The residual effect of carpet bombing   

The New York Times published an article this week reporting that over 100 thousand Vietnamese civilians have been injured or killed since the war’s end in 1975 due to post-war explosions.  This includes over 42 thousand deaths due to previously unexploded landmines, aerial bombs and other ordinance. 

Think about this for a minute.  On average, over one thousand innocent people are dying every year in Vietnam due to the incredible amount of ordinance that the US dropped (or buried) in that country during the war.   

Vietnam has a total land area of 127,000 square miles, roughly the size of New Mexico.  During the war in Vietnam, the US dropped over 6.7 million tons of bombs.  That was, by far, the most tonnage dropped on any country during any war in the history of civilization.  Compare this to the 2.7 million tons dropped by the Allied Forces on Europe during World War II, or the 700 thousand tons dropped by the Allies in the Pacific during that war. 

In addition, the after-effect of the millions of gallons of Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant, that the US dropped on that country will continue to cause considerable harm to the people of Vietnam for decades to come.  According to this report:  

Vietnam's Red Cross estimates up to 3 million Vietnamese have suffered health-related problems from Agent Orange exposure. 

The important point for the US and all other global military powers to realize is that though they may be capable of using extremely excessive force, that doesn’t mean that it is morally right for them to do so.  There was no moral justification for dropping 6.7 million tons of bombs on mostly non-military targets in Vietnam. 

Today, there is no moral justification for sending unmanned drones to bomb civilian populations in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and other areas of our “secret wars.” 

Unfortunately, it is only after-the-fact that we always come to realize this.