How did the US destroy the neutral Laos during the Vietnam War?
As Brian Wilson asserted, the destruction and killing of the United States during the Vietnam War was beyond imagination. However, these arguments are not just those of social activist Brian Wilson. Martin Sheen, who played the main character Benjamin Willard in the movie <Apocalypse>, made a 1.5-hour documentary titled <Vietnam: American Holocaust> in 2008. Martin Sheen, an actor, filmmaker and documentary director, writes in the documentary that the US-caused Vietnam War killed 5 million people (citing Vietnam's estimates in 1995, according to which 1 million soldiers and 4 million civilians were killed) ) were killed, and the United States, without remorse, claimed to have started the Iraq War in 2003, killing another 1 million Iraqis. (Martin Sheen, <Vietnam: American Holocaust>, 2008. https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=faadbiQXdw4)
Robert Mcnamara, who planned and executed the Vietnam War while in the Kennedy administration, said in a 1995 lecture at American University that the American war in Vietnam killed at least 3.8 million Vietnamese. If you look at <A Modern American History that No One Says II>, co-authored by Oliver Stone and Peter Kurznick, it reads as follows:
“The war lasted two more years. On April 30, 1975, North Vietnam took Saigon. The war is completely over. By the end of the war, the United States had dropped more bombs on that small country, Vietnam, than all warring parties in any war in human history, and three times the number of bombs dropped by all warring parties in World War II. Unexploded ordnance was plentiful in rural areas. About 72 million liters of defoliant was sprayed and polluted the environment. In South Vietnam, the United States destroyed 9,000 out of a total of 15,000 villages. In North Vietnam, all six industrial cities were completely destroyed. 28 out of 30 small and medium-sized cities in the province and 96 out of 116 small towns were devastated. Le Juan, who became North Vietnam's supreme leader after Ho Chi Minh's death in 1969, told a foreign reporter that the United States had threatened to use nuclear weapons 13 times. The number of casualties from the Vietnam War was shocking. About 58,000 Americans were killed. However, compared to the number of Vietnamese casualties, this is a fresh start. Robert McNamara later said that 3.8 million Vietnamese had died while giving a lecture to students at American University.”
If you look at what kind of mass killings the US carried out in South Vietnam and North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, you can see what the US did in Laos and Cambodia, neighboring countries of Vietnam. Many people know how the US infringed on and destroyed Vietnam's sovereignty during the Vietnam War, but they do not know that neighboring Laos and Cambodia also suffered murderous damage. Therefore, this article will focus on how the US imperialist country infringed on the sovereignty of Laos and destroyed this country during the Vietnam War.
In order to understand the situation of Laos during the Vietnam War, it is necessary to talk about the modern and contemporary history of Laos. When France invaded Vietnam in the 19th century, Laos was also under French colonial rule for a century. Laos, along with Vietnam and Cambodia, belonged to the French Indochina Territory. When World War II broke out, Japan occupied Indochina, and Laos also briefly experienced Japanese colonial rule. When Japan declared its surrender in World War II on August 15, 1945, Prince Souphanouvong of Laos, who was close with the Vietnam League for Independence (Viet Minh) at the time, was encouraged by Ho Chi Minh's declaration of Vietnamese independence and established an independent state. wanted to build In September 1946, a resistance army was formed in Laos under the auspices of the Viet Minh, and when the First Indochina War broke out, the independence movement forces of Laos also participated in the independence war.
Prince Soupanubong started an independent guerrilla struggle in northeastern Laos with support from the Viet Minh in 1949. In 1951, the so-called Pathet Lao was founded in Laos, and more actively engaged in the war of independence. In his memoir, Dien Bien Phu, written by General Vo Nguyen Jab, he quoted Prince Supa Noubon about the liberation of Samne Hua in 1953, emphasizing the importance of revolutionary solidarity between Vietnam and Laos.
“The liberation of Samnehua is the result of years of struggle of all Lao peoples against the invaders. It is the result of Vietnam-Laos solidarity and the unconditional support of the Vietnamese people and army fighting against a common enemy.”
