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Aftermath

This section states that since this bombing/incursion was conducted without the consent of Congress, it would have been cause for impeachment of the President. I question this statement. Admittedly, I am not familiar enough with the then-current state of Constitutional Law in this area, but I believe it would have been a cause for impeachment only if the President actively, knowingly took part in deceiving Congress. In that case, it would have been the act of deception/lying/perjury, not the bombing itself, that may have been an impeachable offense, if it could be proven to measure up to the "high crimes and misdemeanors" (ie. that an actual crime had been committed by the President). If somebody can clear this up for me, that would be appreciated.

• Regardless of the "high crimes" label, the point is moot. The bombing of a neutral country would most probably fall under the aegis of international war crimes, such as the stipulation against waging aggressive war. The secretive nature of the action only condemns its practitioners, since it revealed their knowledge of the posssible repercussions of their actions. RM Gillespie 15:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Why are there no casualty / loss estimates on the Cambodian side in this article? There are many published estimates, and their gravity suggests they be looked into for inclusion here as they lend perspective to the serious human cost of the "beyond covertness" that occured during these activities. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.106.188.82 (talk)

Didn't Operation Menu create strong anti-American sentiment in Cambodia that led to widespread support of the Khmer Rouge? If this is true and verifiable, we should definitely add this. Commissarusa (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Sources

It would be helpful if the author cited his sources here.--Buckboard 09:58, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to dig my copy of Sideshow out, but I know that Shawcross lists all of the things currently tagged with {{fact}}. --Easter Monkey 06:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup Required

I added a cleanup tag to this article because some of the sentences are gramatically incorrect or are composed in an awkward manner. For example: "Deception revealed when Major Knight wrote to Senator William Proxmire, asking for 'clarification' as to US policy on bombing Cambodia. He spilled the beans as to the deception."

In addition, I added a tag about the article's inappropriate tone. For example, one passage reads, "Lying on official records. This deception went beyond covertness." The tone of this passage strikes me as editorial in nature. It may true that someone lied on official records, but one need say so in a manner that does not seem overly dramatic or condemnatory.

--Skb8721 18:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Jeez, I just started editing this stub today and look at the response. Fantastic! As per the aftermath, I didnt write that. So, I can't really comment, except to say that Nixon considered it within the perrogatives granted him under the Southeast Asia Resolution of 1964. As for impeachment, they thought about it, but due to the bigger fish being fried during Watergate, this got sidelined. With Gerald Ford's pardon (for crimes not committed), it became impossible. RM Gillespie 22:21, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, now that I have finished editing the article, you'll see that it was not I who made such an overly dramatic or condemnatory a statement. When the DOD (presided over by the Joint Chiefs and the SecDef who were all privy to Menu) presented those records to the Armed Services Committee, knowing that they were falsifications, I believe that that would be considered lying. They were caught red-handed. RM Gillespie 20:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Kudos to RM Gillespie

Kudos to RM Gillespie for improving this article's quality by several orders of magnitude in the past few days. When he first started, I was thinking "oh great, another 'improvement', let's see where this goes…" However, as he progressed, it became clear that the initial edits were just the bones of a rough draft. Today I came back and I see that this article is now better referenced than 99% of WP articles. Normally I would not comment on minor improvements, but this is huge. So kudos to you RM Gillespie! Lumbercutter 02:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Gracias, amigo. Check out Operation Freedom Deal to see the next phase of Air Ops in Cambodia. RM Gillespie 16:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed move

I propose moving the article to United States bombing of Cambodia. Any thoughts?

Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 17:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that actually needs to be a new article. This article is only about one specific campaign - see also Operation Freedom Deal and there were other air operations in Cambodia outside of both campaigns. Cheers, Paxse (talk) 17:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

You're right. A new article is probably best. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 18:28, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Inaccurate citation of bombing data released by Clinton

The data released by Clinton in the year 2000 does not cover all U.S. bombing of Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia --not by a long shot.

