Word: pathetically
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Consider Laos. It is no secret any longer that the U.S. is today deeply involved in an undeclared war there, allied with the supposedly neutralist government of Prince Souvanna Phouma against the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao. Yet only after Senator Stuart Symington's Foreign Relations Subcommittee looked into the matter, against the wishes of the State Department, did the American public learn in detail how U.S. aircraft based in Thailand were bombing northern Laos, the CIA was guiding the operations of Meo tribesmen, and the U.S. was providing millions in military assistance to Souvanna Phouma-all clear...
Refugees explain that their principal reason for wishing to come on the government side has been to escape the bombing. Though some 50,000 to 100,000 people have come out of heavily bombed areas over the last few years, it is not clear that the Pathet Lao population base has been significantly weakened...
Exact figures are unobtainable but it appears that the Pathet Lao have gained back an equal number of people through new territory taken in recent years. Most of the refugees who have come to the government side, moreover, are the older people and the very young...
There are many Lao officials in Vientiane who argue that on the whole the Pathet Lao have gained from the refugee movement by being freed of a sizeable number of non-productive citizens. There is also fear that the refugees retain loyalty to the Pathet Lao, and pose a potential threat to the Mekong River towns near which they have been placed...
...wars, of course, are rarely evaluated by normal standards. It is clear that without the air war, the Pathet Lao would be in an even more formidable position than they are today. Bombing advocates within the CIA, Pentagon and State Department may well have been correct in arguing that only widespread bombing of civilian targets could maintain the American position in Laos...