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This article is about a topic whose name is originally rendered in the
Khmer script; however the article does not have that version of its name in the article's lead paragraph. Anyone who is knowledgeable enough with the original language is invited to assist in adding the Khmer script. For more information, see: MOS:FOREIGN. |
Excuse me but how the hell is the US opposed to the Khmer Rouge? Fact is the US supported the Khmer rouge both financialy and by using bombers to atack the vietnamese when they atacked the Khmer Rouge.
This article should be divided:
Khmer Republic 1 Side. // USA/South Vietnam+Khmer Rouge 2nd Side // Socialist Vietnam 3rd Side // —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.100.111.208 ( talk) 00:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
This article is currently undergoing a heavy re-write and expansion. If you have any "talk", please leave it at the top of the page under this bloc. This will allow me to address current questions etc instead of having to go all the way to the bottom of the page. Just convenient. RM Gillespie 20:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I question the neutrality of the article on two counts. One is that after the coup, Sihanouk was in the custody and at the mercy of the Chinese government. Perhaps, as the article claims, his actions were short-sighted. But perhaps it was cooperation with the Chinese and their Khmer Rouge clients was his best option, both for his country and for his personal physical safety.
Secondly, Lon Nol's coup is treated as an entirely indigenous event. I don't have the citations to prove otherwise, but I have read that it was encouraged by the US because the Nixon Administration was dissatisfied with Sihanouk's inability (or unwillingmenss, as the US saw it) to close down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Taken together, these two omissions lead to an unduly negative view of Sihanouk's role and a a side-stepping of the US's role in creating the conditions that allowed the Khmer Rouge atrocities.
Dvd Avins 16:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Surely this needs to be wikified and brought into line with the Second Indochina War and the Cold War? Cripipper 10:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
It also needs expanded to explain the events of the Civil War from June 1970 to the fall of Phnom Penh. Cripipper 11:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I've corrected the following problems in the article today:
1) POV attempts to insert the Sihanouk viewpoint of events in 1970 have been made neutral. 2) Saying that the Cambodian army was "outclassed in training and leadership" is an opinion made without support and POV because it implies the other side was somehow "better". 3) Calling the majority of the officers of the Cambodian Army Corrupt and Incompetent is clear POV. 4) "The KCP's debt to the North Vietnamese after March 1970 was one that Pol Pot was loath to acknowledge". Clear POV. 5) "the revolutionary struggle" - The wording takes sides "struggle" is POV. 6) Arclight is used in a completely wrong sense. B-52 strikes being mentioned is enough. 7) The comparison of the bomb tonnage dropped to that dropped in another war is POV. You can mention the amount of bombs dropped but not use other wars to make political points about the bombing. 8) The bombing numbers listed have no sources associated with them. Either find sources or leave them out. Saying the CIA estimated 600k deaths needs a source before it can appear. 9) "drove the Cambodian people into the arms of the Khmer Rouge". Making the claim that bombing created the Khmer Rouge or increased its popularity is unsupported POV. The Khmer Rouge insurgency started under Sihanouk years before any bombing occurred. 10) Shawcross is not a valid source for the claims being made. He was not a direct witness to the events and his unsupported opinions do not deserve in the article. He certainly cannot substaitiate the excuse being offered that the Khmer Rouge were not responsible for their own actions. 11) Saying that the bombing was the most controversial aspect without providing any basis for making that claim is incorrect. 12) "From the Khmer Rouge perspective, however, the severity of the bombings was matched by the treachery of the North Vietnamese." Clear POV. Putting Khmer Rouge political propaganda against Vietnam into the page is unacceptable. The paragraph makes no sense. The Khmer Rouge didn't stop fighting and won. Where is the treachery?
