By Joshua Keating
Foreign Policy
A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to see a presentation by Taylor Owen of the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute for Global Issues as part of a conference on data and conflict. Owen has recently been looking into a remarkable database detailing the previously classified U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Bill Clinton declassified the data, which includes geospatial coordinates for thousands of bombing runs, in 2000, as a humanitarian gesture during his first trip to Vietnam -- the information would make it easier to find and dismantle unexploded ordinance.
The data allows for a remarkable visiual depiction of the secret bombing campaign known as Operation Menu:
This graph shows the intensity of the bombing campaign over time:
Owen sums up the significance of the data. :
In particular, I show that: the total tonnage dropped on Cambodia was five times greater than previously known; the bombing inside Cambodia began nearly 4 years prior to the supposed start of the Menu Campaign, under the Johnson Administration; that, in contradiction to Henry Kissinger’s claims, and over the warning of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Base Areas 704, 354 and 707 were all heavily bombed; the bombing intensity increased throughout the summer of 1973, after Congress barred any such increase; and, that despite claims by both Kissinger and Nixon to the contrary, there was substantial bombing within 1km of inhabited villages.
For more on the history of the database an the implications of these findings, check out this article by Taylor from the Canadian magazine Walrus.
5 comments:
Why did the bombings only killed Khmer and not the Vietcongs?
The Viets knew in advance the targets to be bombed. The Viets warned the Vietcongs (VC/NVA) to get out thereby leaving only Khmer to be killed. Even at bombing time, the Viet intercepted the communication and passed it on to the Vietcongs.
The U.S Embassy in Phnom Penh back then was swamped with the Viet-american (naturalized) working everywhere from radio operator to political advisor and everything in between...
only kill**
By then, American bombed to kill the Viet Congs in the east part of Cambodia.
Now to kill the Vietcongs, they might have to bomb the whole country, including the royal palace.
Who care, now ? Viet Cong are everywhere. Do you care any more, you? American ?
When Khmer talked bout the Yuon, you assume it's racist !
But the core of the thing is, we Khmer just tried to stop the Vietcong's agression. Common man! Be could you be a little realistic? !
that was so sad for cambodia then. according to what i've read, the bombs dropped in cambodia were more than all world war II bombs dropped in world war II.
the rich countries should compensation cambodia for what they all put cambodia through in the past, given there were evidence of what led cambodia to destruction and the genocide under the stupid KR was caused by foreign interference started with that infamous vietnam war, the civil war of the 1970s, etc... the least the rich countries out there can do to help cambodia now rebuild is to compensation, educate, invest, reform all fields of gov't and social issues, help to develop cambodia into a productive, innovative member of theh world community, etc... because if the rich nations out there still biased, prejudice, discriminate, etc against cambodia, not only they hurt cambodia and khmer people, they also hurt themselves as well because now millions of tourists would like to visit cambodia, so we want cambodia to provide everything to the tourists; however, if the rich nations still deprive cambodia or isolate cambodia due whatever believe they have against cambodia by taking side with the biased, incompetent opposition people, then they are hurting cambodia and themself without realizing it. so, please stop hurting my country cambodia and help boost cambodia to grow both economically and prosperity, etc... may god bless my country cambodia forever.
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