Pay Us For Your Execution: US Calls In Cambodian War Debt
March 16, 2017 4:47 PM   Subscribe

Impoverished Cambodia is being pressed to repay a half billion dollar debt dating back to the US mass bombings of the early 70s. The debt was incurred by a US-installed dictator, allegedly in the form of (mostly dumped) food supplies. But Cambodia's food supplies were being disrupted by a "secret" US bombing campaign against the neutral nation. Nearly as many tons of explosives were dropped on mostly civilian targets, causing two million to flee rural areas and according to most analysts leading directly to the rise of the brutal Khmer Rouge insurgency.
posted by blankdawn (34 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
So...make Cambodia pay for the wall? There's really no bottom to the barrel, is there?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:03 PM on March 16, 2017 [12 favorites]


If an illegitimate, unpopular, short-lived, and despotic government runs up a massive debt, is it fair to continue punishing its citizens for it decades later?

Are we talking Cambodia, or the US in 25 years?
posted by CosmicRayCharles at 5:05 PM on March 16, 2017 [56 favorites]


Christ, what an asshole.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:11 PM on March 16, 2017 [12 favorites]


So, um, what is Henry Kissinger's net worth?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:12 PM on March 16, 2017 [20 favorites]


"A bizarre footnote to this macabre story: William Heidt is a career diplomat and Obama appointee who was awarded the joint Department of State-Department of Labor “Excellence in Labor Diplomacy” award in 2000 in recognition of his outstanding work in support of workers’ rights and independent trade unions in Cambodia." Peter Dale Scott commentary .
posted by hortense at 5:15 PM on March 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Might Makes Right Wrong
posted by lalochezia at 5:16 PM on March 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


Sorry for sloppy syntax, "nearly as many tons of explosives as the US dropped on Japan throughout WWII."

Also worth noting medium estimates for those killed in US bombing alone are half a million men, women and children.
posted by blankdawn at 5:16 PM on March 16, 2017 [5 favorites]


So...make Cambodia pay for the wall? There's really no bottom to the barrel, is there?

This isn't one of Trump's aberrations like his wall.
This is just the normal operation of the machine.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:28 PM on March 16, 2017 [23 favorites]


Nixon’s ghastly bombing campaign was also a direct cause of the rise of the Khmer Rouge and, consequently, the Cambodian genocide.

Extraordinary rendition of Kissinger to Cambodia would be a rendition one could get behind.

Mind you, he should not be harmed. Maybe just leave him in a cage, well cared for, at Tuol Sleng.

In exchange for leaving him unharmed, perhaps make him wear a sign around his neck reading "All debts forgiven."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:34 PM on March 16, 2017 [11 favorites]


Rage boiling in my blood and copper in my mouth, I click the link. What kind of...

The Trump administration is demanding...

Of course.
posted by adept256 at 5:51 PM on March 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


Cambodia should just sue for war reparations and ask for war criminals to be punished as a condition of payment.
posted by srboisvert at 5:55 PM on March 16, 2017 [30 favorites]


Well, if Trump wants the entire international community unite to declare this debt an odious one, (actual legal term, yo) and therefore null and void, then his wish should be obliged.
posted by ocschwar at 6:07 PM on March 16, 2017 [5 favorites]


He's actively trying to provoke a war, isn't he?
posted by schmod at 6:11 PM on March 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


Come to think of it, all of those Auschwitz survivors had free room and board.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:14 PM on March 16, 2017 [10 favorites]


He is.
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 6:14 PM on March 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


He's actively trying to provoke a war, isn't he?

He wants to increase the military budget and slash the State Department budget. So, I assume you already know the answer to your question.
posted by parliboy at 6:31 PM on March 16, 2017 [8 favorites]


I can't tell what's real anymore. Is this real? Who is 'jacobinmag'?

I don't mean to imply this isn't repulsive, but the laws of thermodynamics give me only so much outrage and I need to be sure I'm deploying it appropriately.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 6:58 PM on March 16, 2017


Still my favorite Spalding Gray line: "The only thing the CIA really knew about Lon Nol was that you could spell his name forwards and backwards."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:59 PM on March 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


A Terrible Llama, Jacobin magazine's Wikipedia page seems accurate and links to articles in Boston Review, the NYT, Vox Nieman Journalism Lab, and Tablet, among others, if you want to dig deeper.
posted by Lyme Drop at 7:22 PM on March 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


a) What the fuck?
b) Why didn't Obama cancel this debt?
posted by desuetude at 7:45 PM on March 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Obama, in Cambodia, Sidesteps Ghosts of American Wartime Past

President Obama’s visit to a country deeply scarred by its involvement with the United States did nothing to purge the ghosts or even address them. Mr. Obama made clear he came only because Cambodia happened to be the site for a summit meeting of Asian leaders, but given the current government’s human rights record, he was intent on avoiding much interaction with the host.