Does anybody know what happened to Cheng Heng, former President of the National Assembly and (according to one timeline) nominal Head of State after the 1970 coup? He arrived in Milwaukee as a refugee May 31 1975 with 13 members of his family. I've found online mentions that he was one of those marked for death by the Khmer Rouge, and others that say he left the U.S. in 1992, and died in March of 1996. Anybody know whether he stayed in Milwaukee or Wisconsin, what he did with himself, whether he went back to Cambodia or ?, where he died? He doesn't even have a sketchy token article here right now.-- Orange Mike 22:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Looking good, but needs a longer lead and thorough copyediting for tone (comments like "It was a sad portent of evil days to come." aren't really appropriate to an encyclopedia article). Kirill Lokshin 02:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Why is there differentiation between the insurgents and Cambodians? With it being a civil war, would it not be more accurate to specify the goals of each party rather than make general claims such as Khmer and Cambodian? Octogeist ( talk) 20:56, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
I think we need to rename these two sections: they do not give the reader looking at the contents box any clue about their content. Cripipper 13:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
— ERcheck ( talk) 06:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
ERcheck - you are the man! For the first time in 15 written articles a reader (or commentor) actually responds with some really valuable criticism. God bless you!. I will get right on your suggestions. RM Gillespie 22:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
— ERcheck ( talk) 02:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Done and done. RM Gillespie 15:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
From the point of view of Cambodia, if the civil war ended in '75, then what do we call the conflict that continued from 1979 until 1998? I've seen the term used both to describe the pre KR period and the 20 odd years of civil conflict after it. Any thoughts? Paxse 17:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
A war against external aggression or a civil war? This one can of worms that begs for clarification. The Vietnamese as liberators responding to numerous attacks on their national territory or as villains only out to establish a friendly puppet state? The Khmer Rouge as the murderous bastards that they were or as freedom fighters? RM Gillespie 13:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Should it go through the test? It is already an A... WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN we need to talk. • 15:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
WP:Good article usage is a survey of the language and style of Wikipedia editors in articles being reviewed for Good article nomination. It will help make the experience of writing Good Articles as non-threatening and satisfying as possible if all the participating editors would take a moment to answer a few questions for us, in this section please. The survey will end on April 30.
At any point during this review, let us know if we recommend any edits, including markup, punctuation and language, that you feel don't fit with your writing style. Thanks for your time. - Dan
Dank55 (
talk)(
mistakes) 03:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess I have to put this in every article I write. Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communist) is indeed a derogatory appellation cooked up by USAID for Ngo Dinh Diem in the mid-1950s. The common referent for the Vietnamese population for the anti-government guerrillas (pre-NLF) was Viet Minh, which carried a lot of political weight from the struggle against the French. To defeat this "propaganda", USAID fronted the new title to Diem and pro-government newspapers. Once the NLF was formed in 1960, the term was carried on as a counterweight to the title "National Liberation Front" and the coalition that made it up (regardless of its true makeup or leadership). Indeed, the Americans themselves utilized the term, hoping to quash the propaganda value of the new title. They did the same in reffering to PAVN as the NVA, thereby negating any "confusions" generated by the title "People's Army". RM Gillespie ( talk) 01:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
:( YellowMonkey ( bananabucket) 01:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
The estimate of 600,000 dead is an unsupported self-described guess from Prince Sihanouk advanced in Khmer Rouge propaganda--according to the source itself. In their 1993 study, modeling "the highest mortality [they] can justify," Judith Banister and Paige Johnson estimated 275,000 deaths during the 1970-1975 period. Marek Sliwinski carried out a demographic study where he arrives at a comparable estimate of 240,000 war deaths out of which there were 40,000 deaths as a result of American bombings. Heuveline, Kiernan, and Etcheson all give roughly identical estimates (the highest is 300,000, from Kiernan). The 600,000 figure may have been invented by Pol Pot himself, and is 2 to 3 times the actual number of war-related deaths. I do not see why these sources would be less reliable than this apocryphal assertion.
I also do not believe that the absurd claim that US bombing caused the genocide needs to be regurgitated as near-undisputed fact in the opening paragraphs of the article--but I had no problem with keeping it there, I just added a one sentence rebuttal noting that the assertion was questionable.
