US Senator Bernie Sanders criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her affinity for Henry Kissinger last Thursday during a US democratic presidential debate in Wisconsin, claiming the former First Lady and Senator was ignoring Mr. Kissinger’s role in the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the 1970s amongst other grave foreign policy mistakes.
In a previous debate, Mrs. Clinton cited Mr. Kissinger, a National Security Advisor from 1969 to 1975 and US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, as a friend, advisor and someone who she looked to model herself after. Mrs. Clinton has said previously that she sought his advice when she was Secretary of State and kept in contact with him throughout her time in government.
“Now, I find it rather amazing, because I happen to believe that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country,” said Mr. Sanders, the US Senator for Vermont. “I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger. And in fact, Kissinger’s actions in Cambodia, when the United States bombed that country, overthrew Prince Sihanouk, created the instability for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to come in, who then butchered some 3 million innocent people, one of the worst genocides in the history of the world.”
“So count me in as somebody who will not be listening to Henry Kissinger,” he added.
From 1963 to 1973, historians believe the US dropped around 500,000 tons of explosives on Cambodian soil without the approval of Congress, which was required at the time for any military action. The much disputed figure, which is on the low end of estimates on the number of ordinances dropped on Cambodia by the US, is significantly more than the number of bombs dropped on Japan during World War II.
Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan, two professors and historians who have done deep studies of the US bombing campaign in Cambodia, told Khmer Times last year, “During the four years of United States B-52 bombardment of Cambodia from 1969 to 1973, the Khmer Rouge forces grew from possibly one thousand guerrillas to over 200,000 troops and militia.”
“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,” they wrote in their study of the period.
“The evidence of survivors from many parts of [Cambodia] suggests that at least tens of thousands, probably in the range of 50,000 to 150,000 deaths, resulted from the US bombing campaigns. The Pol Pot leadership of the Khmer Rouge can in no way be exonerated from responsibility for committing genocide against their own people. But neither can Nixon or Kissinger escape judgment for their role in the slaughter that was a prelude to the genocide.”
According to Yale University, over 1.7 million people were killed during the genocide that occurred between 1975 and 1979.
CPP spokesman Sok Ey San lauded Mr. Sander’s comments and was surprised that Cambodia came up at all during a US presidential debate.
“If we look at the history of Cambodia, Mr. Sanders is correct. Lon Nol overthrew Prince Sihanouk and was a puppet for the US. The US government dropped a lot of bombs on Cambodia, and after that, the Khmer Rouge regime was able to take over,” he said. “Why did the US government, like other world powers, drop bombs on Cambodia and destroy Cambodian economics and culture?”
“I’m not surprised or shocked by the statement, but I am surprised that a foreigner in the US presidential debate is speaking the truth about Cambodian history,” he added.