Radio, Television, Internet, Magazines and Newspapers. No matter what your choice, we are able to find news at our fingertips. Yes news, informative, riveting, breaking, up to the minute, award winning, insert your own here _________. News, twenty-four hour, first news at noon, news at five, news at six, news at ten, news at 11, insert your own here ________. We are truly inundated with the news. Why do we need all this news? I'm not sure, but I would appreciate news when read, or heard that would not leave me with more questions after reading or hearing the story being reported.
Let me give you an example. The other day I was reading an article provided by The Associated Press in my local news rag on how the U.S. Government was going to invest 90 million dollars over the next three years in Laos to rid that country of 80 million unexploded bombs, that were dropped there over a half century ago by our military turning Laos into the most heavily bombed country in history, by raining down over 2 million tons of ordinance.
WHAT? 80 MILLION UNEXPLODED BOMBS? WOW!
Associated Press called that a relatively small sum for the U.S., but a significant investment for a small country in one of the poorer corners of the world. I suppose if you compare it to the National Debt it is a small sum. For a moment though, let's consider those figures. If we divide 80 million bombs into 90 million dollars, we come up with a figure of 1.125 million per bomb to rid Laos of their existing problem. Not exactly a paltry sum.
Now comes the I HAVE QUESTIONS part. Questions I think The Associated Press (insert reporter here ___________ ) should have asked or at best provided answers to in their article.
1. Who counted the bombs?
2. Who provided this figure to Associated Press?
3. Who will be doing the work to rid Laos of these unexploded bombs? (the article stated the people were losing life and limbs to this day)
4. How are these bombs going to be disposed of? Are they going to be detonated, disarmed, scrapped, buried, or dumped into the ocean?
5. If the answer is scrapped, who gets the scrap money? Maybe the U.S. can recoup some of our investment.
6. Why are there so many unexploded bombs still there after all these years?
7. Can these bombs be reused?
8. Who was the manufacturer of these bombs? I'm sure the U.S. bought bombs that were supposed to work. Imagine if you paid for a fireworks display for the Fourth of July and 40 percent of those fireworks didn't go off. Hey! I want a rebate. I've been had. I'm not paying you. You ripped me off.
9. Do you think the manufacturer if other than the U.S. should help pay for the clean-up effort?
Now, this article stated there were more than 10 bombs for every one of the country's 7 million people. Well I'm not a reporter but a quick search of a few internet sites stated there were 5,924,000 people in Laos. Also these sites stated that the country is 91,429 square miles. Doing a little math that would be 874.99 bombs per square mile. Wait! I guess I have one more question. If you're the reporter, should you not be a little closer than a million or more people?
The article also stated that our President was the first President to set foot in Laos since those bombings over a half century ago. I do have to commend him for that. If the U.S. has given tax dollars in reparations to other countries for wartime acts, then so be it. But, and I mean but, WE THE TAX PAYING CITIZENS OF THIS GREAT COUNTRY deserve a better explanation as to how our tax dollars are going to be spent on this clean-up project.
Since that article first appeared in our local news rag, another article was reported from Washington. This one told us how the U.S. was going to provide the military of Israel with 38 billion in U.S. dollars as assistance. (largest batch of military assistance ever given to another country) Now all of this was a behind-the-scenes agreement that had been reached by the two countries. Further in the article it states that the total was 3.8 billion (not 38 billion) which was up from 3.1 billion the U.S. gave Israel for the previous 10 year agreement although the officials haven't disclosed the exact sum. You guess which figures are correct. More informative news. Thanks!
In closing, I'd like to offer a suggestion here with a question. Why don't those negotiating the agreement with Israel reduce that dollar figure? Now let me be clear here. I harbor no ill feelings against Israel or their people, but if the dollar amount was reduced by a half billion dollars, we could give that to Laos instead of 80 million since it is a lot poorer than Israel and we could rid that country of all of those unexploded bombs and still give Israel 3.3 billion which would be more than the previous agreement.
Anyone have any answers?
Out of Bounds Contributor
