some pictures i took in laos

[PhillyB]

Awesome pics!!

But after watching River Monsters..I'd be scared as hell going down the Mekong river

the closest it go to that was an old lady dragging a string of stank-ass foot-long catfish on board.

[Darth Biscuit]

Beautiful place.

[Mrs Pantherfan]

the closest it go to that was an old lady dragging a string of stank-ass foot-long catfish on board.

and where's that pic!?

[PhillyB]

and where's that pic!?

doesn't exist - by the time i noticed her coming she'd already passed me and gone down into the engine room with them. missed opportunity :(

[cookinwithgas]

yes more please

[Epistaxis]

Can't begin to imagine trying to fight a war in a dense jungle like that.

I was thinking the same thing looking at those pics.

Even harder when the gubmint is handcuffing at every turn and some folks at home are shitbirds.

[Hawk]

very cool

[PhillyB]

during the U.S. secret war in laos approximately one B52 payload worth of bombs was dropped every eight minutes for seven straight years - more ordinance than was dropped on europe in the entirety of world war two. no descrimination was made for military targets versus civilian ones - it was mass carpet bombing that resulted in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of laotian peasants. today unexploded ordinance (UXO) is a major problem facing the growth of infrastructure in laos as millions of tons of undetonated bombs lie in the fields and rice patties. children die every year from stepping on them.

government wasn't particularly handcuffing here.

[Epistaxis]

:rolleyes:

And we all know how effective carpet bombing is to winning wars.

When you don't allow boots on the ground to pursue targets in to said areas, you get what we got.

Limited wars are sticky wickets.

Current example, A-stan and Pakistan.

History has a funny way of repeating itself.

And if you don't believe government policy and politics was a major reason for the fiasco in SE Asia, you haven't cracked enough books.

[PhillyB]

:rolleyes:

And we all know how effective carpet bombing is to winning wars.

When you don't allow boots on the ground to pursue targets in to said areas, you get what we got.

Limited wars are sticky wickets.

Current example, A-stan and Pakistan.

History has a funny way of repeating itself.

And if you don't believe government policy and politics was a major reason for the fiasco in SE Asia, you haven't cracked enough books.

i don't disagree with you at all, but i think there's an important distinction to be made between laos and vietnam (which is the classic case study for SEA for obvious reasons.) government handcuffing in measures against laos fall under a completely different category than government handcuffing in vietnam. laos was secret, vietnam was not.

had u.s. forces been unshackled and allowed to win the war their way, america would've undoubtedly "won" the vietnam conflict and broke the back of the viet cong, who were almost hopelessly depleted by the end of the tet offensive.

but unrestrained warfare for 18-year-old farm boys from kansas facing insurgency in a foreign land - where the friendly local who cuts your hair during the day is running ammo to viet cong outposts at night - means disasters like the my lai massacre on a much larger scale. and you start to question whether its worth it at all.

[YoungPanthers89]

snake whiskey? uhhh hell no