France has very large "no-go" areas (and no, I'm not talking about the "Sharia Law" ghettos) where it would be hazardous to one's health to visit, namely because you could trip a land mine and blow yourself up. People are not allowed into these areas period. They're still being cleared, as far as I know (although that effort seems daunting).

[Yayattasa]

Ethnic cleansing? I thought they were just evicted, which is awful and evil, but that's not the same thing as mass-murdering them.

I know others already commented it, but as you didn't really address the issue, please go read the definition of ethnic cleansing. Good reading

[MayaLin]

How is it just laos and not cambodia? That is mental, I've worked in the minefields of cambodia its insulting

[Menelik_I]

In May this year I created a thread where I expressed outrage that the USA had done nothing about the 80 million unexploded bombs it dropped on Laos during the Vietnam war, which continue to kill 100 people or so every year. I argued that this was a pretty serious crime and some US politicians - those who put the bombs there, and those who oppose removing them - are comparable to the worst terrorists in recent memory.

Earlier today Obama said the US had a "profound moral and humanitarian obligation" to clear every single piece of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the country. He was speaking at a rehabilitation center for the victims of unexploded ordnance in Laos, on his final tour of Asia before leaving office. One of his final acts before leaving office will be to double spending in this area to $90 million.

While it's good that he has acknowledged the USA has this duty, $90 million is a laughably tiny amount and at this rate the UXO will never be cleared. The war in Afghanistan cost $685.6 billion. The US needs to offer funding on that order of magnitude in order for me to be persuaded it is not a country of mass murdering terrorists. I also believe there needs to be an International Criminal Court for the Vietnam war to put politicians like Henry Kissinger on trial. There needs to be one of those for every war the USA has fought since then as well. Really, Obama has only offered rhetoric and not justice.

EDIT: I like Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle's take on this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Funny thing is more People dies in the aftermath of the Vietnam War in South East Asia than during it.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Those Commie bastards deserved it. Wait is Laos Communist or is that Burma?
Though to be fair no one cares about Laos. There are three kinds of South East Asians in this world: Vietnamese, Thai or Burmese.

No seriously what is it with the guilt over Vietnam and Laos I don't get it. Is it because of the dead children in those villages? Is that it?

[Harith]

Those Commie bastards deserved it. Wait is Laos Communist or is that Burma?

Laos. Ironically, they are part of the TPP negotiations along with Vietnam.

If you thought competing with Mexican, Chinese and Indian workers was bad, wait until you compete them. Their hourly wage is pennies.

No seriously what is it with the guilt over Vietnam and Laos I don't get it. Is it because of the dead children in those villages? Is that it?

It's morning where I live, first day of classes, just finished physio and I haven't slept the night before. If this is sarcasm, it went right over my head.

[Condottiere 40K]

Regret.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Laos was invaded by North Vietnam and their Communist sympathizers in the 1950's. The Pathet Lao was already fighting the government there and the Americans and the ARVN were trying to get rid of the Ho Chi Minh trail to keep the Communist insurgents out of the South. Ho Chi Minh was a mass murderer and America was trying to keep him out of South Vietnam. So I really don't care about bombs in Laos like it was some sort of war crime. They were as much a part of this as everyone else.

[Chukada1]

Laos was invaded by North Vietnam and their Communist sympathizers in the 1950's. The Pathet Lao was already fighting the government there and the Americans and the ARVN were trying to get rid of the Ho Chi Minh trail to keep the Communist insurgents out of the South. Ho Chi Minh was a mass murderer and America was trying to keep him out of South Vietnam. So I really don't care about bombs in Laos like it was some sort of war crime. They were as much a part of this as everyone else.

Citation please.

I have a hard time believing Ho-Chi-Minh was a mass murderer.