As scholar of Cambodia and Pol Pot’s biographer David Chandler points out, the bombing campaign "had the effect the Americans wanted – it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh. The war was to drag on for two more years." Had the bombing campaign not have occurred, Pol Pot would gained power earlier than he had done. A more accurate answer as to what was responsible for bringing the Khmer Rouge to power was provided by Timothy Carney and published in Karl D. Jackson’s superb book on the Khmer Rouge. He provides five reasons why Pol Pot won the war (support from Sihanouk, massive supplies of military aid from North Vietnam, government corruption, the U.S. cut-off in air support after Watergate, and the determination of the Cambodian Communists). Not one of them is the U.S. bombing. Michael Lind, in his book on the Vietnam War, notes: "In 1970, the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars complained that the U.S. military effort was preventing the Khmer Rouge, with Sihanouk as a figurehead, from coming to power; after 1974-1975, most on the left floated a new story – the U.S. military effort had caused the Khmer Rouge to come to power." Vietnam even admitted that it "played a decisive role" in bringing the Khmer Rouge to power (Washington Post, April 23, 1985).
The claim that the bombing had any such effect is so absurd as to boggle the mind. As Henry Kissinger loves to point out, the Menu bombings went no further than ten miles into Cambodia, where there was hardly any population at all.
At Geneva, Hanoi had attempted to secure a Khmer Viet Minh "zone" in northeastern Cambodia that would have been modeled on the Pathet Lao zone they secured in Laos. This amounted to an attempt to divide Cambodia into Communist and non-Communist halves, like Vietnam. By 1968, the Khmer Krahom had 14-15,000 fighters, while the KVM had 12,000. North Vietnam had invaded and occupied large chunks of Cambodia. Nearly half of the country was faced with North Vietnamese or other Communist occupation. The Viet Cong was active in the country with about 30,000 troops, and worked with the KVM to launch invasions of Cambodia from North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese had 60,000 troops on Cambodian soil. This would be the equivalent in the United States of nearly 4 million armed and organized troops from Mexico and Canada overrunning most of the country. These figures are from 10 months prior to the start of any U.S. bombing. By 1970, North Vietnam had the supply lines, troops, and logistical support necessary to force the collapse of Cambodia. Sihanouk had long done little to disguise his support for the North Vietnamese Communists, but now he grew afraid. "Hanoi," he said, "could easily force the collapse of both Cambodia and what is left of Laos if it was not faced with American opposition." If anyone invaded Cambodia in 1970, it wasn't us. The U.S. incursion, simply put, was the American troops following the North Vietnamese as they broke away from their "sanctuaries" to surround Phnom Penh (as they fought side-by-side with the Cambodian Communists). Documents uncovered from the Soviet archives after 1991 reveal that the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot's then second in command, Nuon Chea (Dmitry Mosyakov, “The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives,” in Susan E. Cook, ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda (Yale Genocide Studies Program Monograph Series No. 1, 2004), p54ff).
The U.S. did not resume the bombing until the capital was under siege in 1973. It was only at this point that the bombing extended deeper than ten miles into the country. The US Seventh Air Force argued that the bombing prevented the fall of Phnom Penh in 1973 by killing 16,000 of 25,500 Khmer Rouge fighters besieging the city.
With all this in mind, a one sentence comment that Shawcross' opinions are "disputed" seems quite amply justified. I'm not aware of any serious scholar besides Shawcross (or Kiernan, I suppose) who honestly accepts that thesis--although it has been repeated so frequently that most people just assume it must be true. And even Shawcross seems to have backed down quite a bit from many of the more absolutist claims he made in Sideshow. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 01:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
A sections needs to be made to include the North Vietnamese attempt to overrun the entire country in March–April 1970 which preceded the Cambodian Incursion by the US and ARVN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.216.174 ( talk) 13:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Made a minor edit to this section where I added in direct quotes from the book Manufacturing Consent, which directly quoted Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 93d Cong., 1st sees., July/August 1973, pp. 158-60, the primary source on the "secret bombings." The change made was showing that Sihanouk publicly condemned the attacks, whereas previously it said that he stayed quiet. At issue was using Chomsky (and Herman) as a reliable source. This was discussed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard and it was shown that it could be used as a RS. Balgill1000 ( talk) 22:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I question some of the assertions made in this article. First is the mention at least twice that in the 1970 North Vietnamese (NVA) invasion they intended to "overrun the whole country." I don't recall seeing that mentioned in books I have read on this subject -- although I can't check the references given in the article because I don't have them available.
