The Coward War of a Nation

Originally posted by FarArcher
reply to post by Britguy

 

Well, Britguy, you take your enemies as they come.

The US is the same US whose "peasants" defeated the greatest army of the day - the British Army.

Actually, it was the French siding with the US peasants that helped you defeat the British... I bet that little fact sticks in some throats a bit!

It wasn't going too well in WWI, and oddly, the US forces get over there, tell the French and British commanders to go to hell when they wanted to use US soldiers as replacements for French and British losses, and oddly, the war started to turn as American forces began to fight.

A bit late to the fight and it certainly wasn't due to any desire to see "The Hun" vanquished. Once again it was all about political and financial posturing.

I also seem to recollect that Britain and France greased up and bent over for HItler at every opportunity, and could have taken him out early on - but didn't have the guts to.

Bent over and greased up? Yeah, it's not like the US ever made any military mistakes... is it?

Your approach to war is to let **** get entirely out of hand, and then turn to your American cousins to pull your bacon out of the fire.

If wall Street and even big Jewish bankers hadn't bankrolled the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the first place, there wouldn't have been any need for WWII. Research a little and see who bankrolled it all, on both sides, and you'll see a who's who of big banks and corporations that financed and armed the German war machine.... and some who continued to do s even after the US joined the fray.

We'll fight them as they make themselves known.

You mean you'll fight them as they are identified by the banks and corporate interests and the politicians get their marching orders!

Your way the last time out cost 52,000,000 lives.

Our way keeps things to a minimum.

Our way? I hardly think deaths have been kept to any minimum in any wars of aggression fought by the US, and still ongoing, with all it's nasty colatteral damage!

How did this turn into a pissing contest? The Op, which was a great post bye the way, has nothing to do with what country has the baddest army.

Even my diehard right wing military friends who believe in the war machine and conquer or be conquered are having a hard time swallowing the current situation. People still dying and no real end in sight and were going belly up financially in the process. Kinda reminds me of the WWI and the great depression.

We're not fighting terrorism, we're creating it for our children and grandchildren and who knows what type of financial system will be put in place this time around and what other war will follow.

reply to post by qalameid


So my claims are ridiculous are they?

The Pentagon’s records indicate that from 1965 to 1975 Cambodia was actually the target of a chilling 2 756 941 tons of US bombs, dropped during no fewer than 230 516 sorties, a tonnage nearly five times greater than previously believed. It is now apparent that in 1969–73 alone Cambodia suffered nearly half of all the US bombing of Indochina (six million tons over nine years), making it even today the most heavily bombed country in history.

In 1973 the US Congress, angered at the destruction (and the deception of the Nixon administration), legislated a halt to the Cambodia bombing. The great damage was already done. Having grown under the rain of bombs from a few thousand fighters to over 200 000 regular and militia forces by 1973, the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh two years later. They then subjected Cambodia to a genocidal Maoist agrarian revolution.

Ben Kiernan also states that:

The Cambodian bombing campaign had two unintended side effects that ultimately combined to produce the very domino effect that the Vietnam War was supposed to prevent. First, the bombing forced the Vietnamese Communists deeper and deeper into Cambodia, bringing them into greater contact with Khmer Rouge insurgents. Second, the bombs drove ordinary Cambodians into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, a group that seemed initially to have slim prospects of revolutionary success. Pol Pot himself described the Khmer Rouge during that period as “fewer than five thousand poorly armed guerrillas . . . scattered across the Cambodian landscape, uncertain about their strategy, tactics, loyalty, and leaders.”

www.yale.edu/cgp/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf

Interesting read.

reply to post by deessell


So where did the 600,000 dead Cambodians come from? I never questioned the tonnage of ordnance dropped, though I still think, from my own reading, that in the end we dropped more in Laos than Cambodia. But believe me, most of those bombs ended up not doing much except clearing away trees.

