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3 comments:
While acknowledging the mass atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime, we should never forget the level of atrocities committed during the US secretive bombing of Cambodia from 1968-1973. A declassified telephone discussion between Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig, Nixon's deputy assistant for national security affairs, recorded that Nixon had ordered a “massive bombing campaign in Cambodia [to use] anything that flys [sic] on anything that moves”.
The map of US bombing targets released by Yale University’s Cambodian Genocide Program shows that more than half of the country was affected by the indiscriminate bombings. Professor Ben Kierman, director of the program, puts the casualties figure from the bombing at 150,000 deaths, while Edward Herman, a professor of Wharton School, and Noam Chomsky put the toll at 600,000 using figures provided by a Finnish Commission of Inquiry.
Based on this, we can never naively claim that US bombing led to the mass executions by the Khmer Rouge or refuted the regime's mass atrocities. But, to certain extent, the blanket bombing, which directly led to the destruction of livestock and agricultural land, could have definitely played a role in the mass starvation.
From new data released during the Clinton administration, Taylor Owen, a doctoral student at Oxford University, and Professor Kierman noted that 2,756,941 tons of bombs were dropped on Cambodia.
To put the figure into perspective, just over 2 million tons of bombs were dropped by the allies during all of World War II. The bombs dropped in Cambodia represented about 184 Hiroshima atomic bombs combined, making Cambodia the most bombed nation in the world. Based on the new data, Professor Kierman also stressed that the casualties might be much higher than his earlier predicted 150,000.
Based on this, the bombing contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge. The number of Khmer Rouge cadres rose from a group that had an insignificant prospect ousting the US-backed Lon Nol’s regime, roughly from 1,000 in 1969 to 220,000 in 1973.
i think to complete and positive contribute to justice in cambodia for all the KR victims, the court should look into all positive scenerios that played a role or two in leading up to the creation or the support of the KR at that time. keep in mind too that cambodia did not know the KR as a brutal force then, yes khmer people, and to some extent, the world as well, under-estimated the cruelty of the KR regime then by showing support for them. take for example, sihanouk, he failed to see the KR cruelty, and khmer people at large, failed to see the cruelty of KR communist party as well. of course, vietnam communist party and siem communist party all supported and trained the KR communist party then as well. as for the US role, i think it's more with the vietnam war that went on next door of cambodia which eventually spreaded into cambodia. the important lesson here is that everyone, well almost everyone then under-estimated the ability and cruelty of the KR regime that fought the then lon nol US backed regime into power. people failed to understand or fail to know the real KR regime until it's all too late. you don't just let or allow a small band of backward or radical or extremist type of people take over gov't, that's what happened with the KR regime, you know! against, first sign cruelty is when they ordered the evacuation of city or town people into the countryside, that was the first sign that something is cruel about the insane KR regime that about to take over then, you see! so, please look more into it as there were so many players involved in all of this event that led up to the utra clamax of it all, the killing fields of the insane KR regime, you know! please, by al means, do look into all contributing factors because if we ignore thems, then it's like a missing puzzle, i.e., we're never going to fully understand the whole story about it, really! thank you and may god help and bless cambodia for justice for all.
in regards to the KR tribunal case, someone has gotten to be strong and stand out among the many cynics or pessimists or skeptics out there about this whole case! cambodia need everyone's help to bring justice once and for all. everyone of us can all help to make a real, lasting difference for cambodia for all to enjoy. may god bless cambodia.
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