U.S.-Made Cluster Bomb Use by Saudis in Yemen

Cluster munitions can also be launched from artillery.

 

Actually it was a Soviet proxy war who was flooding Laos with weapons and munitions to arm the Pathet Lao starting in the 1950's. That's what the Soviet Union was doing all over the world back then.

What ever America's involvement was in Laos was during the Eisenhower administration the JFK/LBJ administration, it was the CIA who were running the show.

I do remember when Eisenhower did move a Marine RLT (Regimental Landing Team) from Okinawa to Thailand. I think it was around 1958 not really sure what year.

The Soviets through diplomatic channels asked Eisenhower "are you planning on putting combat troops into Laos" ? Eisenhower said what do you think ? So Soviets response was to back off with sending so much weapons, munitions and supplies into Laos. Once Eisenhower became a lame duck President, the Soviets went back to arming the Pathet Lao.

You have to remember that the Soviets feared Eisenhower but highly respected him as a military strategist and military leader from WW ll. When JFK became President, the Soviets knew that JFK was young, inexperienced and didn't listen to his elders and the Soviets took full advantage of it.

The vast majority of Americans were clueless of what was going on in Laos from 1960 to about 1972 I believe is when it was revealed that the CIA had it's own army fighting a secret war in Laos. "The CIA's Secret War in Laos" were the headlines.

I think the only ones who knew were the airmen (Air Force) who were stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam war.

In late 69 we were close to the DMZ near the Laotian border and one day we saw two Army CH-47's Chinook's each with a 105 howitzer hanging from underneath the choppers as it flew into Laos headed north. We asked, "do we have troops in Laos " ? " I don't think so but something must be going on in Laos."

 

That wasn't my question was it. You stated that:

This response you've provided ducks that issue. I asked for you to provide links to support your claim about expenditure compared to the rest of the world.

The only thing you said in that post that is actually true is your statement that you "simply don't care".

The facts are that precision guided weapons were developed to accurately hit a chosen target. What we appallingly call collateral damage/soft targets are actually not reduced using such weapons. This is a complete myth.

Unlike you I'm happy present some evidence in support of my arguments:

Source

You can read about the supposed "precision" natureof the Hellfire missille HERE.

Over to you...

 

There was some very interesting facts presented in the book (HERE) by the late Fletcher L Prouty, who was the Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs during the JFK Administration.

In that book Prouty revealed that the bulk of US war material (weapons), rather than being returned to the US were divided into two parts and sent to two other destinations instead. Those destinations were Korea and French Indochina. And those weapon stockpiles that were later used by the North Korean and the North Vietnamese in the two wars.

It is hard, especially for a cynic like me, not to conclude that the US had planned wars in those two nations. Indeed, were it ever to be made public - which so far it hasn't been 70 years later - I would very much expect that the CFR War & Peace Studies Group 1939-45 studies of post WWII American power planned for these two wars. What has been made public, especially the content of the book by Shoup & Minter called Imperial Brain Trust, lends itself to that view I believe.

I would also add that Ho Chi Minh was a great admirer of the US and wrote to the US president to seek his guidance in framing a Vietnamese Constitution as a direct copy of the US constitution. Why wouldn't he. He and the US were allies against the Japanese during WWII. But every effort he made to develop a relationship with the USA post WWII was instantly and completely rebuffed.

So much for snubbing friends and instead creating the best enemies money can buy.

As you know, I have considerable cynicism regarding the purpose and direction of US foreign policy for the post WWII world. These facts were instrumental in creating that perspective.

 

The responsible and accountible things to do in this matter are; to;

-restrict arms trade with Saudi Arabia
-hold them accountable for their actions in the presence of the international community
-stop supporting special interests that abuse, coerce and enslave people
-aid the people of Yemen in establishing an integrated infrastructure that they can use to rebuild with

The most likely actions of the US and international community will be far different.

 

Saudi Arabia has poured money and assistance into Yemen for 50 years. Now Yemen is home to AQ, Boko Haram, ISIS, al Houthis, al Shabaab....

 

OOOPS!!!! That would be Hanoi, of course. Scue if?

 

Yawn... more rules of war rubbish. Cluster bombs should be used...because they are effective.

 

You a big Oliver Stone fan? He postulates the same kind of thing in one or another of his anti-American "documentaries".

 

My spelling. Try skew if.

 

That's why PC libs hate cluster bombs, because they are effective. They save American soldiers and Marines lives.

It's no different than any thing else when it comes to libs, for example if it's fun, tax it.

 

No because they kill indiscriminately and keep on killing decades after the conflict has ceased.

 

So do old unexploded WW ll bombs or an old hand grenade that's been lying out in the desert for seventy years.

 

Compare the death and injury rate from cluster bombs in Laos since 1973 to the death rate of UXO explosions from the end of WWII. Tell me, why have there been more deaths and injuries in Laos, even considering the smaller population?

 

I am a fan of Oliver Stone, but I didn't get any of that from him and I listed the sources in my post.

