On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Brian Siano wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 15:39:05 -0400, Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
> >> >I mean who cares if Chomsky fucks chickens, I
> >> >don't think that changes the fact that the US Air Force probably killed
> > as
> >> >many Cambodians as the Khmer Rouge did...
> >>
> >> You really do know nothing at all about anything.
> >>
> >> Brad DeLong
> >
> > What was the CIA estimate for Cambodian dead from US bombing during
> > 1970-75 -- something like 600,000? The Yale Center has settled on 1.7
> > million dead under the KR, but I recall the CIA's numbers being between
> > 600,000 to a million. 'Course, you factor in Vietnamese and Laotian dead
> > from the US assault, and the total numbers go way beyond Pol Pot's. And
> > if
> > he was a genocidal monster (which he was), what does that make us?
>
> Whatever the comparative totals are, one must keep in mind that it was the
> U.S. bombing of Cambodia that plunged that country into ruin, which enabled
> the previously-marginal Khmer Rouge to take power. One could easily argue
> that the _whole_ of the Khmer Rouge's record can be blamed, at least in
> part, on the United States.
In his _Vietnam: A Necessary War_ (no, I don't agree with Lind's thesis), Michael Lind tears this myth to shreds. Read through pages 167-174 if you get the chance.
-- Luke