Talk:Operation Menu

Chomsky etc

I don't have a problem with the Chomsky source as such, though since it refers to a public press conference there should be no problem supplying other sources if required. The central problem with this edit is that a paragraph about what was happening in 1967 has just been dumped and replaced by one about events in 1969. The paragraph after that, which refers to 1967, thus comes to have a totally illogical relationship to the one that precedes it. It surely should not be difficult to give an outline of changing attitudes over the 1967-69 period, and this explain why initial acquiescence or tolerance of the attacks was changed to public condemnation: internal public unrest?; changing US methods?; the rise of support for communists in Cambodia? This is hardly an obscure topic in which sources are thin on the ground. Paul B (talk) 18:01, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't doubt the authenticity of the quote, since it was intended for domestic consumption, and Sihanouk talked out of both sides of his mouth. However, academic historians should be used to establish the quote's historical significance or lack thereof. The edit was sloppy, and not just for the reasons you mention; User:Balgill1000 deleted information from Pawns of War and Sideshow, apparently because he felt the primary source quote contradicted it, while injecting emotionally charged POV language about "criminal almost daily bombing". I should also note that I've taken the matter to RSN.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

It also links to the paragraph in a way which makes it nonsensical, because the second paragraph is written to respond to the first one that said there was no open condemnation, so not reads absurdly saying "but there was", after a reference to apparently strong condemnation. I have looked about for other sources of the passages quoted by Hermann and Chomsky, but can't find any initially. There are some non-reliable sources that suggest the press conference was for internal consumption, and that Sihanouk was saying something else entirely in other contexts. Paul B (talk) 18:21, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The press conference is also discussed in Alex J. Bellamy in Massacres and Morality: Mass Atrocities in an Age of Civilian Immunity (OUP), which cites Hermann/Chomsky. Paul B (talk) 18:27, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

User:TheTimesAreAChanging You might think that "criminal almost daily bombing" is is emotionally charged POV language, the fact is, that was the direct quote used by the Cambodian government to condemn the attacks. So you might personally disagree with the Cambodian governments assessment of the attacks, that was the language used by them. User:Paul Barlow I put the quote in that spot of the paragraph, because the beginning of the paragraph speaks about how Sihanouk was quiet about the bombings in 1969. I can work out the two paragraphs so it makes more sense, but it is not correct in its current form because it is incorrectly stating that Sihanouk didn't object when he clearly did. Balgill1000 (talk) 22:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

As a possible compromise, I don't see any problem with citing Sihanouk's public opposition to the bombing, while also citing the position of some historians and U.S. officials that Sihanouk gave his tacit approval. That is enough to notify readers and allow them to investigate further if they wish. -Darouet (talk) 23:54, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with User:Darouet above, and I will let User:TheTimesAreAChanging make the aforementioned changes first since they don't seem to like my changes. If it is not changed in a few days, then I will make the change myself.Balgill1000 (talk) 03:40, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Fine. I mentioned that Sihanouk publicly condemned the bombing, citing Clymer pg. 15 (not Chomsky).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Victims of US bombing of Cambodia

Wonder if we should have a new section discussing only the differences of estimates. Note also that in 2000, a whole bunch of new documents were released from the US Government regarding the bombing including maps showing populated areas that were bombed.

