| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Laotian Civil War article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies |
| Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
 | This  level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | This article is about a topic whose name is originally rendered in the Lao script; however the article does not have that version of its name in the article's lead paragraph. Anyone who is knowledgeable enough with the original language is invited to assist in adding the Lao script. For more information, see: MOS:FOREIGN. |
 | A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on May 15, 2011 and May 15, 2015. |
Looks like there could be a lot added to this, so I tagged it expand. (Could have been a hist-stub but I think it's beyond that point, I could easily be wrong). RJFJR 17:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Laotioan Secret War now redirects here, by the way. RJFJR 17:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
so...yea, im doin this project rite, and i need help with The Secret War, and wat its all about, chivasfan2005_6@hotmail.com <<<msn messenger
(dont expect citations I got most of this from being there) The US launched 580,000 bombing missions during the war (source: the Lonely Planet guide to South East Asia!), the Mines Advsiory Group reckon 100 years till the country will be free of unexploded cluster bombs.(source: mines advisory group dude in phon savan-worst region for bombs-, documentry "bombies") The plain of jars has only 3 sites safe for people, and most of the jungle and surrounding countryside is un-crossable due to unexploded ordinance. (ever seen a soccer match where all the referees have to carry metal detectors?) I uncovered some interesting conspiracies whilst talking to this guesthouse owner who owns loas' only golf course, which he got through corrupt government officials (they paid the million dollars for clearing of ordinance if he lets them play whenever thhe want for free, i had a game with him and it was like playing golf on Horsell Common ei scrubland, great big holes, mud and occasionaly little bits of green) to the effect that there was a US stake in the opium trade, in and around the golden triangle, striking aid deals with the hmong hill tribes in exchange for opium!
Of course i can't prove anything whatsoever and the guy lives in phon savan (I forget his name, but his guesthouse was in the lonely planet guide , phonsavan, one of the few good sounding ones in what is essentialy a horrible communist heap of a town),but it certainly is something I'd like to investigate and disprove for myself. Napalm was used liberally and fairly indescrminantly especially by fighter jets still with un used weaponry on board, dropping the stuff as and when on random bits of jungle, unfortunately killing lots of people in the process ((source: hilltribe people and locals, me, my eyes))(and nothing grows there still, i have photos which i might one day scan or something)
Finally to estimate a rough idea as to the scale of the bombings, take 580,000 sorties, ignore massive bombers like B52's and replace them with old school phantoms, then say they are only holding two cluster bombs(each with 300 bomblets) so 580000x2 =1160000 then times by 300 to get 348,000,000 cluster bomblets, then half the number just to be as nice as possible to a mere 174,000,000 ignore the estimate of 20 percent unexploded and go for 5 percent and you still get 8.7 million cluster bomblets unexploded, even after toning down all the numbers. The MAG get the same amount of reported deaths from bomblets in Laos as they get deaths from mines in Cambodia. Its pretty bad to tell the truth.
The United States dropped a greater tonnage of bombs on Laos than it dropped during the entirety of World War II. Citations to support this evidence is easy to find, for anyone willing to Google. Try: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54/057.html www.visit-laos.com/sabbaidee/history.htm Laos as the most heavily bombed country in history: www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-12-11-laos-bombs_x.htm Coincidentally, the bombing effort was kept SECRET from many higher ranking officials in U. S. government, including the Secretary of the Air Force. www.commondreams.org/views04/0405-05.htm Which tends to play hob with the idea this wasn't The Secret War. At any rate, just type "bombing in Laos" into Google, and read for yourself. ``George J. Dorner`` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.186.114 (talk) 04:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One of the most important "aftermaths" was the unexploded weaponry scattered around Laos that continues to claim victims to this day. Perhaps someone with good knowledge of this can add details to the aftermath section.
Who calls this part of the larger Indochina War the "Secret War"? Can someone please give a citation?