In 1954, the First Indochina War (Anti-French War) ended with Vietnam's victory as France suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. At the Geneva Conference before and after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, independence of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia was decided, and Laos was also considered to be an independent state. However, Laos' independence through the Geneva Conference was also the beginning of a bigger tragedy. This is because the imperialist United States has been interfering in internal affairs in Southeast Asian affairs since France resigned. According to Professor So Byeong-guk, who wrote <Southeast Asian History>, from independence in 1954 to 1975, the experimental process of building a nation-state in Laos was three times of coalition through the merger of right, center, and left factions influenced by foreign powers, especially the United States and North Vietnam. It was the ups and downs of the government, and the civil war that occurred in this process.
After the Geneva Conference, a neutral government was formed in Laos, but confrontation and division continued. A few days before Kennedy's inauguration in 1961, Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchov delivered a speech with a strong tone of support for the international revolution. A war broke out between the Pathet Lao. (Michael Maclear, Kyungchan Yoo, <10,000 Days of War in Vietnam>, Eulyu Munhwasa, 2002, p.119) This was the beginning of the civil war in Laos.
The John F. Kennedy government of the United States provided military advisors and supplies to the Ngo Dinh Diem government of South Vietnam, while also conducting operations in Laos and Cambodia. The US special forces, represented by the Green Berets, gathered the Hmong of Laos, a strong anti-communist group, and nurtured them into an anti-communist army, and the Lao government army was supported by the US. The problem was that the US act itself was an act of ignoring the sovereignty of Laos. As William J. Deweyker, author of The Biography of Ho Chi Minh, put it, “Since Laos was an isolated country in a mountainous region, it was more difficult to justify the US intervention by stating the security of the 'free world'” (William J. Dewey). Kerr, Young-mok Jeong, <Ho Chi Minh Biography>, Green Forest, 2003, p.770) However, the United States intervened in internal affairs. Numerous supplies and equipment were delivered to the Lao government forces and the Hmong militia, an anti-communist minority. Graham Parsons, the then US ambassador to Laos, testified at the hearings of the US Congress as follows:
“I worked for 16 years to stop the establishment of a coalition government” (Chomsky Herman, Jeong Kyeong-ok, <Public Opinion Manipulation>, Eco-Libre, 2006, p.413).
Naturally, this action by the United States was an act of blatant disregard of the Geneva Agreement. Given these reasons, it is common sense to argue that the United States was not the one who started the Vietnam War. The United States, who fabricated the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, posted the so-called North Pole in February 1965, citing the Viet Cong attack on the US base Pleiku in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The Lindon B. Johnson administration of the United States posted bombings on North Vietnam, along with bombings on the Laos-Cambodia border. The ostensible reason for the US bombing of parts of Laos and Cambodia was to cut off supplies from the Viet Cong.
Since the 1960s, North Vietnam has provided supplies via land and sea to support the Viet Cong fighting in South Vietnam. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was created as a result of this process. The North Vietnamese government also provided a lot of material support through sea routes. After the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964, when the US Navy blocked the South Vietnamese Sea route, the Ho Chi Minh route, which connected Laos and Cambodia, was usefully used. North Vietnam, which had previously used bicycles during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, provided supplies to revolutionary forces in South Vietnam through trucks supported by China and the Soviet Union. As a result, the Johnson administration in the United States launched indiscriminate bombing of the Ho Chi Minh route.
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| Souphanubong and Ho Chi Minh |
During the Laos Civil War, the mission of the US military was to hide behind civilians and use a general disguised as a civilian to violate the Geneva Conventions. The scale of support was also beyond imagination. The country that received 100% of the military budget from the United States was the Kingdom of Laos. It was completely destroyed by military operations. During the Vietnam War, the United States dropped approximately 8 million tons of bombs, a quarter of which was dropped on Laos. Below is the content of <Vietnam 10000 Days' War>.
