Word: laotians
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fighting crackles on for days. The jittery Laotian government starts negotiations with the Communists and withdraws the 1963 "request" that permits the U.S. to bomb the North Vietnamese infiltration routes in Laos. In the U.S., public opinion is electrified by a series of shocking South Vietnamese defeats. The doves of the Senate take wing once again. Half a dozen Democratic presidential aspirants declare Vietnamization a farce, demand an immediate US. pullout, and gleefully await the President's humiliation in the primaries...
...tons of U.S. bombs have been dropped in Indochina -slightly more than the total dropped in the last three years of the Johnson Administration. During the past ten months, the tonnages have begun to decline fairly rapidly. But the bombing is still substantial, particularly in the Laotian-North Vietnamese border area around the key mountain passes through which the North Vietnamese push troops and supplies into the war at the advent of each dry season...
When the monsoon skies cleared a month or so ago, the infiltration and the Laotian air war started up again with dry-season intensity. This time, however, the Communists were ready with a vastly improved air-defense setup. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, once a relatively safe run for U.S. pilots, has become a gauntlet of fire that bristles with a variety of antiaircraft weapons. Overlooking the trail from the North Vietnamese border are 22 SAM-2 battalions with more than 130 launchers; their 30-mile-range missiles pose a serious threat to nimble fighters as well as lumbering...
Even so, it is still true that aircraft alone cannot save a weak fighting force. The Communists proved that again last week when despite fierce U.S. air attacks, they easily brushed Thai and Laotian troops from the strategic Plain of Jars, as they do every year when the monsoon rains subside and the skies clear...
...meaning remains clear--the United States government is determined to use whatever means are necessary to safeguard its interests. When the cost in American troop casualties proved too high, commensurate with the benefits received, the American game plan changed, to replace American bodies with Asian corpses. Thai, Korean, Laotian, Cambodian, Meo, and Vietnamese mercenaries are employed to preserve America's pre-eminent position in Southeast Asia...