* 'Secret War' Still Killing Thousands, Andre Vltchek, Worldpress.org correspondent, November 14, 2006 * Laos: Still a Secret War, World Picture News/WorldPress.Org,Roger Arnold, January 19, 2007
. So there you go: It's 'Still a Secret War.' Lee 14:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Pawyilee[reply]
Yes, it definitely needs a namechange, waaay to vague. I like the idea of calling it the "Laotian Civil War." Publicus 21:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unless someone objects, I say that we go ahead and re-name this subject the "Laotian Civil War". --JKP1187
Lousy. Why not call it "Covert US Operations in Laos." since it only deals with US aerial interdiction efforts. What happened to the covert ground war? The CIA, Vang Pao and the Hmong, the Thai PARU guerrillas? See Kenneth Conboy, Shadow War or Roger Warner's Shooting at the Moon.RM Gillespie 15:56, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This article is still here? What possessed the writer to claim that the US involvement in the Laotian Conflict was the sum total of that conflict? What happened to the Laotians, their indigenous population, the North Vietnamese? What in the world did they do during the Laotian Civil War (to which this article redirects). It is like claiming that Confederate guerrilla activities in the northern US during the Civil War were the sum total of the war itself. Ridiculous! Move the page and I'll rewrite it. RM Gillespie 16:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was the USAF's sole source of military intelligence for the northern third of Laos from September 1969 through March 1971. During the time I was there, the war in Laos was referred to as the Secret War not only in American publications, but in the Bangkok Times and in the media in Malaysia and Singapore. As noted in the article, the primary combatants in Laos were not Lao. If there had been no Americans and Thais on one side, and the North Vietnamese and Chinese on the other, I do not believe many Lao would have come to harm at one anothers' hands. Certainly, the Lao didn't do much harm to each other while I was there. Mind you, it was my job to report combat results in Daily Intelligence Summaries to the American Ambassador in Vientiane. At the same time, the farcial idea that a war that was common knowledge to pretty much the entire population of northern Thailand, as well to many other people, is a secret war is ludicrous. My suggestion? Dub it The "Secret" War, sarcastic quotes and all. Or, under the article on the American Indochina War, call it The Laotian Theater. Incidentally, in reference to Operation Menu--wrong country. Operation Menu was flown against Cambodia, not Laos.
````George J. Dorner````
So no Laotians were involved in the fighting at all up to '71? That's a bit much to swallow. I am not disputing your qualifications, but Wikipedia rules do not permit original research to be included in the articles. If you could provide a primary sources (or even good, academic-quality secondary sources) backing up any of what you are saying, that would be very helpful. Jkp1187 (talk) 21:28, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jkp1187 (talk) 19:34, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you're interested in another firsthand personal footnote to the history of this subject, I was based in Vientiane and Long Tieng, Laos in 1970 in a minor supporting role. I was flown to the Plain of Jars a couple of times, and later in the same day I tuned in an English language propaganda radio broadcast from the communist PRC (China) describing the awful bombing of the "beutiful Plain of Jars and the homes of the Lao people by the evil U.S. Imperialists". Funny thing to me was, the Plain of Jars really wasn't heavily targeted as the propagandists described. The occupying North Vietnamese Army, and their supply lines on the Ho Chi Minh Trail were the primary targets of U.S. bombing. The warfront in Laos was a secret because the U.S. governement sold the Second Indochina War to the American people and the press as an isolated "police action" limited only to Viet Nam. While I was in the Kingdom of Laos, a tri-coalition government was in power. The USSR was landing aircraft transporting arms to their allies. China was building a major highway south into Laos from their border which was reinforced by antiaircraft batteries. Soviet block allies (including Cuban) military advisors assisted and supplied the NVA and Pathet Lao. The U.S. was building a major dam in Southern Laos to produce electrical power. The politics of the international situation obscured what was happening. The unique narrow American focus on the "Vietnam War" is based upon the daily television news coverage of "Vietnam" seen by Americans, and that narrow focus persists as an impediment to understanding the history of the Cold War, the Indochina region, and our world today. Dr. B. R. Lang (talk) 15:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well written, Dr. Lang. You've hit some of the high points. Certainly, no one else has mentioned Chinese involvement, including their occupation of northwestern Laos along Route 46. ````G. J. Dorner, June 26, 2008````
I moved the campaign box to the bottom because where it was prev it was causing white space. Could move it back up as high as the END of the overview section
I do not know enough about this topic to know for sure what title would be best, but "The secret war on laos, history" has absolutely got to go. Based on the article alone, I would suggest Laotian Civil War, Secret War (Laos), Laotian Secret War or the like. Suggestions, thoughts, please? LordAmeth 17:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This article has been renamed from The secret war on laos, historytoLaotian Civil War as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 18:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
George J. Dorner —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.151.214 (talk) 06:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For what it is worth, I did a search on Google for "secret war". The results hit twice on the "Secret War" wikipedia page. There were three hits on the first page referencing the war in Laos. The remainder of the hits on the first page involved:
*America's "Secret War" -- "The startling truth behind America's foreign policy and war effort in Afghanistan, Iraq, the global war on terrorism, and beyond" *Secret war by Islamic militants: "In the months preceding 9/11, a secret war was being waged on American soil" *America's Secret War: "American intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918-1920." *"Inside France's Secret War" in Africa. *A You Tube video about Burma's Secret War.