Secondly is the statement that the North Vietnamese came within 15 miles of Phnom Penh before being "pushed back." I haven't seen any reference to a battle outside Phnom Penh in 1970 in which the NVA was "pushed back," implying they were defeated. Rather it sees to me that the NVA campaign had as a principal objective capturing more Cambodian territory to move their military installations deeper into Cambodia and more insulated from both the U.S. and a newly-unfriendly Cambodian government. They achieved that.
Third is the statement implying that a major reason for the U.S. incursion (why is the NVA operation an "invasion" while the US operation is an "incursion?") was the NVA attack on Cambodian forces. I don't think that was a reason at all. I need to see some good references to accept what is now in the article. Smallchief ( talk 22:25, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Hello, I noticed there was a gap in the former states of Cambodia so I created Kingdom of Cambodia (1975-76); any help in expanding this stub would be much appreciated. Cheers, walk victor falk talk 04:39, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
Is this kind of stuff relevant to the claim Sihanouk gave permission for the invasion of Cambodia? There is are certainly more like it that could be found
Sihanouk says 'no' again to hot pursuit by U.S.
The Straits Times, 8 January 1968
http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19680108-1.2.2?ST=1&AT=filter&K=+Sihanouk+bombing&KA=+Sihanouk+bombing&DF=&DT=&Display=0&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=&WC=&YR=1968&QT=sihanouk,bombing&oref=article — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
2600:8801:9309:5300:80B1:175:C45D:D0C3 (
talk) 13:28, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
This article, and the internet generally, is very quiet on what happens in the war during 1974. What were the key events and things to know? Thanks. 2A02:8084:6A22:4980:989B:EC0:1E31:5F3F ( talk) 20:33, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Can't believe this article has the North Vietnamese invasion being a response to the US incursion rather than the other way around. Going to edit this massively. 160.86.240.57 ( talk) 11:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Cambodian Civil War article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
Cambodian Civil War has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This
level-5 vital article is rated A-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article is about a topic whose name is originally rendered in the
Khmer script; however the article does not have that version of its name in the article's lead paragraph. Anyone who is knowledgeable enough with the original language is invited to assist in adding the Khmer script. For more information, see: MOS:FOREIGN. |
Excuse me but how the hell is the US opposed to the Khmer Rouge? Fact is the US supported the Khmer rouge both financialy and by using bombers to atack the vietnamese when they atacked the Khmer Rouge.
This article should be divided:
Khmer Republic 1 Side. // USA/South Vietnam+Khmer Rouge 2nd Side // Socialist Vietnam 3rd Side // —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.100.111.208 ( talk) 00:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
This article is currently undergoing a heavy re-write and expansion. If you have any "talk", please leave it at the top of the page under this bloc. This will allow me to address current questions etc instead of having to go all the way to the bottom of the page. Just convenient. RM Gillespie 20:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I question the neutrality of the article on two counts. One is that after the coup, Sihanouk was in the custody and at the mercy of the Chinese government. Perhaps, as the article claims, his actions were short-sighted. But perhaps it was cooperation with the Chinese and their Khmer Rouge clients was his best option, both for his country and for his personal physical safety.
Secondly, Lon Nol's coup is treated as an entirely indigenous event. I don't have the citations to prove otherwise, but I have read that it was encouraged by the US because the Nixon Administration was dissatisfied with Sihanouk's inability (or unwillingmenss, as the US saw it) to close down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Taken together, these two omissions lead to an unduly negative view of Sihanouk's role and a a side-stepping of the US's role in creating the conditions that allowed the Khmer Rouge atrocities.