• The current Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen says, "According to documents and research, the figures for people who died during that time (1969-75), would be around 700,000 to 800,000."
• In a footnote of Henry Kissinger's memoir of the Vietnam War, he wrote, "The casualty estimates by revisionist writers are often set at 300,000." He consulted a State Department historian who gave him an estimate of "50,000 based on the tonnage of bombs delivered." Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger, Simon ans Schuster, Feb 11, 2003, page 70.
• In an article in the Phnom Penh Post, Noam Chomsky says up to a million people were killed in Operation Menu. Noam Chomsky maintains the rage, Phnom Pen Post, 5 October 2010.
• In the fall of 2000, Bill Clinton released more data on the bombing showing a fivefold increase in the tonnage of bombs released. Based on the new data Tayler Owen and Ben Kiernan revised their previous extimate that between 50,000 and 150,000 Cambodian civilians were killed by the bombing saying, "the number of casualties is surely higher." Bombs Over Cambodia: New information reveals that Cambodia was bombed far more heavily than previously believed, Tayler Owen and Ben Kiernan, The Walrus, October 2006.
• Pulitzer prize winning journalist Neil Sheehan, estimates that "hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died" in the bombing.US Bombing of Cambodia -- Still Counting the Dead, The Irrawaddy, Dominic Faulder, October 2001, Vol.9 No.8
• Craig Etcheson says "Many of those killed in the bombing were just vaporized." US Bombing of Cambodia -- Still Counting the Dead, The Irrawaddy, Dominic Faulder, October 2001, Vol.9 No.8
• Christopher Hitchens wrote that 600,000 lost their lives in Cambodia due to the bombing and that "these are not the highest estimates." The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens, Hachette Digital, Inc., April 10, 2012
• Historian Jeremy Kuzmarov says 100,000 to 500,000 were killed in the bombing. Samantha Power: Liberal War Hawk and Second Rate Scholar, History News Network, 09/03/2013
• Francois Ponchaud claimed that 200,000 people were killed in American bombings from March to August 1973, mentioning an unidentified Cambodian report. Cited in The big issue: Malcolm Caldwell, A carefully redesigned version of history, Noam Chomsky, The Observer, January 17, 2010.

Raquel Baranow (talk) 18:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Ponchaud was quoting KR propaganda. Outside of Kiernan (cited in the article), none of those sources are reliable. In their 1993 study ("After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia"), modeling "the highest mortality [they] can justify," Judith Banister and Paige Johnson estimated 275,000 deaths during the 1970-1975 period. Marek Sliwinski carried out a demographic study (Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique) where he arrives at a comparable estimate of 240,000 war deaths out of which there were 40,000 deaths as a result of American bombings. Patrick Heuveline ("The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia"), Kiernan, and Etcheson all give roughly identical estimates (ranging from 150,000 to 300,000 for the entire civil war). Those are good sources. By contrast, citing a polemicist like Hitchens is scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel. Sliwinski's demographic study suggests that the KR murdered about 100 times as many civilians as the entire US bombing campaign. There is no need to repeat baseless figures when there is overwhelming demographic and anecdotal evidence showing them to be impossible.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:01, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Transfer of Aftermath section to Operation Freedom Deal

It would seem that the latter two-thirds of the Aftermath section more properly belongs to the Operation Freedom Deal article rather than the Operation Menu article. Much of this section is about the impact of all the bombing of Cambodia rather than just the small percentage of bombing that occured during Operation Menu. Are there comments about transferring and adapting this material to Operation Freedom Deal? Smallchief (talk 21:21, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The only reason any of that is here is because the term "Operation Menu" is more widely known than "Operation Freedom Deal", largely because of the documentary "The Trials of Henry Kissinger", which uses the former term to reference the whole bombing campaign. Loads of passionate editors with superficial knowledge have been inflating this page for years; just look at some earlier versions.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:18, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Condemnations by Sihanouk and the UN

Hello. There appears to be some inconsistencies between sources about the condemnations of the American bombings (during Operation Menu).

The latest installment of this issue is the following sentence in the "Exposure" section:

"Although Sihanouk's government protested "American violation[s] of Cambodian territory and airspace" on innumerable occasions, it "specifically protested the use of B-52s" only once, following an attack on Bu Chric in November 1969." (Clymer, Kenton (2013). The United States and Cambodia, 1969-2000: A Troubled Relationship. Routledge. pp. 19–20. ISBN 9781134341566.)

Other sources talks about both the UN condemnations - which isn't mentioned in this article at all at the moment - and elaborates more on Sihanouk's public condemnations in mass-media at the time. Take a look here for example:

• Alex J. Bellamy (2012). Massacres and Morality: Mass Atrocities in an Age of Civilian Immunity. Oxford University Press. p. 200. [1]
• Violence de masse et Résistance - Réseau de recherche : Cambodia from 1945, SciencesPo (Réseaux sociaux). Look for 1970 (2 May) for the public condemnation of the B-52's for example, mentioned in the quote above.

Many other sources can be found about the subject, but they appear to differ in their treatment, with some sources going into more details and other sources not mentioning it at all. I am not sure there are real inconsistencies, perhaps they just differ in their amount of information.

