Download PDF of this full issue: v1n3.pdf (6.9 MB)

Laos Air War

By Fred Branfman

In December 1970, several dozen victims of the fullest automated war of our time were asked to record their memories in drawings. They were Laotian refugees from the devastated Plain des Jarres in northeastern Laos who were at that time living camps around Vientiane.

Each one reported that while ground fighting had been minimal, his village had been partially or totally destroyed by American Bombing, that anti-personnel, napalm while phosphorous and 500 lb. Bombs had caused numerous civilian casualties, and that he had spent much of his time huddling in caves, holes, tunnels or trenches. The refugees were asked to describe their lives under the bombs from the beginning in May, 1964, until Sept., 1969, when CIA-directed Meo tribesmen took them from their villages.

While withdrawing ground troops the current Administration had begun bombing Cambodia, doubled the bombing in Laos, where North Vietnamese soldiers are known to operate, and resumed the bombing of North Vietnam (twice a week since Jan. 1). About 2,700,000 tons of bombs have been dropped in the last two and a half years, more than struck Europe, the Pacific theater and Korea combined.

It is the first time in history that bombardment of populated areas had become the heart of military policy, with ground armies playing essentially supplemental role: serving as a lure to get enemy soldiers out in the open for the bombers, as in the Laotian invasion; searching for supplies or refugees as in the Ashai Valley or on the Plains des Jarres; defending major towns and bases.

At the current ratio, 300,000 more tons will fall before the end of this year, with no end in sight. All indications are that tens--possibly hundreds--of thousands of peasants in Laos and Cambodia are living under these conditions.