Dvd Avins 16:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Surely this needs to be wikified and brought into line with the Second Indochina War and the Cold War? Cripipper 10:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
It also needs expanded to explain the events of the Civil War from June 1970 to the fall of Phnom Penh. Cripipper 11:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I've corrected the following problems in the article today:
1) POV attempts to insert the Sihanouk viewpoint of events in 1970 have been made neutral. 2) Saying that the Cambodian army was "outclassed in training and leadership" is an opinion made without support and POV because it implies the other side was somehow "better". 3) Calling the majority of the officers of the Cambodian Army Corrupt and Incompetent is clear POV. 4) "The KCP's debt to the North Vietnamese after March 1970 was one that Pol Pot was loath to acknowledge". Clear POV. 5) "the revolutionary struggle" - The wording takes sides "struggle" is POV. 6) Arclight is used in a completely wrong sense. B-52 strikes being mentioned is enough. 7) The comparison of the bomb tonnage dropped to that dropped in another war is POV. You can mention the amount of bombs dropped but not use other wars to make political points about the bombing. 8) The bombing numbers listed have no sources associated with them. Either find sources or leave them out. Saying the CIA estimated 600k deaths needs a source before it can appear. 9) "drove the Cambodian people into the arms of the Khmer Rouge". Making the claim that bombing created the Khmer Rouge or increased its popularity is unsupported POV. The Khmer Rouge insurgency started under Sihanouk years before any bombing occurred. 10) Shawcross is not a valid source for the claims being made. He was not a direct witness to the events and his unsupported opinions do not deserve in the article. He certainly cannot substaitiate the excuse being offered that the Khmer Rouge were not responsible for their own actions. 11) Saying that the bombing was the most controversial aspect without providing any basis for making that claim is incorrect. 12) "From the Khmer Rouge perspective, however, the severity of the bombings was matched by the treachery of the North Vietnamese." Clear POV. Putting Khmer Rouge political propaganda against Vietnam into the page is unacceptable. The paragraph makes no sense. The Khmer Rouge didn't stop fighting and won. Where is the treachery?
Does anybody know what happened to Cheng Heng, former President of the National Assembly and (according to one timeline) nominal Head of State after the 1970 coup? He arrived in Milwaukee as a refugee May 31 1975 with 13 members of his family. I've found online mentions that he was one of those marked for death by the Khmer Rouge, and others that say he left the U.S. in 1992, and died in March of 1996. Anybody know whether he stayed in Milwaukee or Wisconsin, what he did with himself, whether he went back to Cambodia or ?, where he died? He doesn't even have a sketchy token article here right now.-- Orange Mike 22:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Looking good, but needs a longer lead and thorough copyediting for tone (comments like "It was a sad portent of evil days to come." aren't really appropriate to an encyclopedia article). Kirill Lokshin 02:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Why is there differentiation between the insurgents and Cambodians? With it being a civil war, would it not be more accurate to specify the goals of each party rather than make general claims such as Khmer and Cambodian? Octogeist ( talk) 20:56, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
I think we need to rename these two sections: they do not give the reader looking at the contents box any clue about their content. Cripipper 13:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
— ERcheck ( talk) 06:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
ERcheck - you are the man! For the first time in 15 written articles a reader (or commentor) actually responds with some really valuable criticism. God bless you!. I will get right on your suggestions. RM Gillespie 22:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
— ERcheck ( talk) 02:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Done and done. RM Gillespie 15:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
From the point of view of Cambodia, if the civil war ended in '75, then what do we call the conflict that continued from 1979 until 1998? I've seen the term used both to describe the pre KR period and the 20 odd years of civil conflict after it. Any thoughts? Paxse 17:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
A war against external aggression or a civil war? This one can of worms that begs for clarification. The Vietnamese as liberators responding to numerous attacks on their national territory or as villains only out to establish a friendly puppet state? The Khmer Rouge as the murderous bastards that they were or as freedom fighters? RM Gillespie 13:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Should it go through the test? It is already an A... WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN we need to talk. • 15:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
WP:Good article usage is a survey of the language and style of Wikipedia editors in articles being reviewed for Good article nomination. It will help make the experience of writing Good Articles as non-threatening and satisfying as possible if all the participating editors would take a moment to answer a few questions for us, in this section please. The survey will end on April 30.