On page two, any reference to Laos is lost. The hits are on Comcast's secret war against file sharing, secret war against the Jews, Japan's secret war, the secret war of the SAS, the Secret War on Condoms, the secret war on Iran, and Russia's secret war in Georgia.
A search on Yahoo for "Secret War" turns up similar results, although Yahoo also includes an hit for the Wikipedia entry on the Marvel Comics' Secret War series involving superheroes fighting terrorists in America.
A search on Yahoo for "Secret War in Laos" turns up more hits (again, the Wikipedia entry is top of the list). It does include a hit for a World Press Review article on Laos: Andre Vitchek, Secret War' Still Killing Thousands, World Press Rev. Nov. 14, 2006. (Available at: http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/2562.cfm). The article quotes archivist John Bacher, Ph.D. as follows: "The war in Laos was a secret only from the American people and Congress."
Again, this reaffirms the larger point: the term "Secret War" to refer to the war in Laos is inherently POV, and should properly be put to rest. Jkp1187 (talk) 12:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I did not push for a return to the previous title. I did point out the inherent shortcomings in both titles. Either a non-secret "secret" war, or a civil war in which outsiders fight the war, are equally absurdly misleading. My supposedly unsourced research is actually an eyewitness account by a participant. I fail to understand why a Yahoo search is superior in quality. Eyewitness accounts are one of the primary sources for history. I was both an eyewitness to, and a participant in, this little niche in history. Now, to forestall any accusations of bias on my part, let me point out that while I was involved as a young man, I am now an oldster who has had plenty of time to reflect on his past actions. And my viewpoint has changed drastically over the years, as I have gained perspective. For instance, the North Vietnamese POV would be that this was the Laotian theater of the war for liberation. The founding statement by the Indochinese Communist Party called for liberation of the peoples of French Indochina. Not Vietnam--French Indochina. And I have to give the Vietnamese credit for tenacity; it took them 45 years, but they did come to power in the old French Indochina.It has taken me many years to develop that admiration. (Source for the founding statement may be verified at www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&itemid=779&op=page. The entire original document can be dug out of a print library with a bit of diligence; I can't seem to locate my copy in my files, due to the chaos caused by a recent move of address.] So, back to square one. What DO we call this article? ````George J. Dorner```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.161.17 (talk) 05:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Until some researcher digs my old reports out of the classified files, and uses them for his/her own project, my account is invalid because I was an eyewitness? And for proof that I'm not just any joker--I'm drawing disability based on my service in Laos. I can prove my presence in Laos, and my role in this theater of the war. Which brings up another question: Why am I the only person writing here whose bona fides are suspect? I am being subjected to ad hominem attacks because I seek an objective title for this article. As I observed elsewhere on this page, there is rampant political correctness corrupting historical accuracy here. George J. Dorner —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.186.114 (talk) 20:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
I have taken offense at faulty logic, not at personal attacks. Ad hominem attacks are probably the first fallacy taught in logic classes. There is no reason for me to be angered by someone else's ignorance. I also reviewed the above references and found them irrelevant to my discussion for several reasons, the foremost of which is the fact that I have not inserted any eyewitness accounts into the article. I only quoted my participant/observer status here on the talk page to establish my expertise. So far, no one has found any factual error with any of my entries on this talk page, nor will they. ````George J. Dorner````
Jkp1187 (talk) 16:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At last, a rational explanation for a truly descriptive title. Thank you, Dr. Lang. Please do move it. Now, now let's leave all this hullabaloo behind, and work on the article. There is a large potential audience for it, such as the large Hmong ethnic minority now living outside Laos because of the war. ````George J. Dorner, June 26, 2008````
"Communist" is in this context not used to differentiate with "capitalist". With its biased meaning in the West, its usage here violates NPOV rules and has to be changed. Since I am no expert in this subject, I cannot decide when to replace it with PAVN, with NLF, or with PL and have to leave that therefore to others. --Stefanhanoi 14:36, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What military branches were employed in this (apparently secret) war? My grampa was in Laos, but I always thought he was there for Vietnam... and the planning people put him in a random spot? I'd just like to get some answers for personal reasons. I can't afford any of those genealogy searches, but the question isn't who my grampa was but what was he doing there? (He's told us what he did there, but we're torn; he lies, but he's just evil enough to have done what he claimed...) You can either reply to me on here, or you can e-mail me any info you have at VTPPGLVR@aol.com (by the way, my name's Deborah). Thank you very much for your time! :-)
To restate my credentials pertaining to this article: I was the USAF's only gatherer of intelligence for Laos north of the Plaine des Jarres from September 1969 through March 1971. I originated that intelligence program. It took me some time to read through the articles linked to this one. If I hadn't been such a newbie to Wikipedia, I would have withheld comment until now. As it is, I have earlier posts on this discussion board. At any rate, I have concluded that this article, whatever it is entitled, will be duplicatory of other articles. "History of Laos since 1945" does an admirable job of covering the political end of this war. The individual operations, such as Commando Hunt, flesh out the military action (although Steel Tiger needs development). As noted above, I am a rookie here. If duplicate articles are needed, then writing this article becomes largely the scut work of transferring details of Commando Hunt, etc, over, and adding in ground operations as covered in "History of Laos since 1945". I just don't see the need. I think the deletion of this article would benefit Wikipedia, both by freeing up effort to be used elsewhere, and by eliminating the conflict between political correctness and historical accuracy. However, if someone can give a reasonable justification for continued inclusion of this article, I would be inclined to undertake writing it. ``George J. Dorner`` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.186.114 (talk) 18:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't rewrite the article; write the book! That's what these guys did.