As for linking the bombings directly to the Khmer Rouge's rise to power - they had already made contact with the Vietnamese communists and were being supplied by them. The government wasn't in any position to stop that insurgency anyway. While the bombing surely drove away peasants into their arms, you can't say that if we didn't bomb Cambodia, the KM would not have come to power and massacred so many people.

We did not massacre the high numbers of civilians as you claim, and we did not lay the foundation for the KM's actions, though I'll admit what we did helped them come into power.

Originally posted by Constantlysilenced
I think you're sour that the US is nothing more than a laughing stock to the world, populated by fat, greedy, stupid, useless, dumbed down people! I pity you, I really do. I'll pitty you as china crushes your economy too

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that's the best you have? How about address what I posted, and not just come up with some lame "attack the poster" BS statement?

reply to post by deessell

Actually, the bombs dropped in Cambodia were along the various routes of the trail.

The way humans work is like this: The Americans are bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Let us stay the hell away from that SOB.

So, while lots of bombs were dropped, a number of them were dropped in response to recon forces calling in troop movements and convoys.

I've seen bomb craters, cratered. They kept coming along more or less the same routes, and we bombed more or less the same routes.

The civilians unassed the area soon after the first bombings.

Originally posted by qalameid
reply to post by deessell

 

So where did the 600,000 dead Cambodians come from? I never questioned the tonnage of ordnance dropped, though I still think, from my own reading, that in the end we dropped more in Laos than Cambodia. But believe me, most of those bombs ended up not doing much except clearing away trees.

As for linking the bombings directly to the Khmer Rouge's rise to power - they had already made contact with the Vietnamese communists and were being supplied by them. The government wasn't in any position to stop that insurgency anyway. While the bombing surely drove away peasants into their arms, you can't say that if we didn't bomb Cambodia, the KM would not have come to power and massacred so many people.

We did not massacre the high numbers of civilians as you claim, and we did not lay the foundation for the KM's actions, though I'll admit what we did helped them come into power.

I think the bow and arrow guy didnt read what you said ,cause he didnt really address your points made which I think are a fair representation of the facts

Originally posted by FarArcher
reply to post by deessell

 

Actually, the bombs dropped in Cambodia were along the various routes of the trail.

The way humans work is like this: The Americans are bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Let us stay the hell away from that SOB.

So, while lots of bombs were dropped, a number of them were dropped in response to recon forces calling in troop movements and convoys.

I've seen bomb craters, cratered. They kept coming along more or less the same routes, and we bombed more or less the same routes.

The civilians unassed the area soon after the first bombings.

I'm sorry but you are misinformed. The HCM trail that you are talking about was not the target of most bombing raids on Cambodia, as is widely and falsely believed. Most of the NVA left the country after the 1973 peace agreement, and the main part of the bombing came after that. The bombing was to support the illegal Lon Nol government, there were "rings of fire" around Phnom Penh and other provincial capitals. Kien Svay district for example was carpet bombed many times.


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a2dd6a0f4a20.gif[/atsimg]

US Bombing Points in Cambodia, 1965-73

www.yale.edu...


And more: www.khmercity.net...

As you can see from the map above, more than just the Ho Chi Minh trail was bombed.

Today is Liberation or Invasion Day in Cambodia. January 7th, 1979 the Vietnamese took control of Cambodia.

reply to post by Britguy

The French helped us defeat the British?

Exactly, where? Now are you talking about when we got them cornered and kept the British navy from extracting them?

Keep in mind, a lot of Americans at that time were British. We just happened to be the Brits with enough balls to build a new country. My GGGGreat Grandfather and uncle James and Robert Crawford fought the Brits at Waxhaws, other relatives fought the Brits at King's Mountain and Cowpens. Cousin Andrew Jackson, raised by James Crawford was almost killed by a British officer, which defined his hatred of the Brits from that day on.

Oh, he got his back. That runs in our family to this day.

Yes, it was Americans that kicked the living **** out of the British. We literally wore your ***es out. Toward the end, our uncivilized, backward men after a bit of training met your armies head to head and defeated you.

