The Price of Defeat
and the forgotten people who pay it
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (33) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
A lingering legacy of the Vietnam War emerged from the jungles of Laos on Wednesday, as hundreds of members of the Hmong hill tribe minority surrendered to the communist government after decades on the run.
The group is the latest of several ragtag bands of surrendering Hmong, remnants of a guerrilla army that served a pro-American government before it fell to the communists in 1975. More than 300,000 Laotians, mostly Hmong, fled thereafter. Thousands stayed, some adjusting to the new hard-line rule and others staying in the jungle, where they faced sweeps by government soldiers.
Read on.
As we contemplate slipping into our track shoes and exiting Iraq we should take some time to contemplate the shameful legacy of our Vietnam debacle and consider that a similar legacy awaits our retreat from Iraq.
The Hmong tribesmen of Laos were some of the most dedicated allies we had in during the Vietnam war. Under General Vang Pao they interdicted the Ho Chi Minh trail as it ran through Laos and tied down substantial numbers of North Vietnamese troops who would otherwise have been available on the battlefields of South Vietnam.
In the end, we left them behind but they carried on their war against the oppression of the Pathet Lao.
The man who surrendered yesterday, Moua Tua Ter, has been fighting communists since he was recruited into the army at age 12.
At the age of 12, Moua Toua Ther was recruited by the CIA to fight communism. At 14, he lost his left hand from a bullet wound. At 17, the United States left him with three choices: surrender, flee or fight. He chose the last.
Thirty years later, his army long forgotten, Ther still holds out against the government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic."We thought the Americans would surely come back and help us," Ther says from his jungle hideout in the mountains of northern Laos. "But they never did."
Instead, he and a dwindling band of loyalists are battling for survival from continuous government military campaigns, with little assistance from their former paymasters.
Defeat bears with it a steep price and that price is often paid by those who trusted us and believed in us. As we consider our options in Iraq, and ultimately in Afghanistan, one hopes that we do so with an eye on the price that will be paid by those who have helped us should we turn tail.
« We need more COIN in the Afghan realm — Comments (0) | Stay the Course — Comments (14) »
The Price of Defeat 33 Comments (0 topical, 33 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
for Thailand at a Bhuddist refuge/complex called Wat Tham Krabok. I do not have the time now, but I will post a diary on this later tonight or this weekend. The story of these Hmong and the monks who have helped them in Thailand is simply amazing.
___________________________________________________________
Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes
We all need the reminder that our foreign policy commitments have long-term, life-and-death implications for our friends. As a nation, we should have the integrity to see those commitments through.
Recommended reading: The Ravens: The Men Who Flew in America's Secret War in Laos, by Christopher Robbins (1987).
Party left for slaughter (falling dominoes the Dems averted their gaze from) in what they consider their glory days of surrender to communists (speaking truth to power, blam America firstism) are why I cringe everytime I see McCain, Kerry or Clinton on reconcilliation tours to Red Vietnam and even Bush, if the plight of such heros and the Myung are not FIRST item on the agenda before we trade video games with the Communist North Vietnamese or even China for that matter.
I personally have known and know quite well now, some of the Myung whose families fled Laos when the Democrat Party cut off funds for a South Vietnamese army and its Laotian allies that were winning in 1975.
From a selfish point of view, these refugeees turn out to be "better" Americans than most of us spoiled native born variety Yanks. America is stronger that they are Americans. But surely we would be stronger still, if we didn't betray allies. If we kept our word. If we were not paper tigers to our enemies.
I pray we, as a whole, are not what the Democrat Party has shown that some of us are. The best way to find out is to deny them the power to do in 2007 what they did in 1975. Its too late for that given the 2006 elections.
So what we must do now is cram this man's picture and story down their throats and dare them to aid and abet mass murder again in Iraq or anywhere elese the word of the Us is on the line.
This American reveres this Hmung since age 12 hero! and his compatriots and prays we make their plight an issue in the UN TODAY! Its not too late to make amends as best we can now. We wrote off millions after the fall of Saigon. Wouldn't it be great if we re-claimed some patriots!
www.race42008.com
http://theminorityreportblog.blogspot.com/
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson - http://gamecock.townhall.com
www.race42008.com
http://theminorityreportblog.blogspot.com/
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson - http://gamecock.townhall.com
This is what I don't understamd, if we immediately left Iraq, the streets of Baghdad would run red with blood, tens of thouands would be killed.
