[Vision2020] Mass Slaughter in Vietnam?

[Nick Gier]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your comments.  I am aware of some of these facts, but did not 
know that Sihanouk has resigned.  I hold no brief for him (his past cozy 
relations with Beijing was nauseating) or the current leader.

All that I'm saying is that the U.S. is very much responsible for the chaos 
that led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, and nothing you've said disputes that.

Nick

At 12:37 PM 12/15/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>Nick,
>
>Cambodia has been changing rapidly, for the worse, in the past few years. 
>Sihanouk resigned as King in an attempt to force political reform. He has 
>been replaced as King by one of his sons who spent most of his life in 
>Paris and is a creature of the Prime Minister. The PM, Hun Sen, is a 
>former Khmer Rouge thug who "saw the light" as the Vietnamese Armies were 
>crossing the border and switched allegiances. As partial payback for being 
>given a country to own, Hun Sen recently "negotiated" a new border with 
>Vietnam which of course gives a good chunk of the highlands where the 
>Montagnard tribe lives to Vietnam. Needless to say, given the 
>Montagnard/American history of the Vietnam War, the Montagnards are in 
>deep #$@%. The theoretical democracy is only that, a theory. Hun Sen rules 
>with absolute power, including its corollary, absolute corruption. 
>Opposition political leaders either are in exile or dead at Hun Sen's 
>hand. Until the foreign donor countries that prop up Hun Sen pull the 
>foreign aid plug, it will only get worse. China and Vietnam are now the 
>largest donor countries followed by the EU.
>
>It's very sad. I spent several months there two years ago working/teaching 
>metal sculpture techniques to Khmer artists using decommissioned weapons, 
>mostly AK47s, for our raw material. A life changing experience for them, 
>and me.
>
>The best in-country source of news I know of is Khmer Intelligence: 
>http://www.khmerintelligence.org/3Q2004.html
>
>the website is only sporadically maintained but you can subscribe to their 
>yahoo news group for periodic messages of the low down in Cambodia. Link 
>to subscribe from their website.
>
>Mark S.
>
>
>
>
>At 10:17 AM -0800 12/15/06, <nickgier at adelphia.net> wrote:
>>Greetings:
>>
>>Some more really wild claims from down the hill, this time about 
>>Vietnam.  Where is the evidence for mass slaughter in Vietnam after we 
>>left?  Yes, many were sent to reeducation camps, and many of those 
>>fleeing lost their lives to pirates in the South China Sea.
>>
>>More people are being killed, maimed, and born malformed by leftover 
>>munitions and Agent Orange than ever lost their lives at the hands of the 
>>Communist regime.  I would also hazard to guess that we killed more 
>>Vietnamese (at least one million) than the Viet Cong ever would have 
>>killed if we had not intervened.
>>
>>Before we invaded Cambodia, the country was stable and ruled by Prince 
>>Sihanouk, who, along with his wife, are now King and Queen of 
>>Cambodia.  (When I was there in 2002, their pictures were everywhere.) 
>>Our invasion, plus support for right-wing thugs, alienated the people and 
>>forced them right into the hands of the Khmer Rouge.
>>
>>The Killing Fields are just as much our responsibility as theirs.  The 
>>great irony of course is that Communist Vietnamese troops defeated the 
>>Khmer Rouge, and the UN had one of greatest successes in making elections 
>>possible there.
>>
>>The Johns Hopkins report on Iraqi causalities, which looked at every 
>>single death certificate (90 percent of households surveyed produced 
>>one), showed that a majority of deaths occurred by coalition air 
>>strikes.  This survey was done before the upsurge in sectarian killings, 
>>mainly in Baghdad.  Taking the low end of their estimates at 400,000 
>>dead, it would take Shias and Sunnis a very long time to top Bush's slaughter.
>>
>>Yours for accurate history,
>>
>>Nick Gier
>
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"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to human 
affairs."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
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interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual 
life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and 
art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." 
--Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm

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