Southeast Asian Holocaust Denial
Those of us who served in southeast Asia knew how murderous the Communists were. We knew that there would be a blood bath if we did not prevail.
I got back from Vietnam in July 71 and started as a freshman at UIC in the fall. One of my most interesting classes was Poly Science with Professor Dick Simpson who was also an alderman in Chicago. He was an ethical guy in the city council - had to be a trip.
It was a very large class with perhaps 300 students. We had a mock political conference developing our political platform. As you can imagine almost all of the students wanted out of Vietnam now.
I spoke, wearing my cammie jacket to give me a little street cred. I also had a full beard by then. I of course advocated that we stay the course - if we did not then a holocaust would happen and we would be responsible.
I did not get a single vote. Too bad, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos.
The anti war left were sure that the wonderful Communists would be sweet and gentle.
Wikapedia has a good article about this:
“Some Western scholars believed that the Khmer Rouge would free Cambodia from colonialism, capitalism, and the ravages of American bombing and invasion during the Vietnam War. Cambodian scholar Sophal Ear has titled the pro-Khmer Rouge academics as the "Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia" (STAV). The STAV, which he said included among its adherents almost all Cambodian scholars in the Western world, "hoped for, more than anything, a socialist success story with all the romantic ingredients of peasants, fighting imperialism, and revolution."[6] Author William Shawcross was another critic of the STAV academics. Shawcross's views were endorsed and summarized by human rights activist David Hawk: the West was indifferent to the atrocities taking place in Cambodia due to "the influence of anti-war academics on the American left who obfuscated Khmer Rouge behavior, denigrated the post-1975 refugee reports, and denounced the journalists who got those stories.”
Major academics who assured everyone that the Communists would be sweethearts included Professor Noam Chomsky and Professor Ben Kiernan. They were sure everything was great.
As it became impossible to deny that there was a bloodbath many of them disappeared. Chomskey and Kiernan soldier on, however.
Kiernan is head of Yale's Cambodian Genocide project. He now admits that genocide did happen in Cambodia. But Kirnan now blames American bombing. He seems to think that the bombing so angered and deranged Cambodian peasants that they joined the Khmer Rouge and then murdered 2 million or so of their countrymen.
Kiernan also seems to think that the US was supporting the Khmer Rouge. Last I recall we were fighting them.
Kiernan gets major grants to support their research in the genocide. It is startling that Yale supports this clown.
What a sorry piece of work.
Quotes by Cambodian genocide expert from Yale University before the evidence was too great to ignore. Now he admits it happened but of course the US caused it. The guy is a total flake.
Some of his early quotes:
"There is ample evidence in Cambodian and other sources that the Khmer Rouge movement is not the monster that the press have recently made it out to be. Ben Kiernan - "Cambodia in the News; 1975-76. Melbourne Journal of Politics. 1976.
Did the new government plan and approve a systematic large scale purge? There is little evidence that they did. Apart from the execution of high-ranking army officers and officials, the killing reported by refugees from the northwest since April 1975 was instigated by untrained and vengeful local Khmer Rouge soldiers, despite orders to the contrary from Phnom Penh. Ben Kiernan "Social Cohesion in Revolutionary Cambodia." Australian outlook. December 1976.
As a result of the Khmer Rouge irrigation program, Cambodian agriculture will be modernised and peasant living standards increased. Ben Kiernan - "Social Cohesion in Revolutionary Cambodia." Australian Outlook. December 1976.
The Western Press have more of an interest in a "bloodbath" in Cambodia than the communists do. Ben Kiernan - Letter to The Age (Melbourne). March 2, 1977.
After interviewing many refugees I have found, as others have, that each one I s view of the revolution depends to a great extent on their class background. This 1s natural, since the revolution is decidedly biased in favor of the poor, in particular the peasantry. Ben Kiernan - Unpublished letter to The Times (London) August 11, 1977. Published in Journal of Contemporary Asia. Vol 7. No.4. 1977.