The New York Times, self-proclaimed "paper of record," failed to record that General Vang Pao, who died Thursday, January 6, was a wretched drug dealer who targeted U.S. troops in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines for drug sales.
Let's go over the bizarre, Soviet-style, Times obit entitled "Gen. Vang Pao, Laotion Who Aided U.S., Dies at 81." In their ideological analysis, Pao was a "...charismatic Laotian general who commanded a secret army of his mountain people in a long, losing campaign against Communist insurgents." The Times goes on to say he had "almost kinglike status."
They quote a Hmong refugee in California saying "He is like the earth and the sky." They throw in the following quote of the general to his Hmong troops: "If we die, we die together. Nobody will be left behind."
In the New York Times fantasyland, Vang Pao was a patriot and an anti-communist hero. The Times glosses over the fact that Vang Pao was discredited in Laos because he was perceived as a lackey and a tool of French imperialism. He was a sergeant in the French colonial army, the Times tells us, and then he went on to work directly for the CIA.