And yet this is what Liberals want, just so they can say, "I told you so, I told Iraq was a mistake." It's completely sick.
Liberals still are still so proud they made America fail it's mission in Vietnam, you can see the sick glee in their eyes when they talk about America's failure. They think the US was more Evil than Ho Chi Minh, who promptly slaughtered a million Vietnamese when we left.
The really disgusting thing is, if the Left could do it all over again, they would in a heartbeat, just so they could strike a blow against the "American Empire". They care nothing of the millions that died in the "collateral damage", only about there cause.
And they say Conservatives are bloodthirsty war mongers.
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. "
William F. Buckley, Jr.
the blood in the streets. But this time will be vastly different that Vietnam. In Vietnam (and Cambodia and Laos) millions were slaughtered and nobody but nobody gave a damn. And they still don't.
In Iraq, OTOH, the US will be blamed for every death. There will be a media parade of families weeping over the bodies of their children. The NYT and TV networks will have reporters and photographers in Iraq to document the slaughter. The whole mess will be laid at the feet of Bush and the US will never again use it's military for anything but disaster relief inside the borders of the US.
_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
the observation that " 20 dead is a tragedy, a million dead is a statistic," was right. Whether the left has taken it to heart, or merely count on their Zaphrod Beeblebrox sunglasses to prevent them from seeing the fruit of their work doesn't really matter, you still wind up with millions dead.
I wish I could remember where I read (maybe here?) that the word "should" was used a hundred times in the ISG report, but the word "Honor" only once.
America, as reflected in our polling, is a nation where if Honor is not dead, it is moaning away on a hospice bed drowning in morphine. Once upon a time, Honor was worth dying over. Certainly not now. But hey, I got A/C, overpriced coffee and a DVR. What need do I have for Honor? Sick. Maybe the West is diseased.
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. - Alan Greenspan
Was not lost on one of the members of my extended family, who is now deceased. I have his wings, his wristwatch, and a few other keepsakes. He was there, and he sacrificed a lot, and to the eternal shame of some (other) people in my family, I was robbed of his legacy which was expressly intended for me to receive after his passing. Instead it went up in smoke and got spread to the four corners of the Earth to enrich a liberal who hated everything he stood for. I was too young to prevent that from happening.
But I'm not too young now.
That's why I share your pessimism on so-called "bipartisanship." As far as this war is concerned, the Donks Who Matter have already decided that it is Vietnam repeated as farce. When Reyes couldn't remember whether or not al-Qaeda was Sunni or Shia the other day, the subtext of his forgetfulness to me was that he simply didn't care, because I think in his mind it's still just as likely that GWB "created" this war for his own purposes, following the standard liberal line of reasoning that I've been exposed to. They actually believe that: at the highest levels, even to this moment, many Liberals of that generation still think that GWB concocted this entire thing starting from the moment the al-Qaeda guys arrived in the U.S.
are convinced that GWB had every intention of invading Iraq even before 911. Just the other day I caught a blurb of Chris Mathews(?), yelling that very thing.
Is that all that guy ever does? Talk about annoying....I've been avoiding TV news for the most part for a couple years now. Now I remember why.
There will be no bipartisanship until 1/21/09, and probably not much worth speaking of after that. I don't believe the political atmosphere has ever been so polluted with hate and loathing. I think the internet blogs on both sides have ratcheted up rhetoric exponentially. There is scant middle ground left to build any bipartisanship on.
Can you imagine if the internet were around for Vietnam?
with his "we've lost" comments after Tet. Or using the only US plane shot down over and over from different angles.
_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
in the congress or in the country until after one side trounces the other (as in, Reagan-like 49-state Presidential landslide and/or a winning a veto-proof or at least fillibuster-proof majority in congress) in some future election.
And even then, it will likely only happens if the Republicans come out on the short end. Should the Dems come out on the short end they will more likely bunker-down into a more maniacal, foaming, barking moonbat mode than they exhibit today because, if it ever gets to that point in congress, the moonbats will be about all that's left on their side.
And in any case it will just as likely be short-lived.