Girl's education a focus for US first lady Michelle Obama's visit to Cambodia

Hun Sen marked three decades in power in January and is regularly criticised by campaigners for ignoring human rights and stamping out dissent.

While it is unlikely Mrs Obama will bring up human rights abuses, the White House has said she will "share American perspectives about education and good governance".


I guess cancelling the debt would be taken as approval of the regime.
posted by adept256 at 8:08 PM on March 16, 2017 [8 favorites]


Does that make this a proper use of soft power then? Are Trump and Co leaning on the dictator or just being greedy jerks? Serious question, tho I'd obviously be surprised to witness actual evidence of Trump the canny deal maker.
posted by es_de_bah at 8:17 PM on March 16, 2017


Serious question, do you think Trump cares about human rights? If this is a deal, it's to share the secret of staying in power for three decades while being a total asshole.
posted by adept256 at 8:24 PM on March 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Surprised the article makes no mention of the concept of odious debt.
posted by praemunire at 8:25 PM on March 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


I've never been to Auschwitz, but I've been to Tuol Sleng. Protip: Don't go.

Those fuckers turned a ratty third world middle school into an abattoir. I'll never ever forget it. I wanted to hear every single story, but they were dead, and I was out of time.
posted by Sphinx at 9:03 PM on March 16, 2017 [5 favorites]


After Haiti won independence from France, France demanded reparations for the slaves that had been freed. The debt was negotiated in 1825, but The amount being large and Haiti being poor, payments on the debt continued to be made until 1947.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:14 PM on March 16, 2017 [11 favorites]


This is sickening. I spent a month in Laos, which experienced even worse bombing during that time, in the early 2000s. I met children there missing limbs due to unexploded bombs. These were children whose parents may not have even been alive during these bombings. We had a Hmong guide at the Plain of Jars who was born, and spent the first few years of his life, in a cave where his family was taking shelter from bombs.

It's one of the darkest episodes in our history. If there were any justice, we would be paying reparations, not trying to collect on "debts."
posted by lunasol at 10:43 PM on March 16, 2017 [24 favorites]


Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ in a leaky rowboat.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:47 AM on March 17, 2017


He's actively trying to provoke a war, isn't he?

He is.

He wants to increase the military budget and slash the State Department budget. So, I assume you already know the answer to your question.


It's Bannon who wants the war. He's already predicted we'll be at war within 10 years, I'm going to bet he tries to engineer things so we're at war within 3. I don't even think he cares who it's with. Bannon's predicted war with China, a "clash of civilizations" war, and a couple of others I can't remember off the top of my head. He's obsessed with using war as a way to smash the state and establish a new order of his choosing. Trump is the unfortunate puppet he's using to do the job.
posted by hippybear at 2:21 AM on March 17, 2017 [2 favorites]


Bannon is a monster and is ideologically as extreme as ISIS.

These are dangerous times because the rest of the world knows USA is in chaos right now. North Korea is rattling sabres, and they have or will soon have ballistic nukes which are capable of reaching Seattle.
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 6:42 AM on March 17, 2017


I have a Mormon friend with a degree in poli-sci who views trying to avoid war in the Middle East as kicking against bricks. It's foretold, man! Don't fight the Bible!

I bring up his religion and education because you would think the education would be a bulwark against the religion but in this case, they were parallel pillars of his belief system.

So, when I think of Bannon's revanchist tendencies, ultra-conservative Catholicism and West Point education, I get the cold sweats.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:34 AM on March 17, 2017 [2 favorites]


Don't cha miss the old days when the us supported the KR indirectly.
posted by clavdivs at 8:01 AM on March 17, 2017


The Trump administration is demanding...

As much as I want to believe that story line, it's not holding water. Sure, that's the headline to the linked article, but nowhere in that article or others I've looked have this being a Trump-initiated thing. It looks to have come up because Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has made the same request of this administration that has been made to all the past ones. The debt is awful and is from a terrible part of US history, but I haven't found anything indicating Trump came into power, found this issue, and sent out a demand.

The closest I've found is this story from Australian ABC News saying:
Mr Kevin (ed:former Australian ambassador to Cambodia) called the career diplomat's (ed:Ambassador Heidt) credentials "impeccable" and said if Ambassador Heidt was raising the issue now, two years into his posting, it was most likely under direct instructions from the new Trump administration.
Please, prove me wrong.
posted by achrise at 9:04 AM on March 17, 2017 [3 favorites]


As much as I hate Trump I have to agree with those here pointing out Obama refused to cancel the debt, just as he refused to apologize for or make reparations for any US foreign policy justice I'm aware of (and I was following closely).

Ironically that didn't stop conservatives from pretending he did that a lot. Romney's book "No Apologies" was "in response" to Obama's imaginary "apology tours," and the movie "Obama 2016" was based on the theory that Obama became president to promote "anti-colonialism."

The idea that punishing the people of Cambodia financially is necessary because their leader is also a creep doesn't really deserve a response.
posted by blankdawn at 5:15 PM on March 17, 2017 [3 favorites]


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