There were no French ground forces, and even their navy didn't engage the British fleet.

reply to post by deessell


Dees, I'm curious here. Just how in hell did these guys spot a map like this? Were the bomb sites verified independently?

I think a significant portion of this is "Let's Blame America" once again.

Someone better provide some hard documents to back up a lot of this extrapolation BS.

I'm not going to argue that the US bombed the hell out of the veins of the Ho Chi Minh trail, as I saw a lot of it from the ground.

'm not going to say that there weren't bombings off the trail, and for a little over a year in mid '60 to roughly mid '70, a lot of NVA and VC sanctuaries were heavily bombed as intelligence identified them.

A lot of people think the HCM trail was just that - A trail. Not so. It wound from north to south, and there were many parallel trails spreading like arteries in an anatomical photo.

I know Cambodians and was good friends with Cambodians, and they'll tell you any day of the week that it wasn't American bombing that killed Cambodians.

It was Khmer Rouge. By the millions.

reply to post by FarArcher


So now you're questioning Yale University? I don't believe for one minute that you have read ANY of the sources that I have provided. If you had, you would not write such ridiculous posts. You have not provided ANY sources to support your claims.

I'm glad that you have Cambodian friends, I live here and think the Khmer have suffered from a culture of Impunity for long enough.

I will let the members make their own minds up, after reading my sources provided.

reply to post by deessell

Yes, absolutely, I am questioning Yale University.

Those bomb tracks presented on the map?

I can place dots on a map. Before you present a representation, you damn well better be able to substantiate and validate your postulations.

I recall not long ago the entire scientific community, including outstanding scientific academia all agreeing on the findings in tree rings that provided the entire basis for their assumptions on global warming.

Come to find out, that data that was supposedly so complete?

It was BS.

I'm not saying Cambodia wasn't bombed - hell we bombed South Vietnam, Laos, North Vietnam and Cambodia. The bulk of the bombings were the trails and concentrations of NVA and VC.

You shoot them where you find them.

If someone has a problem with bombing concentrations in Cambodia, they should maybe take up the argument with the North Vietnamese who were using Cambodia for transport and assembly, and maybe the ChiComs for providing the rather significant supplies and arsenals.

reply to post by FarArcher


Well, while you are at it, you are also questioning Oxford University. Please READ!

The US bombing database was released by the US Embassy in Cambodia to the Royal Cambodian Government and the Cambodian Mine Action Authority (CMAA) to assist in the clearance of unexploded ordnance. Mr. Taylor Owen of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, obtained a copy in Phnom Penh. Mr. Owen, now at Oxford University, kindly provided this data to the CGP in 2004, when he was a Visiting Fellow in the Genocide Studies Program at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies (www.yale.edu/gsp). Further resources on the US role in recent Cambodian history are listed at www.yale.edu/cgp/us.html

So, the sources are in fact the US Embassy in Cambodia. I do understand that you are having difficulty accepting these facts, but to question Yale University, Oxford University and your own Embassy demonstrates denial. The next stage should be anger!

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to educate you.

Originally posted by deessell
I'm sorry but you are misinformed. The HCM trail that you are talking about was not the target of most bombing raids on Cambodia, as is widely and falsely believed. Most of the NVA left the country after the 1973 peace agreement, and the main part of the bombing came after that. The bombing was to support the illegal Lon Nol government, there were "rings of fire" around Phnom Penh and other provincial capitals. Kien Svay district for example was carpet bombed many times.

Hmmm.....really? How about this: Read a book titled, "Secret Commandos" by John Plaster. Here's an Amazon link:

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294452477&sr=1-1

He writes about the Cambodian bombing raids. The NVA hadn't left that area when they started the bombing campaign. Far from it; there were plenty still there.

I have not read this book, so would you be able to quote some text and page numbers to support your statement from an ex US 'Secret Commando's' heroic war stories.

Even if you can find sources to support this, it does not change the fact that the US Bombings targeted two thirds of the country.