-------------
"I don't know." -- Helen Thomas, when asked by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, "Are we at war, Helen?"
De Opresso Liber
outstanding, and timely.
Any similar news from the mountain and highland minorities in Vietnam (Montagnards)? They once referred to themselves collectively as the De'ga.
what has happened to the notably loyal Montagnard tribes, like the Rhade, and the Nung people.
It looks like the 'yards are still the victims of a slow rolling campaign to extirminate them, thus it was thus it shall forever be. Not much info on the Nung.
I understand the point of this diary - a lot of the people who support us in Iraq are going to die if we pull out, and that's going to be tragic if it happens. But hold on just a minute -
The CIA recruited CHILD SOLDIERS to fight in Vietnam? Ok, it can't be as bad as Charles Taylor et al, who forced kids to kill their own parents first, but still. Giving guns to children and telling them to go shoot people? Somebody PLEASE tell me that's a typo, that this guy was recruited at age 21 instead of 12.
but a cursory reading of the history of our Laotian experience would dispel the myth you're laboring so manfully to start.
The CIA provided arms and training to the Hmong. The Hmong troops themselves, including a small air force, were recruited by General Vung Pao and the Hmong usually didn't have Americans with them in battle. Recruiting is actually a poor term as the Hmong guerillas were organized around villages.
Considering the Pathet Lao were and are conducting a campaign of genocide against the Hmong I'm not really against child soldiers in those circumstances. What's your proposal, that they go to school while waiting for the axe to fall?
the myth you're laboring so manfully to start.
I don't know what myth you're talking about - the article said this guy was "recruited by the CIA to fight communism" at age 12. Now I find out from you that "recruited" should have been struck and replaced with "given CIA arms through intermediaries," sloppy writting, in other words.
Thank you, by the way, for the clearer story here; it's almost exactly what I wanted to here.
The San Franciso Chronicle is hardly going to question the author's assertion that this guy was recruited by the CIA at age 12. Any perusal of our history there reveals this to be patently false. Puulease!
I personally have trained fighters all over the globe and never gave a gun to a child. I have, however, helped a child to learn gun safety for a weapon that he already carried (on my own, BTW). Thanks for assuming that we soldiers and trainers are a bunch of manipulators.
It is important to note that child fighters are prevalent throughout the world (absent the West). Some of the hardest "men" I've ever met in my life were prepubescent boys in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Right, wrong, or indifferent, nobody in the U.S. is or was forcing young people to fight. I recommend that you forsake your next foray to Paris in exchange for a longer stay in the third world. It will be an eye-opening experience.
I recommend that you forsake your next foray to Paris in exchange for a longer stay in the third world.
Thanks for assuming everyone in America has the financial means to run off to Paris whenever they feel like it. How incredibly elitist.
Obviously, teaching a kid gun safety isn't manipulating him, so what's your point? The article above says the CIA was recruiting kids to fight wars for us - which Streiff was kind enough to inform me was a terrible misrepresentation of what happened.
As for your prepubescent boys in Pakistan - maybe the reason you never gave a child a gun is because you know children shouldn't fight guerrilla wars? Because if children fight in wars they also die in wars? And dead kids, no matter how "hardened" they are, are a uniquely bad thing? So why the outrage?
can read. How incredibly elitist you must feel by typing these passages on via your, oh my goodness, you have a computer! You snobbish prig!
__________________________________________________________
Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes
They live in a place where the government (note, I did not say "their government") is attempting to kill every person who is like them. Or knows them. The Hmong are like the folks currently being slaughtered in Darfur. Or the couple of million in Cambodia and Laos.
If I lived there and my sons were 10 or 12, I would arm them and make darn sure they knew how to kill. Your comparison to Charles Taylor is patently offensive and just plain stupid. It reveals your total ignorance of the situation. In the case of the 12 year olds in question, they were armed to protect their lives and the lives of their family from people who make Charles Taylor look like Mother Theresa.
Write a letter to Kofi, he's got a couple of weeks left, I'm sure he'd like to address the problem in his retirement.
_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
Your comparison to Charles Taylor is patently offensive and just plain stupid. It reveals your total ignorance of the situation.
