Word: pathetic
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VIENTIANE, LAOS (DNSI)-When asked about the bombing a Pathet Lao defector, a former lieutenant, said: "We would move through the forest, in small groups. We had our own methods to hide. But the people had to stay near the villages. For every soldier who was killed, 50 villagers died from the bombing. I never had a man in my company killed or even injured from the bombing...
...comment underscores the essential dilemma of American air power in Laos: though it does extensive damage to the Pathet Lao civilian infrastructure, it is relatively ineffective against military targets...
...This consists primarily of small islands of territory around the 12 (of 16) provincial capitals still in RLG hands. Most of the area is supplied by air, and no more than a few hundred miles of roads are considered safe for travel by American or Lao civilian officials. The Pathet Lao control about 60 per cent of Laos. The remainder is a no man's land where small roving bands of communist guerrillas forestall permanent RLG presence...
...well-publicized battle of the Plain of Jars in February 1970. Despite some of the heaviest bombing to date, including the first use of B52s in northern Laos, communist forces retook the Plain in five days. In May 1964, before the beginning of the air war, the Pathet Lao took the Plain in three days...
...been remarkably dishonest and brutal; such petty thoughts have hardly been known to wear on the consciences of our national leaders. The problem is a more technical one. Despite America's monopoly of sheer physical force, the war is quickly becoming a stalemate, and the NLF, Pathet Lao, and North Vietnamese-badly tattered as they have been by the American military machine-aren't about to give...