> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Nowell [SMTP:GN842 at CNSVAX.Albany.Edu]
> Sent: Friday, June 11, 1999 2:36 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: The benefits of bombing Viet Nam.
>
> I did read that there were forests in Viet Nam that were so filled with
> shrapnel
> that cutting one down would virtually destroy a chain saw. It occurs to
> me that
> in an odd way this prevents Viet Nam from adopting a Brazil/Indian slash
> attack
> on forest resources.
>
> I'm beginning to think that the Vietnamese were better off with agent
> orange
> than Iraq & Yugoslavia are going to be with depleted uranium. -gn.
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> >
> > >But they could do that since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no? They did it
> in
> > >Vietnam and Cambodia, no? There were no lossess resulting from high
> > >altitude strategic bombing - but th eissue was not losses but
> effectiveness
> > >as these air raids did not produce the desired tactical impact.
> >
> > Oh there were more than a few losses to anti-aircraft fire then.
> >
> > A couple of points. One, while the snazzy smart weapons obviously don't
> > spare civilians as advertised, they can do a shitload of damage. And
> two,
> > while the bombing in Indochina didn't have the military effect desired
> at
> > the time, in retrospect it's hard to argue the Vietnamese won that war.
> The
> > U.S. military left the country a smoldering, poisoned ruin, and people
> are
> > still suffering the consequences today. This is especially true when the
> > bombing is followed by an economic embargo, which is, as a couple of
> > Foreign Affairs authors argue, a true weapon of mass destruction.
> >
> > Doug
>
> --
> Gregory P. Nowell
> Associate Professor
> Department of Political Science, Milne 100
> State University of New York
> 135 Western Ave.
> Albany, New York 12222
>
> Fax 518-442-5298
>
>