And, on yet another secret war,
It would be unethical of me to advertise my books here on Wikipedia.
Georgejdorner (talk) 02:11, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia's external links guideline more-or-less bans links to Anglefire.com because its material is not moderated or vouchsafed AND it has dubious ads. Nevertheless, some might find interesting this posting from a (putative) survivor of The Secret War. Pawyilee (talk) 10:32, 16 August 2008 (UTC) www.angelfire.com/in/Laos/[reply]
Is there really such thing as leftists?Abce2 (talk) 01:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)Abce2[reply]
I propose adding the following sentence to the lead paragraph.
[A] note would appear like this. --Pawyilee (talk) 11:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What on Earth is that random orphan note at the bottom supposed to be??? 121.45.203.91 (talk) 15:03, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This book is a great source of well researched history of the importance of the drug trade during the war. Chapter 7 is especially good at documenting this.
Before I added the paragraph about opium production, there was no mention of this subject at all. Using the book above, this could be expanded quite a bit. This book has a pretty thorough history of Laos and the neighboring area.
Ubh (talk) 18:11, 14 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Under the section of the article entitled: "Evacuation of the Hmong" the term "sheep-dipped" is used. This term is a hyperlink to an Urban Dictionary page defining sheep-dipped. I don't think that definitions from Urban dictionary should be used, due the commonality of bias on this website, and the lack of review of the terms by professionals and moderators. I think that it should be removed.
Andrew W 21:11, 21 March 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew9623 (talk • contribs)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Laotian Civil War. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:46, 11 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Laotian Civil War. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:56, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Laotian Civil War. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 08:47, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Laotian Civil War. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:55, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In the section "Legacy of bombardment", if you do the math, the numbers don't agree. In the first paragraph it says "The U.S. dropped 2,756,941 tons of ordnance." In the next paragraph it equates the ordinance dropped to, "an average of one B‑52 bomb-load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day." If you do the math, the B-52 bomb drops alone would be well over 10 million tons. One bomb load of a B-52 was 108 five-hundred pound bombs. Do the math.
Also, the number of B52 sorties would have been 591,300... more than double the number of total sorties by all aircraft cited in paragraph 1 (230,516 sorties.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rdennard (talk • contribs) 17:42, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I know this thing says no original research, which technically it's not, but everywhere I go, everything I see is always about the Hmong people. Hmong here, Hmong there. The Hmong people are getting all the credit. To be honest, that is completely unfair. They don't deserve to get all the credit for fighting in the Secret War. I have family who fought in the Secret War. Are they Hmong? No. Many of the soldiers were not Hmong. People act like the Hmong community is the only community in Laos and the only community that does stuff. They're not. I am not judging the Hmong Community, I am not turning or showing any type of hate or disrespect towards them, but this is getting really annoying and is false information. 2001:48F8:3022:710:2D3A:9F9:AC43:F385 (talk) 04:57, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article says 1959, while the List of conflicts related to the Cold War article says that it started in 1953, which one is correct or is it disputed? If it is disputed there should atleast be a citation saying that it’s disputed. Whistler Mapping (talk) 04:24, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article says the battle of March 21, 1946 happened in Savannakhet. Many other sources say the battle was in Thakek.
https://indochine.uqam.ca/en/historical-dictionary/1393-thakhek-battle-of.html Isuasone (talk) 14:58, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