At any point during this review, let us know if we recommend any edits, including markup, punctuation and language, that you feel don't fit with your writing style. Thanks for your time. - Dan
Dank55 (
talk)(
mistakes) 03:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess I have to put this in every article I write. Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communist) is indeed a derogatory appellation cooked up by USAID for Ngo Dinh Diem in the mid-1950s. The common referent for the Vietnamese population for the anti-government guerrillas (pre-NLF) was Viet Minh, which carried a lot of political weight from the struggle against the French. To defeat this "propaganda", USAID fronted the new title to Diem and pro-government newspapers. Once the NLF was formed in 1960, the term was carried on as a counterweight to the title "National Liberation Front" and the coalition that made it up (regardless of its true makeup or leadership). Indeed, the Americans themselves utilized the term, hoping to quash the propaganda value of the new title. They did the same in reffering to PAVN as the NVA, thereby negating any "confusions" generated by the title "People's Army". RM Gillespie ( talk) 01:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
:( YellowMonkey ( bananabucket) 01:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
The estimate of 600,000 dead is an unsupported self-described guess from Prince Sihanouk advanced in Khmer Rouge propaganda--according to the source itself. In their 1993 study, modeling "the highest mortality [they] can justify," Judith Banister and Paige Johnson estimated 275,000 deaths during the 1970-1975 period. Marek Sliwinski carried out a demographic study where he arrives at a comparable estimate of 240,000 war deaths out of which there were 40,000 deaths as a result of American bombings. Heuveline, Kiernan, and Etcheson all give roughly identical estimates (the highest is 300,000, from Kiernan). The 600,000 figure may have been invented by Pol Pot himself, and is 2 to 3 times the actual number of war-related deaths. I do not see why these sources would be less reliable than this apocryphal assertion.
I also do not believe that the absurd claim that US bombing caused the genocide needs to be regurgitated as near-undisputed fact in the opening paragraphs of the article--but I had no problem with keeping it there, I just added a one sentence rebuttal noting that the assertion was questionable.
As scholar of Cambodia and Pol Pot’s biographer David Chandler points out, the bombing campaign "had the effect the Americans wanted – it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh. The war was to drag on for two more years." Had the bombing campaign not have occurred, Pol Pot would gained power earlier than he had done. A more accurate answer as to what was responsible for bringing the Khmer Rouge to power was provided by Timothy Carney and published in Karl D. Jackson’s superb book on the Khmer Rouge. He provides five reasons why Pol Pot won the war (support from Sihanouk, massive supplies of military aid from North Vietnam, government corruption, the U.S. cut-off in air support after Watergate, and the determination of the Cambodian Communists). Not one of them is the U.S. bombing. Michael Lind, in his book on the Vietnam War, notes: "In 1970, the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars complained that the U.S. military effort was preventing the Khmer Rouge, with Sihanouk as a figurehead, from coming to power; after 1974-1975, most on the left floated a new story – the U.S. military effort had caused the Khmer Rouge to come to power." Vietnam even admitted that it "played a decisive role" in bringing the Khmer Rouge to power (Washington Post, April 23, 1985).
The claim that the bombing had any such effect is so absurd as to boggle the mind. As Henry Kissinger loves to point out, the Menu bombings went no further than ten miles into Cambodia, where there was hardly any population at all.
At Geneva, Hanoi had attempted to secure a Khmer Viet Minh "zone" in northeastern Cambodia that would have been modeled on the Pathet Lao zone they secured in Laos. This amounted to an attempt to divide Cambodia into Communist and non-Communist halves, like Vietnam. By 1968, the Khmer Krahom had 14-15,000 fighters, while the KVM had 12,000. North Vietnam had invaded and occupied large chunks of Cambodia. Nearly half of the country was faced with North Vietnamese or other Communist occupation. The Viet Cong was active in the country with about 30,000 troops, and worked with the KVM to launch invasions of Cambodia from North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese had 60,000 troops on Cambodian soil. This would be the equivalent in the United States of nearly 4 million armed and organized troops from Mexico and Canada overrunning most of the country. These figures are from 10 months prior to the start of any U.S. bombing. By 1970, North Vietnam had the supply lines, troops, and logistical support necessary to force the collapse of Cambodia. Sihanouk had long done little to disguise his support for the North Vietnamese Communists, but now he grew afraid. "Hanoi," he said, "could easily force the collapse of both Cambodia and what is left of Laos if it was not faced with American opposition." If anyone invaded Cambodia in 1970, it wasn't us. The U.S. incursion, simply put, was the American troops following the North Vietnamese as they broke away from their "sanctuaries" to surround Phnom Penh (as they fought side-by-side with the Cambodian Communists). Documents uncovered from the Soviet archives after 1991 reveal that the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot's then second in command, Nuon Chea (Dmitry Mosyakov, “The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives,” in Susan E. Cook, ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda (Yale Genocide Studies Program Monograph Series No. 1, 2004), p54ff).