But I am aware from his bio that he used to be a LURP for the First Cavalry in Vietnam and I am also aware that he has conducted a great deal of research into the Vietnam war and subsequent events. And, of course, L Fletcher Prouty, who I referenced in my post, was the real person for the character "Mr. X" played by Donald Sutherland in Stone's JFK film --- so there is a fair bit of crossover, I think.

Yours is an interesting charaterization of his documentaries as being "anti American". I'm sure that Stone and others would regard them as accurate and factual.

 

A little more thought is needed about what "effective" means. Do cluster bombs kill people? Yes. Do they maim people? Yes. What is their optimum deployment? Effective against dense concentrations of light infantry advancing over open ground, a sort of super shrapnel. That's the good part.

Used in civilian areas they not only kill indescriminately, they often remain on the ground unexploded, acting as a an anti-personnel mine. This produces high casualty rates among non-combatants and particularly among children who pick them up. In this context cluster bombs are a terror weapon, not effective military ordinance.

The more important question is not "are they effective?" it is "what effect do they have?" Indiscriminate use is a war crime against civilian population. In counter-insurgency operations such as the Saudis are attempting in Yemen, the center of gravity is the "hearts and minds" of the population. As operations all over the area have shown for years, indiscriminate killing of civilians does not weaken the insurgency, it strengthens it. The Saudis are making a big mistake and are losing the struggle in Yemen. Our assistance with the supply of cluster munitions is hurting, not helping. It is also deepening hatred for the USA all over the Arab world, a long-term strategic setback.

Our military machine and its technology has been evolved to fight the Red Army on the plains of Northern Europe. This was an enemy that was easy to find but hard to kill. We are now engaged in a religious civil war in Arabia fighting an indigenous insurgency. These folks are hard to find but easy to kill. Cluster munitions in this context kill too many of the wrong people.

 

Yes of course, like his postulation that Truman dropped the bomb at the urging of various war mongers at State and the War Department even though he had indications the Japanese were prepared to surrender but they just had to work out some internal political issues and needed a few more months.

At the time, there were 4,000 casualties a day being incurred in the pacific theater. How many needed to die on both sides for just a few more months of conflict? How many would have had to die in an invasion of the Home Islands had Stone's speculation been wrong and the Japanese had decided NOT to surrender? I don't care about how many Japanese would have had to die (as did Stone as he characterized the American decision to have dropped the bomb as less than civilized), but I wouldn't have wanted a single American to have lost his life in the delay.

He also concluded the Soviet Communists were peaceful and absent various provocations by the US which was hostile to the Communist system, there would have never been a Cold War. Naive at best, duplicitous at worst.

I was amazed at his documentary on American history in which he concluded at nearly every turn of events, the American decision was wrong, that the other guys were in the right, or were misunderstood or were innocent taken advantage of by nefarious American interests in various conflicts. He is guilty of oikophobia - he hates his own country and sees rectitude in its adversaries. Gramsci would be proud.

 

*** The US walked into this quagmire w/ their eyes wide open. Bobby and JFK visited Vietnam in 1958, (or 1959) and he knew then the French were finished then, and there was no sense to get involved. But JFK loved his Guerrilla Warfare, and the rest is history, as they say. LBJ's stubbornness got the best of him as well, "I won't be the first American President to lose a War to a little (*)(*)(*)(*)-ant Country." Not to mention the Industrial/Military Complex's thirst for profit and blood. D. Cheney w/ Kellog-Brown-Root made a huge fortune w/ the Open-Bid Contracts the US granted to him.

Great post, I agree, and esp. w/ the last para.

I've always thought JFK's was a payback for Thieu's assassination.

Same old story really...the US did have the best and the brightest, but US Leaders didn't listen to them, etc. Mr. Service and Mr. Davies' involvement in China is a great example of this, and was just the beginning. The 'Domino Theory' looked good on paper, but didn't work well, if at all in the real world.

 

Not at all like that, in fact. Two entirely different subjects, two different wars and two different time periods. But it comes as little surprise to me that you conflate the two.

And naturally in your rush to ignore anything you regard as "anti American", you completely ignore the story that L Fletcher Prouty recounted in his JFK book that I referenced. He must also be guilty of hating America, even though he loved it and fought for it (as did Stone). Like so many posters on this forum you leap from one dodgy conclusion to another even dodgier one. Stone is not Marxist. He's a Buddhist. When he enlisted in the US Army he requested combat duty in Vietnam. He was awarded a Bonze Star with V device for heroism plus several other awards.

Oikophobia in clinical psychiatry is the abnornmal fear of the home or the house, household appliances etc. Not the country in which you live.

 

There is, however, a more relevant definition in common use today:

 

I was in Ypres a few years back and you still see these being dug up from 100 years ago.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10172232/Lethal-relics-from-WW1-are-still-emerging.html

 

Source?

 

The look a little like toys...

Source

More HERE.

 

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I wouldn't pay attention to that post. Cluster Bomb Fact Sheet

 

Skew whiff.

- - - Updated - - -

'Skew-whiff'.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/skew-whiff

Got there in the end!