# Which country suffers the most from US attentions? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 6, 2009, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575 "2009-11-06T15:21:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/1 "2009-11-06T15:21:15Z")
In the current sense. I was thinking about the embargo on Cuba for 45 years and then thought about Agent Orange and the 500,000 children born with defects in Vietnam. Thinking of children made me think of Iraq and the hundreds of thousand of children killed or maimed there since the invasion, as well as the 20% of the population displaced or dead (it’s about 5 million?). I also recalled being stuck a while ago by an article about Laos [and the 30-year-old bombs](http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-12-11-laos-bombs_x.htm): > [@](#): > > The United States dropped 80 million cluster bomblets on Laos. Ten percent to 30% did not explode, leaving 8 million to 24 million scattered across the country; 15 of Laos’ 18 provinces are contaminated with UXO. > > Since the bombing ended in 1973, 5,700 Laotians have been killed and 5,600 injured by UXO I don’t know as much about US policy in central America under Reagan as I might, not about policy in south America before that. Or even Cambodia for that matter. Palastine, Lebanon, Afghanistan? I guess it’s Vietnam with all those deformed children? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/2 "2009-11-06T15:30:22Z")
This is a Great Debates question, really. I think the answer might be Mexico, because it’s the Third World country closest to the U.S. (Of course, it gets some benefits from that as well.) Or, to be really argumentative, I think that you might find that it’s the United States itself that suffers most from U.S. attentions 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/3 "2009-11-06T16:00:30Z")
In terms of absolute numbers, it would have to be Vietnam. If take population into account, then Vietnam would have to compete with the various Latin American nations where CIA-backed thugs murdered hundreds of thousands of people: Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Nicaragua, and others. Of course suffering is not a numerical value, and no one can say how the suffering of having bombs dropped on you compares to the suffering of living under a tyrannical puppet government kept in place by the U. S. military, as in Saudi Arabia. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/4 "2009-11-06T17:59:59Z")
Moved to GD. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/5 "2009-11-06T18:01:53Z")
This one is easy. The U.S. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/6 "2009-11-06T18:23:39Z")
How so? ---
**Author:** ![dhkendall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9adbd/32.png) [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/7 "2009-11-06T18:34:00Z")
Outside the box answer (and only taking very recent events in account): Iceland. Some fellow in Bugtussle, Arkansas defaults on his subprime mortage, and suddenly the Icelandic economy is in the shitter. As I said, it’s outside the box, but it also isn’t thinking of human suffering in the terms of war. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/8 "2009-11-06T18:54:05Z")
> [@dhkendall](#): > > As I said, it’s outside the box, but it also isn’t thinking of human suffering in the terms of war. The entire population of Iceland is around 320,000, Agent Orange resulted in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects - according to Wiki. You talking about mortgages and loans right - debt, not death, as in dead, and deformity from birth? ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/9 "2009-11-07T01:24:11Z")
Maybe I’ve missed something, but I was under the impression that there had never been a definitive proof of Agent Orange being a birth defect causative? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/10 "2009-11-07T01:25:02Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > How so? How many Americans have died in our misguided military adventures over the years? Not to mention Indians, slavery, Jim Crow, Japanese internment, and whatever other horrible things our government has done to our own people. We have to be disqualified or the US wins in a landslide. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-country-suffers-the-most-from-us-attentions/516575/11 "2009-11-07T02:17:39Z")
Progressives and liberals who live in the US and have to put up with the authoritarian conservatives who live here and run various state and federal governments. Something like 40,000 die a year from lack of health care. Add that in with all the people who are malnourished because of poor social programs and low minimum wages, and you are looking at a lot of suffering. Consider the 10,000+ a day who lose their health insurance, and all the unnecessary suffering they face. In contemporary US, I’d say we suffer the most from our own crap. As far as foreign nations, maybe Cambodia. We bombed the country and killed many. Then Pol Pot came to power because of it. However, as a counterpoint the US was trying to hold back communism in southeast asia, and Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia only went communist after we left. So you can say we helped bring Pol Pot about, but we also tried to stop him. Ironically, it was communist Vietnam that invaded Cambodia and overthrew Pol Pot and stopped his genocide. So a government we didn’t like or want to exist in the first place ended up stopping a genocide we sortof helped cause (but also tried to prevent at the same time).