The years that the data comprises are also considerably narrower than the full scope of the war.

It seems to me that some people have based this part of the article (and perhaps other mentions on the wikipedia) on only a cursory reading of the first paragraph of the Kiernan article for the Walrus (currently the only citation).

Anyone who has glanced at the long list of official "entities" (i.e., separate air forces) that the U.S. used as cut-outs to conduct the bombings will be aware that you're looking at a small (if indicative) sub-set of the data on aerial bombardment.

The experts involved in actual UXO removal in Laos tend to be aware of this fact. People are easily misled into thinking that "U.S. air force" data includes the various attacking forces that the U.S. set up and paid for (as subsidiary to various puppet governments, etc.) --but it doesn't.

The C.I.A. had its own chain of command, and their planes were not part of "the U.S. air force" in any sense. Planes that were flying out of Thailand did so under a variety of banners, some C.I.A., some R.L.G., etc. etc. Looking at the totals in each column is a tricky business. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.74.196.9 (talk) 03:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

No death totals??

There have been lots of estimates about the loss of life due to the United States' bombing of Cambodia, with many figures as high as 600,000 to 1,000,000. How is this not included? Wikipediarules2221 05:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

We need an official source, preferably some government documents or credible reports by third party NGO or think tanks. Right now we have random speculation.Chudogg (talk) 20:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Source found and # added. Publicus 20:19, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Unreliable Source

The Dictionary of Genocide attributes its otherwise arbitrary assertion that 700-1,000,000 were killed to the CIA, but these figures are higher than the CIA's estimate of deaths from all causes throughout the entire Cambodian Civil War--which US bombing played only a minor role in as regards the death toll (there is a separate question as to whether or not the US intervention incited further violence). Therefore, I must conclude it is not a reliable source.

The most widely accepted estimate is Kiernan's 50-150,000. R.J. Rummel, regularly cited by Misplaced Pages, claims a minimum of 30,000 and a more likely estimate of 300,000. The most comprehensive demographic study by far concluded that 40,000 Cambodians were killed (see Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995), pp41-8). Ponchaud estimated 200,000. Even Edward Herman has claimed only 100-200,000 were killed by the bombing.

The estimate of 800,000 killed comes from official Khmer Rouge propaganda. An estimate of 700-1,000,000 is demographically and statistically impossible. If it were true, then how did every census ever taken overlook a million missing Cambodians killed in a matter of months just in the eastern part of the country? If just in eastern Cambodia there were a million deaths; there would have been three million wounded. Why did virtually none of them ever get treatment for their wounds?

Then there is the toll from the entire Cambodian civil war. The idea that all of the deaths on all sides were caused by American bombing is incredible. The death toll from the entire war can help us evaluate the impact of the US bombing that accounted only for a fraction of its death toll. Bruce Sharp notes:

{blockquote} There is substantial anecdotal evidence which suggests that the war toll is lower than what is commonly believed. In the many memoirs written by Cambodians in the aftermath of the Pol Pot time, it is surprisingly difficult to find firsthand accounts of deaths during the 1970-75 war. In Chanrithy Him's When Broken Glass Floats, Him describes fleeing her family's home in Takeo province, and describes finding the house destroyed upon their return. In spite of this, no one in the family is killed. She describes two deaths in the family, "children not touched by bombs but who might have survived if there had been access to hospitals and medical care." During the Khmer Rouge years, by contrast, Him lost 28 members of her extended family. (64) Haing Ngor, too, mentions the destruction of his father's house, but also does not mention any deaths in his family.(65) In Leaving the House of Ghosts, Sam and Sokhary You describes the bombing of their family's villages in Kompong Speu province; most villagers left immediately, but You's family remained for another six months, until another bombing raid destroyed their house; again, however, there is no mention of casualties. (66) Someth May and Thida Mam both describe seeing rocket and terrorist attacks on Phnom Penh, but do not mention any deaths in their families. (67) Vann Nath describes the death of a friend who was killed in an attack by the Khmer Rouge (68), but, again, does not mention any deaths in his own family. Memoirs by Loung Ung, Sophal Leng Stagg, Paul Thai and Molyda Szymusiak similarly do not discuss family deaths during the war years.(69)

