The Laos anti-Paradigm and Iraq

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

In recent weeks more Hmong refugees have been snaked out of the jungled Laos mountains by representatives of their 160,000 kinfolk who fled to the U.S. after the final withdrawal of U.S. forces from Indochina in 1975. These incredibly brave and stoic people were an American ally in its Vietnam nightmare. Their role, with the help of bizarre U.S. logistics, was to interdict long Vietnamese Communists supply lines, first to their guerrilla supporters, and then their regular army, in South Vietnam.

The history of the American Laos operations is long and complicated. But like so many excolonial world conflicts, it involved lines drawn on maps often cutting through old historical, commercial and ethnic ties. And when there was a breakdown in the old colonial order, they simply became irrelevant to anyone but the diplomats. ItÕs that way in Afghanistan-Pakistan today where the old British Durand line cuts through Pushtun tribals giving Osmama Ben-Ladin a playground.

It was that way in Indochina. From the days of the Trung Sisters, legendary leaders of the Viet resistance to the Chinese in the first centuryø if not before ø the mountain trails along the Annamite Alps [as the French called them] were military routes. There was no Ho Chi Minh Trail as Hanoi propagandists said it had been decreed. It had always existed. Nor was there anything ÒsecretÓ about ÒlÕArmee SecreteÓ which The New York Times conjured up about the Hmong ø at least everyone within 500 miles knew about it. It was only ÒsecretÓ because, earlier, Washington had signed away the legal right of the South Vietnamese government [and their U.S. ally] to protect itself by cutting off this access to the battlefield. For months President Ngo Dinh DiemÕs representatives at Geneva held out for some protection in the Laos Accords of 1962/4. But they had been preceded by a Kennedy-Khrushchev agreement: solution to the Laotian problem lay in all countries undertaking to leave Laos alone to tend to its own affairs. [That was, of course, after the French had staged a neutralist coup against the U.S.Õ allies in Laos.] The concept flew in the face of LaosÕ inability to police its borders, and in HanoiÕs refusal to abide by LaosÕ neutrality.

Ironically, it was John F. Kennedy, the godfather of Special Forces, who ordered the phony Laos neutralization and called home the very effective ÒWhite StarÓ blocking teams. It was failure to halt the use of Laos [and later Cambodia] for transit and sanctuary, the refusal to use the bombing weapon effectively toward North Vietnam, and Robert McNamaraÕs failed Òsystems analysisÓ and Òmeasured responseÓ which led to protracted warø and the ultimate American defeat.

Ghosts of these concepts hover as the media reports Secretary Rumsfeld has been denied Òhot pursuitÓ of infiltration from Syria. In nuanced public differences between Central Command General John Abizaid and Civilian Administrator Paul Bremer about the nature of the insurgency against U.S. forces and Iraqis are echoes of old arguments. Abizaid seems to believe foreign elements, linked with Al-Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations, integrated into former BaÕathist fedayeen Sadaam loyalists, are his problem. Bremer, perhaps reflecting a perennial hope Syria can be brought around, downplays foreign jihadists. That, too, was a continuing early argument in Vietnam: how much it was an indigenous uprising or one manipulated in its totality from the North.

What is obvious is numbers may not be the crucial element. The experience, talent, and training of someone like al-Zaqarwi, the Palestinian-Jordanian international terrorist whom Abizaid thinks is at the center of the campaign, could be worth thousands of local amateurs. Not that each element is not essential to what is an effective guerrilla campaign -- as Abizaid has had the courage to call it publicly.

As I have so often maintained, Iraq is not Vietnam. But lessons can be learned. The role of Laos as a conduit for men and materiel was a crucial element in the early defeats of the ARVN [the forces of the South Vietnam] and the U.S. The flow of jihadists, dedicated suicide bombers, from Syria and Saudi Arabia ø and perhaps Iran Ñ across desert boundaries largely existing only on diplomatsÕ maps [just as IndochinaÕs jungles masked IndochinaÕs post-colonial borders] could be the critical to the conflict.

Syria gives off mixed signals. It lent the U.S. some intelligence after 9/11. But it stirs the pot in Lebanon against Israel, providing a bridge to the Iran-financed and armed terrorists. The decade of trafficking from SadaamÕs Iraq through Syria has left old underground communications. Young Syrian President Bashar el-Asaad is not his fatherÕs dictator. And it could well be he does not have control on his border. But as some of the most serious Iraqi critics of Washington policy have argued for some time, IraqÕs open borders are an invitation to disaster.