“Even in terms of the deployment of conventional weapons, the Vietnam War was larger than any other war in history. In one regional war, the cost of bombing by the U.S. military exceeded the total cost of the Allies in World War II. In World War II, the bombs used for aerial bombardment amounted to nearly 2 million tons, while in the Vietnam War, only 2 million tons of bombs were poured into the infiltration route at the Laos border from 1965 to 1971. This amount of bombs was counted until the number of air raids on the Ho Chi Minh route did not exceed 500 per day” (Michael Maclear, Kyungchan Yoo, <10,000 Days of War in Vietnam>, Eulyu Munhwasa, 2002, p.327-328).
As can be seen from these claims, it is clear how many bombs the US dropped on Laos. US covert military operations began in 1961, and regular bombing began in early 1964. Operation Barrel Roll, targeting northern Laos, began in December 1964, several months before the regular bombing of North Vietnam, and the bombings intensified in 1966, and in 196, during the Chinese New Year offensive. The bombing has reached an unprecedented level. (Chomsky Herman, Jeong Kyeong-ok, <Public Opinion Manipulation>, Eco-Libre, 2006, p.415) In <A Modern History of America No One Told II>, the US bombardment of Laos is as follows: come out together
“From 1965 to 1973, U.S. troops dropped 2,756,941 tons of bombs in 23516 sorties to 113,716 locations. The 'Stone Jar Plain', which was taken over by the communist anti-government militant group Pathet Lao, was one of the most heavily bombed by US forces. Most of the surviving young people joined the Pather Rao. Hmong soldiers with US support introduced the remaining villagers. In September 1969, most of the stone jar plain area was evacuated. Writer and anti-war activist Fred Brandman wrote, based on interviews with more than 1,000 Lao refugees, that "The Stone Jar Plain left a record in history for 700 years, but is now finally gone." Many regions of Laos have suffered a similar fate.”
Fred Branfman, who lived in Laos during the Vietnam War, said in his book Voices from the Plain of Jars:
“From May 1965 to September 1969, over 25,000 sorties were made over the plains of Danji, and more than 75,000 tons of bombs were dropped. Thousands of people were killed and wounded on the ground, and tens of thousands of people were driven underground, and in the end, the entire society on earth completely collapsed.”
The US ambassador to Laos, William Sullivan, described the document "prepared carefully and carefully" by Walter Haney, a Lao-speaking American, who meticulously compiled and compiled the testimony of refugees. Heney, citing the testimony of a UN official in Laos, said it was "the most vivid description of the bombing."
“The bombing of 1968 was so powerful that no life could survive in a nearby village. The bombing culminated in 1969 when bombers flew every day and destroyed buildings, causing villagers to either flee outside or retreat deeper and deeper into the woods. There was nothing standing there. Residents lived in trenches, crypts or caves. They only farmed at night. The informants, without exception, ravaged their villages. Towards the end of the war, the bombing focused on systematically destroying the material base of the people.”
The casualties were never too small. At the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the New York Times reviewed the civil war in Laos and concluded that 350,000 people, more than one-tenth of the population (men, women and children), had been killed in the war in the United States (Chomsky Herman, Jeong Gyeong-ok, <Public Opinion Manipulation>, Eco-Libre, 2006, p.422) More than 350,000 Laotians were killed in the war the US started, and Laos was devastated by the US bombing. During the Vietnam War, the US bombed Laos and lied that it was simply targeting North Vietnamese supply routes.
The United States committed such mass killings but did not reflect at all on how many people they slaughtered and massacred. The 6 million Southeast Asian deaths claimed by Vietnam War veteran Brian Wilson would of course include the 350,000 Laotians killed in US bombing and military operations. Fully supporters of American imperialism argue that the Vietnam War was a war the United States was fighting to defend liberal democracy. But the genocide of 6 million Southeast Asians by the US in Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia would demonstrate the fiction of the concept of liberal democracy. Thus, the Vietnam War was a genocide and war crime committed by the United States, and the war in Laos was the same, and it was a brutal war of aggression by American imperialism.
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