Other evidence also suggests that the war toll should be re-evaluated. Anthropologist May Ebihara, who conducted fieldwork in a village in Kandal province in 1959-1960, returned to the village in 1990. Of the 159 people she had known in 1960, she found that by 1975, 16 persons had died from old age or illness, and 4 had died during the war. Of the 139 remaining people, half of them -- 69 people -- died during the Khmer Rouge regime. (70) Discussing Ebihara's research, Kiernan notes that "Eighteen new families had formed in the hamlet after 1960; but from 1975 to 1979, 26 of the 36 spouses and 29 of their children also perished." (71)

Ebihara's data highlights the disparity in the death ratios between the civil war and the Pol Pot regime. The number of deaths in 1975-1979 was roughly seventeen times the number of deaths during the war.

To demonstrate the implications of these ratios, let's return to Vickery's original estimates of 500,000 war dead, and 740,000 deaths during the Khmer Rouge regime. If this is accurate, one would expect that interviews with survivors would reveal a substantial death toll for both periods: there would have been roughly 2 deaths during the war for every 3 deaths during the Khmer Rouge regime. If we accept Kiernan's estimates, meanwhile, we would expect that for each family member who died during the war, five or six would have died under the Khmer Rouge.

However, even this ratio may still be too high. Steve Heder concluded from his interviews that the death toll among peasants was roughly seven times higher than the toll from the war. (72) We should also bear in mind that Heder referred to peasants, who in general were more affected by the war than those in urban areas, and slightly less affected by mortality in the Khmer Rouge years.

The 50% death rate in Ebihara's village was clearly higher than normal during the Khmer Rouge years; yet even if we applied a more typical death rate of around 25%, we would be still be left with a ratio of 1 to 8.5.

While the exceptionally high ratios from this village might not be typical, they were also certainly not unique. My own conversations with refugees also suggests very high ratios. When questioned about the Pol Pot years, most Cambodians will immediately begin listing names: "the terse tally of the dead," as author Minfong Ho once put it. (73) Yet when asked about deaths during the war, the list of names is almost invariably short: perhaps a cousin who was a soldier, an uncle whose fate was never entirely clear, and so on.

It is important to stress, however, that the subjects I have interviewed would not represent an broad cross-section of the overall population, or even the overall refugee population. One would expect that, in general, refugees represent the people who have suffered greatly under the regime they have fled; after all, it takes a great deal of hardship to motivate an individual to leave her or his own country. Additionally, the majority of the refugees I have interviewed were predominantly from either Battambang province, or Phnom Penh. Both of these locations were less affected by the war than other regions.

Another significant consideration is the likelihood that respondents may not immediately recognize some deaths as war-related. Establishing cause-and-effect is not always easy. As Craig Etcheson remarked, "Your buffalo gets blasted, so you can't plow your field, so your crop fails, so your kids get hungry, and then they get sick and die from beriberi or something." (74)

Clustering of mortality during the civil war might account for the difficulty of finding survivors who lost family members between 1970 and 1975. Casualties from bombing are likely to be heavily clustered; a bomb that falls on a house may kill an entire family, while leaving every other household in the area unscathed. The repression of the ethnic Vietnamese during the Lon Nol regime, too, would have resulted in a clustering of mortality among specific families. (75)

Another critical consideration is that those most likely to have died during the war -- that is, residents of the areas close to the Vietnam-Cambodia border -- were also among the most likely to die during the Khmer Rouge regime. The bloodiest purges of the Khmer Rouge reign targeted peasants in the Eastern zone. Substantially higher mortality among these families during the war might have affected our interpretations of the death rates in each period.

