You, Michael Coghlan, wrote:
>I'm sorry Tresy. I don't see your point here. The extent to which the
>atrocities may have been exaggerated is an interesting one, but what is
>really important here is that it DID happen. And though the bombing by US
>planes obviously assisted the KR's rise to power, the US DID NOT DO IT. The
>KR did.
>
Yes, of course, and I never said they didn't. Neither did Chomsky. By the
same token, let's talk about WHAT THE US DID--which was to ALSO kill
thousands upon thousands during the terror bombing of Cambodia. I realize
you are arguing in good faith. Nonetheless, your euphemism--"assisting
the KR's rise to power"--elides a great deal. You make it sound like we
merely left the keys in the ignition. If we are ever to progress morally
as a country we have to take reponsbility for what WE do ("we" here
referring to what our government acting in our name). As Chomsky reminds
us over and over again, it takes no great moral courage to denounce the
crimes of our enemies.
If you are concerned about direct responsibility, then why don't you
express simliar outrage about US complicity in Indonesia's genocide in
East Timor, where the scale of atrocties rivals or exceeds that under the
Khmer Rouge (over 1/3 of the population exterminated), and where our
military aid has been well-documented and consistent for 20 years now?
A final point: unless you are a propagandist, facts matter. Are you
suggesting that, because the KR killed a lot of people, any number will
do? If so, then how can you take me to task (erroneously) for the figures
I cite on US bombing atrocities? (Bear in mind that what the U.S. did in
Cambodia constituted a war crime.)
>
>>You can see the success of this
>>propaganda mission in New York Times accounts of Cambodia's "nightmare",
>>which is always dated from 1974--as if the years before that (which are
>>never mentioned) were one long picnic.
>
>Well, again talking to people I know through my work, ALL Cambodians talk in
>terms of pre and post KR. Life before Pol Pot was not grand, but it
>certainly got a lot worse afterwards.
I imagine it depends to some extent on whom you are talking to. Obviously
residents of Phnom Penh weren't being blown to smithereens in 1970;
villagers near the border were. Are you saying that because what came
later was worse, what came earlier was nothing to bother concerning
ourselves with, even though we DID it? That seems to me to be morally
tone-deaf.
In any event, you can't get around the dishonesty in the NYT's implicit
characterization of Cambodia's history pre- and post-DK. Let's pretend
the Soviet Union didn't collapse, but that the outcome in Afghanistan
remained unchanged. Let's further imagine that Pravda wrote frequent
articles on Afghanistan's "nightmare"--focussing exclusively on its
suffering under the Taliban and the rest of the mujaheddin--the summary
executions, the repressive laws, the trampling of all internationally
recognized human rights, etc. All earlier history is omitted. Would you
view this as a reasonable way to edify readers on Afghanistan? I hope
not. You would naturally see it as a crude attempt to justify ex post
facto the USSR's invasion. And you would be right. The same goes in the
case of the NYT--with the possible difference that Pravda would probably
rewrite Afghan history consciously. I tend to think the NYT is so highly
indoctinated in US ideology that they rewrite history like this
reflexively, an ironic reflection, if true, on which propaganda system is
more effective.
_________
Tresy Kilbourne, Seattle WA
"'My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of
saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or
sober.'" -- G. K. Chesterton
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