The U.S. did not resume the bombing until the capital was under siege in 1973. It was only at this point that the bombing extended deeper than ten miles into the country. The US Seventh Air Force argued that the bombing prevented the fall of Phnom Penh in 1973 by killing 16,000 of 25,500 Khmer Rouge fighters besieging the city.
With all this in mind, a one sentence comment that Shawcross' opinions are "disputed" seems quite amply justified. I'm not aware of any serious scholar besides Shawcross (or Kiernan, I suppose) who honestly accepts that thesis--although it has been repeated so frequently that most people just assume it must be true. And even Shawcross seems to have backed down quite a bit from many of the more absolutist claims he made in Sideshow. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 01:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
A sections needs to be made to include the North Vietnamese attempt to overrun the entire country in March–April 1970 which preceded the Cambodian Incursion by the US and ARVN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.216.174 ( talk) 13:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Made a minor edit to this section where I added in direct quotes from the book Manufacturing Consent, which directly quoted Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 93d Cong., 1st sees., July/August 1973, pp. 158-60, the primary source on the "secret bombings." The change made was showing that Sihanouk publicly condemned the attacks, whereas previously it said that he stayed quiet. At issue was using Chomsky (and Herman) as a reliable source. This was discussed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard and it was shown that it could be used as a RS. Balgill1000 ( talk) 22:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I question some of the assertions made in this article. First is the mention at least twice that in the 1970 North Vietnamese (NVA) invasion they intended to "overrun the whole country." I don't recall seeing that mentioned in books I have read on this subject -- although I can't check the references given in the article because I don't have them available.
Secondly is the statement that the North Vietnamese came within 15 miles of Phnom Penh before being "pushed back." I haven't seen any reference to a battle outside Phnom Penh in 1970 in which the NVA was "pushed back," implying they were defeated. Rather it sees to me that the NVA campaign had as a principal objective capturing more Cambodian territory to move their military installations deeper into Cambodia and more insulated from both the U.S. and a newly-unfriendly Cambodian government. They achieved that.
Third is the statement implying that a major reason for the U.S. incursion (why is the NVA operation an "invasion" while the US operation is an "incursion?") was the NVA attack on Cambodian forces. I don't think that was a reason at all. I need to see some good references to accept what is now in the article. Smallchief ( talk 22:25, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Hello, I noticed there was a gap in the former states of Cambodia so I created Kingdom of Cambodia (1975-76); any help in expanding this stub would be much appreciated. Cheers, walk victor falk talk 04:39, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
Is this kind of stuff relevant to the claim Sihanouk gave permission for the invasion of Cambodia? There is are certainly more like it that could be found
Sihanouk says 'no' again to hot pursuit by U.S.
The Straits Times, 8 January 1968
http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19680108-1.2.2?ST=1&AT=filter&K=+Sihanouk+bombing&KA=+Sihanouk+bombing&DF=&DT=&Display=0&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=&WC=&YR=1968&QT=sihanouk,bombing&oref=article — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
2600:8801:9309:5300:80B1:175:C45D:D0C3 (
talk) 13:28, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
This article, and the internet generally, is very quiet on what happens in the war during 1974. What were the key events and things to know? Thanks. 2A02:8084:6A22:4980:989B:EC0:1E31:5F3F ( talk) 20:33, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Can't believe this article has the North Vietnamese invasion being a response to the US incursion rather than the other way around. Going to edit this massively. 160.86.240.57 ( talk) 11:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)