I am not so familiar with source number two, but wanted to include it, because it is French and because it is very explicit about the public condemnation from Sihanouk. It has the problem though, that the source for the statements is almost "out of reach". If the primary sources to Sihanouks public announcements were delivered, things would greatly improve of course.

I am not completely sure how we deal with this, but there are certainly more to it than the sentence that are now up and the whole issue is much more interesting and essential than speculative thoughts from the US administration. I think my source number one could be used right away, and I suggest we build on that until more sources are brought in.

(PS: I have explicitly written the refs and sources without the usual ref-tags, as this is a TalkPage) RhinoMind (talk) 17:32, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

There's not necessarily any contradiction between the sources. Clymer has all the same information about the formal protests by Sihanouk's government. Sihanouk's comments on May 2, 1970 (i.e., after the Lon Nol coup), can be included (if you wish), but they were probably sharper in tone than anything he said while he was still in power.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:13, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi. No, I don't want to push for an exact and explicit inclusion, but I hope the primary source could be provided at some point in the future. Thanks for including the UN link in the article text. RhinoMind (talk) 20:46, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

By the way, I urge everyone to read page 200 of source #1 in my comment above. I have linked it above, but can provide again: [2] I suggest we rephrase the quotations in the article. If we quote anything it should be the actual protests. Alternatively, we could just include an honest and proper summary and description of them. RhinoMind (talk) 20:54, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Move and merge

@RhinoMind, Raquel Baranow, SmallChief, I was wondering how you felt about moving/merging this article with Operation Freedom Deal and changing the name to "United States bombing of Cambodia." That seems more in line with WP:COMMONNAME, and Menu already has a redirect from a similar name. It will also allow the article to fully encompass the recently declassified Johnson bombing of 1965-68. Let me know. -GPRamirez5 (talk) 18:30, 9 March 2018 (UTC) GPRamirez5 (talk) 18:30, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Pinging Smallchief. I personally don't feel very strongly either way, but I would want to be sure that no significant information was lost in the merge, as often happens.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:46, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Likewise. I have been concerned with the common perception that Operation Menu was the whole bombing campaign -- when in actuality it was only a small part. So, yeah, I could agree if the significant information from both articles was in the proposed article.Smallchief (talk) 21:39, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

The section "Operation Menu and Operation Freedom Deal" on the Cambodian Civil War page is supposed to sum up the US bombing of Cambodia. A proper rewriting of that section could perhaps sort out a lot of the confusion. We could start by renaming it "US bombings of Cambodia" as a proper umbrella-term. RhinoMind (talk) 04:14, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi. My initial thoughts are that it would make more sense, but I do not have a proper overview of the bombing campaigns and their political or military inter-relations to make any good assessment of the matter, to be honest. RhinoMind (talk) 22:01, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Back. I have a few questions about this merge proposal.

• Are Operation Menu and Operation Freedom Deal the only bombing campaigns in Cambodia? You link to an overview and mentions "The Johnson bombings of 1965-68", but I can only find a few sentences in your link, talking about pre Civil War Bombings in the Johnson years. Are there better sources to this perhaps?
• If the two articles are merged, it could turn out to be a very long article. Is this a good idea? Would it not be better to simply entwine and interlink the articles better? Just a thought.

I don't think much would be gained if the merge was followed by a simplification and rewriting of all the content. So if that is the agenda here, I would not support it. It would be a much better idea to improve both articles by themselves first. I think much could be done in this regard as is. Also take a look at the section Operation Menu and Operation Freedom Deal on the Cambodian Civil War page which is supposed to sum up the US bombing of Cambodia already. RhinoMind (talk) 04:00, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Russia and China

Russia and China's role in escalating the Vietnam War is completely missing from this article. Throughout the war Russia and China supplied the North Vietnamese with weapons, ammunition, fuel and even rice to feed the troops in the front lines. In the end the war was won by Russian-supplied T-54 main battle tanks delivered to the front line jumping off points in Cambodia via roads built in great part with the assistance of tens of thousands of Chinese volunteers. The bombings didn't happen in a vacuum. 2600:8800:4684:BD00:71AD:C7C2:D23:A2E2 (talk) 06:14, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Read the second para of background and then advise specifically what changes you believe should be made. Mztourist (talk) 06:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)