A final consideration is the possibility that the cultural emphasis on not offending others is relevant here: would Cambodians be hesitant to discuss deaths caused by Americans with an American interviewer?

Nonetheless, while one could theorize about what other evidence might have existed, it is not clear that these factors would account for the apparent discrepancy that we see when we compare the ratio of war deaths to deaths during the Khmer Rouge regime. The clustering of mortality in during the Khmer Rouge regime would likely have been even more pronounced than the clustering during the war. The repression and murder of ethnic minorities was even more severe. Lon Nol's wrath focused primarily on ethnic Vietnamese. Under the Khmer Rouge, however, ethnic Chinese, Chams, and Vietnamese all died in numbers in excess of the general population. Additionally, the paranoia of the Khmer Rouge meant that entire families were often murdered in the drive to exterminate "enemies." In many instances purges went beyond immediate family, and reached into extended families as well.

There are also other open questions regarding the war toll. What are we to make of Etcheson's assertion that only two mass graves contained victims of the bombing campaign? Of those who died in the bombing, how many were North Vietnamese, and not Cambodian? Consider the assertions by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, that contemporary press accounts of the war failed to quote victims of the bombing: was this because the press was unsympathetic, or was it because there simply were not as many victims as was widely believed? Compared to Vietnam -- where Communist guerrillas could strike anywhere at any time, and Americans and South Vietnamese could rely on rapid mobility to immediately retaliate -- it seems likely that the front lines in Cambodia were more predictable, making it easier to evacuate before battles took place. .... There are few statistics available for Cambodia, but at the end of 1970 the government reported their losses at 3,888 killed and 7,895 wounded. (78) It seems likely that this 1:2 casualty ratio probably deteriorated over time, as their battlefield situation worsened and limited medical resources were depleted. Khmer Rouge forces, meanwhile, probably suffered the same rate of dead-to-wounded as the Vietnamese communists. ....As of 1973, Khmer Rouge troop strength was estimated to be around 200,000. Lon Nol's forces, including paramilitary groups, probably peaked at around 290,000. (79) If we assume that all of the dead and wounded were replaced by fresh recruits as the war progressed, we would have a total of around 730,000 fighters. This would mean that nearly one out of every three combatants was either killed or wounded, an incredibly high rate in comparison with other conflicts.

The fact that this rate is exceptionally high does not mean that it cannot possibly be correct; after all, the death rates during the Khmer Rouge years were also exceptionally high in comparison to other regimes. In the sad history of human conflict, there will be one war that holds the distinction of being bloodier and more destructive than any other. However, there is no compelling evidence to suggest that the Cambodian civil war was markedly more destructive than other conflicts.

Bannister and Johnson estimated the death toll from the war to be around 275,000. (80) Sampson, too, believed that the toll from the war was overestimated. He suggested that civilian deaths "could be numbered in tens of thousands, but not more," and also noted that military attachés estimated the size of each army to be between 100,000 and 150,000. (81) If correct, these figures would mean that even a figure of 300,000 deaths is far too high.

We should also remember what the number of deaths implies in terms of the number of wounded. If we were to accept a figure of 500,000 dead, we would be expect to see least another half-million wounded; this would mean that about 1 out of every 16 people among the 1975 population would have been wounded during the war. Again, interviews with survivors suggests that this is cannot possibly be accurate. I would consider any figure between 150,000 and 300,000 as plausible, and would regard 250,000 as the most likely figure. (82) {/blockquote}

Now, if 250,000 were killed throughout the entire war; then US bombing could have accounted for only a fraction of that sum. Misplaced Pages's article on the Cambodian Civil War suggests that as many as 600,000 died in the war; your figures would imply that all of these deaths and then some were due solely to American bombing.

Because Dictionary of Genocide is not a reliable source; I will incorporate this range of seemingly reliable sources into the article, all of which suggest a lower toll.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:59, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

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