The U.S. promised Ukraine cluster bombs. In Laos, they still kill civilians
NPRThe U.S. promised Ukraine cluster bombs. In Laos, they still kill civilians Enlarge this image toggle caption Jerry Redfern/LightRocket via Getty Images Jerry Redfern/LightRocket via Getty Images Pulitzer Prize-winner Lewis M. Simons is the author of To Tell the Truth: My Life as a Foreign Correspondent. Sponsor Message The pilots, in their AC-130s and B-52s, had a dual mission: First and foremost, intercept Communist North Vietnamese troops and materiel traversing the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail snaking through the thickly forested, mountain redoubts of Laos into South Vietnam. Enlarge this image toggle caption Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket via Getty Images Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket via Getty Images By the time the three former Indochinese states, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, were seized by Communist governments, 200,000 civilians and soldiers — one-tenth of Laos's population — had been killed; 50,000 of the civilians were victims of cluster bombs. What makes the cluster bombs in Laos particularly insidious is that the vast number that didn't initially explode remain deadly all these decades later.
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