• @[email protected]
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    3710 months ago

    Pétanque, a game similar to boules, has been popular here since the French introduced it in the former colony. But children often see the round, metal cluster munitions and mistake them for lost pétanque balls. “Many children pick up bombies thinking they’re toys, we hear this a lot,” says Ket. It’s why awareness and education programmes are as important as the land clearance operations, she adds.

    Fucking hell.

    Still, aid to clean up the UXOs pales in comparison to the cost of the bombardment – in 2023 dollars, the US spent $16 million every day bombing Laos for nine years. According to Legacies of War, funding to decontaminate now stands at just $45 million per year.

    (16)(365)(9) = 52,560 million or 52.56 billion. 0.045/52.56 = 0.086%

  • @SinningStromgald
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    810 months ago

    Haven’t read the article but I’m going to guess…land mines?

    • @Sylver
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      3710 months ago

      “Bombies”: the smaller explosive ordinance involved in cluster bombing with up to a 30% dud rate.

      We (the US) dropped a plane-load of bombs on Laos every 8 minutes for a decade straight.

      • @nul9o9
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        1910 months ago

        We (the US) dropped a plane-load of bombs on Laos every 8 minutes for a decade straight

        ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

      • @ABCDE
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        1510 months ago

        And Cambodia.

          • @RizzRustbolt
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            2010 months ago

            Correct.

            You may move up 2 spots in the piss on his grave queue.

          • chaogomu
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            1710 months ago

            The man personally ordered countless bombings, and even overruled generals who wanted to scale back or target actual military targets.

            Nixon never actually cared much about the day-to-day minutia of the war, but Kissinger sure did.

            • @Burn_The_Right
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              810 months ago

              No wonder he is considered a hero to conservatives.