Compared with the $28 billion per year we paid to devastate the villages and countryside of Vietnam at the height of the war in 1968 and 1969. or the estimated $130 billion paid out for the war overall. the $2.5 billion reparations figure seems fairly small. From a humanitarian standpoint. also. the sum of $2.5 billion seems reasonable. We claim to have killed over 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. we have made refugees of some 6 million people in South Vietnam. 2 million in Cambodia. 1 million in Laos. Much of the countryside in these three countries is sowed with shell craters. unexploded bombs and shellsbombs and shells that will be killing unwary farmers and children for a decade unless we assist with our technical equipment in their detection and detonation. As the most powerful nation in the world. this seems the least we should do.
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refugees