So you think it's stupid to assume the CIA acted better in this case than Charles Taylor? Wow. I never thought Redstate was the place to find the blame America first crowd. Because here's what I actually said:
Ok, it can't be as bad as Charles Taylor et al(...) [emphasis added]
As for Peoria, the article didn't say "taught by the CIA to defend himself and his family" at age 12, it said "recruited by the CIA to fight communism." 180 degrees different. IF you lived there, you MIGHT teach your son to defend himself, but you (hopefully) would not send him into the jungle with a band of guerrillas. Streiff was good enough to point out that the article cited above gave a grossely innaccurate picture of CIA activities in Laos vis-a-vis children fighting. I'm very glad there was a reasonable explanation for this.
appropriately deconstructed by others. But your comparison to Charles Taylor is absolutely offensive. If you can't understand the difference you are beyond help.
_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
My comparison to Charles Taylor was an attempt to demonstrate that I in fact do, in fact, understand the difference and did not want to be accused of assuming the absolute worst about Americans.
And I gave no initial argument because my comment contained no initial claim. I did a double-take at something mentioned in the story and asked, no pleaded, for someone to tell me it was wrong.
De Opresso Liber
The CIA did not recruit and train Children in Vietnam. Early in the conflict they assisted all inhabitants of a 'village' to assist in defending their homes during attack. That was called the 'strategic hamlet' program.
In 1962 that program was given to the US Army Special Forces and renamed the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program. At its height there were some 65 - 70 Special Forces CIDG camps throughout the country. Not a one armed children - but I'd bet a mint that every one was attacked from time-to-time by children armed by communists.
How do I know? I commanded one of those camps in the highlands, and visited many of the remainder on subsequent tours of duty there (and elsewhere in the region) with S.F.
Get your facts and get them straight before you risk showing your ignorance.
Never mind that I was using "Vietnam" as traditional shorthand for "The Vietnam War" and in this case, the story of Hmong guerrillas in Laos, one of several cases of the war spilling over into other states.
And never mind that I was explicitly asking for someone to tell me the article cited above was incorrect about the recruitment of 12 year olds to fight communism - which it was. (I thought the age had to be wrong - in fact it was the idea of "recruitment." See above.)
De Opresso Liber
maybe you just need a little more practice 'using your words'.
In fact, to be perfectly correct. The war initially fought by the Hmong (Mnong) in Laos (to 1962) actually 'spilled over' into Vietnam. (See the affects of the 1962 Geneva Accords: Before and after.)
Curious. Which other states did the Vietnam War 'spill over' into?
At any rate, to answer your initial question: No. The CIA, the military, the Republic of Vietnam: None used children as gun-toting killers.
However, communists in the South (Viet Cong) kidnapped literally thousands of children from their homes and parents and sent them to the North to be trained as Political Officers; and later accompany North Vietnamses invasion forces (PAVN) into the South as armed agitprops.
In northern Laos and Thailand, it often occurred that the Karen women (Thai) and Mnong women (Lao) were forced to turn their infants over to the communists to be slaughtered - then stuffed with contraband (cocaine) and other crucial military goods, then carried across borders by their horrified and bereaved mothers as if they were normal, living children. Bad Stuff.
Ho Chi Minh Trail running through Cambodian territory, U.S. bombing of VC targets in Cambodia, support for Lon Nol's coup in the hope that he would mobilize the army to seal the border and shut down the Trail... I would consider this spillover, and it sounds like you'd already know the story.
De Opresso Liber
I interpreted your term 'spill over' to mean the ground war spilled over; which it did not (too much),
Had it done, and had the ground war spilled over into the North - we'd have a much different situation today.
the Hmong are a very ancient people, the decendants of the original inhabitants of that part of the world, long before the Thais and Viets and others arrived. That they have survived with their language and culture intact (though often adopting Buddhism as our Indians have adopted Christiniaty) is a tribute to the strength of their ethnic character. Every effort should be made to insure their continued survival.
not that he's alone. These sort of things don't count. If the hundreds of thousands of boat people didn't induce shame on the American left nothing will. Not a thought nor a moment's second guess will crack the wall of massive self deceit that is the coat of armour for the American army of the compassionate.
As for Kofi, his pockets stuffed with money, he is to busy blaming Bush and uttering what he knows the world and American media want to hear. A good press being better then good deeds.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville