[Peace-discuss] Chomsky replies re Cambodia - related link, etc.

[David Green]

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/u/register/?ref=history-bombs-over-cambodia
   
  Reply from NC,

  Yes, I read the article, several articles in fact.  Some of what they report we already knew.  Kissinger's order "anything that flies against anything that moves" was reported in the NY Times, arousing no reaction that I could detect, though it's hard to find such an explicit authorization of genocide in the historical record.  But almost all of what they reveal is new: in particular, that the bombing of Cambodia was five times as high as previously revealed, making it the most heavily bombed country in history, and that the bombing (in their analysis) was the prime factor in creating the Khmer Rouge, increasing their numbers from a marginal force of 10,000 in 1969 to a military force of 200,000 by 1973 and doubtless more later (the bombing continued, though in a different manner, until the fall of Phnom Penh).
 
To my knowledge, none of this has been reported in the US.  Perhaps someone might undertake a search to check.  It should of course have been lead headlines, just as Kissinger's grotesque orders should have been.  It's also worth noting that Kiernan and Taylor compare the Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Cambodia to current plans to shift to heavy aerial bombardment in Iraq, making the point (also made about Indochina during the war) that under intense attacks on a civilian society only the most brutal are likely to survive -- giving the murderous aggressors a retrospective justification for their crimes, exactly as happened in Indochina, and often elsewhere through the sordid history of aggression and terror.
 
In brief, very significant, both what they reveal and their commentary, and also the fact that it is unknown here, where it matters, yet another illustration of the discipline of the intellectual classes.

  NC 

  From: znetchomskychat Listmanager [mailto:znetchomskychat.listmanager at forum.zmag.org] 
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 8:31 PM
Subject: Kiernan's latest on US Bombardment of Cambodia

  From: Bernie Leask

  Hi Noam,

  I assume that you have read Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen's recent revelations about the bombing of Cambodia based on new data provided by Clinton. It now appears that Cambodia, officially neutral at the time, ranks as the mostly heavily bombed country in history. What was your reaction to the story? To what extent do you think it should change the accepted narrative about what happened in the aftermath with the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the genocide that ensued? 

  many thanks and best regards,

  Bernard Leask, Montreal.
   
  ________________________
   
  Also relevant to the McGovern/Muravchik debate on Democracy Now recently:
   
  JOSHUA MURAVCHIK: I don't know how many more or for how long, but a lot more, until we can bring some order to Iraq. I must admit that I have never heard such blindness to history as I heard from Senator McGovern a minute ago when he talked about what happened in Indochina after the US disorderly withdrawal that he was in the forefront of forcing. There was a horrendous bloodbath in Indochina. Not only South Vietnam fell to communism, but so did Cambodia and Laos. 
   
  In Cambodia, there was one of the great holocausts of all time. Something like 2 million people, just under one-third of the population, 2 million out of a country of 7 million, were slaughtered by the communists as soon as they took power. In Vietnam, there was not a bloodbath of those dimensions, but there was an enormous bloodbath. We don't know how many hundreds of thousands of people may have perished in the seas trying to escape. Those were called the boat people. They were very well known and talked about at the time. I’m surprised that Senator McGovern has forgotten, but --      GEORGE McGOVERN: I haven't forgotten what happened in Cambodia.      JOSHUA MURAVCHIK: Well, their blood is on your hands, Senator.      GEORGE McGOVERN: Prince Sihanouk was in charge of that country --      JOSHUA MURAVCHIK: But, wait a minute, I didn’t interrupt you. I didn’t interrupt you when you were talking, Senator.      GEORGE McGOVERN: -- and we started bombing him, although he
 was trying to preserve a neutral stance on the war.      JOSHUA MURAVCHIK: Senator, I didn’t interrupt you when you were talking.      GEORGE McGOVERN: As a direct result of that, this murderous killer came into power, and guess who put down the killing in Cambodia? The Vietnamese moved in and stopped that genocide. I sponsored a resolution in the Senate to get the United States to take the lead at the United Nations in ending that genocide. But that had nothing to do with our decision to pull out of Vietnam. 

 
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