This month, Vang Pao, the former Hmong general for the CIA-led secret war in Laos, and nine of his cohorts were arrested and charged with plotting to overthrow the Laos government in violation of the Neutrality Act. Vang Pao’s opposition to the Laos government and his activities in raising money for this cause was well-known; however, this time the authorities had enough hard evidence to formally charge him and his co-conspirators. Through an FBI informant who posed as a weapons dealer, law enforcement authorities seized AK-47s, anti-tank missiles, stinger missiles, mines, and grenades. The government alleges that Vang Pao intended to use a mercenary army to attack Lao government buildings to cause destruction like that of 9/11. The news story that unfolded seemed to come straight out of a novel. 

After the initial shock, the Hmong community’s reactions to the news split among generation lines: The older generation feels indebted to the general because he had helped them during and well after the Vietnam War, while the younger generation sees him as a Cold War relic. In many ways, Vang Pao represents the many strongmen the U.S. has supported in the past, but has fallen out of favor since 9/11.

Vang Pao, once hailed as America’s hope to stem the tide of Communism during the Cold War, was now being prosecuted like a terrorist. The arrest was seen by Hmong expats as a second act of betrayal by the American government, the first being the U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam War in which the general and his people were left to fend for themselves.

The Hmong expats feel the prosecution exemplifies a form of double standard being applied in the War on Terror. After all, there were many notable expats who actively supported the violent overthrow of their own country and have not been prosecuted. Critics point to examples like Ahmed Chalabi, the now discredited Iraqi expat who provided false intelligence of weapons of mass destruction as a lead up to the Iraq invasion; to date, he has not been investigated for misleading decision makers or helping to overthrow a regime. (It was the war the Bush administration wanted after all!) More recently, Luis Posada Carriles, an anti-Castro militant and former CIA operative, was detained on immigration charges and then released, despite demands for his extradition by the Cuban and Venezuelan government for his involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner and the 1997 bombing of a Cuban hotel.

Unlike Iraq, Vang Pao has no WMDs and al-Qaeda to point to in Laos—not even forged evidence of them—though that has not stopped the Lao and Hmong expats from arguing that Laos be put on the Axis of Evil. Laos has no Bay of Pigs and Missile Crisis to remind Americans of the existential threat caused by Cuba and the Soviets. Unfortunately for Vang Pao (but not unique to him), his struggle with his Cold War nemesis is anachronistic and passé for U.S. policymakers; policymakers have moved on to the next fad, the War on Terror. 

The message this prosecution makes is that absent U.S. plans or involvement to topple a regime, a “freedom fighter” engages in the overthrow of an authoritarian government at his peril.