The US devoted much of its energy to supporting the South Vietnamese government in its efforts to root out an internal challenge from liberation forces allied with the Communist North Vietnamese. So the US was “at war” with the North, allied with the South. Indeed, beginning with “Operation Rolling Thunder” in February 1965 continuing through 1968, an average of thirty-two tons of bombs were dropped each hour in the North. But most of the war was fought in South Vietnam — the US was fighting an insurgency within its ally’s borders. South Vietnam received bore the bulk of the destruction, and the majority of the casualties were South Vietnamese. North Vietnam was the “enemy,” but the people of South Vietnam were the primary targets. The numbers are staggering. Thirty billion pounds of munitions spent. Seventy million liters of herbicidal agents (like Agent Orange) sprayed. Twenty-one million bomb craters created in the South. Four hundred thousand tons of napalm dropped.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 01:54:55 +0000
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