Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

Anyone get freaked out hearing McSame talk about getting out of Iraq "with honor?" Let me remind you what resulted from those words to people in southeast Asia in the 1970s: mass death from above.

"Peace with Honor" was how Nixon explained he wanted to withdraw from southeast Asia. What did that mean?

"The total amount of ordnance dropped on Cambodia reached 539,129 tons" (Link) as a result of people like John McSame flying bombing missions over the peasants of Cambodia. Remember, in all of World War II the USA dropped 180,000 tons of bombs on Japan. So to achieve "peace with honor" that meant dropping almost THREE TIMES the tonnage of bombs on a small peasant nation.

The estimates for the deaths this "peace with honor" caused is probably impossible to calculate. 600,000? Over a million? We may never know. And it's also logical to assume that the reason the Khmer Rouge was able to gain mass support from peasants to take power was partly because of the 539,129 tons of bombs dropped by America. The Khmer Rouge genocide was one of the most brutal in history, obviously. I really don't think Americans understand that dropping bombs on people causes severe political instability --- sometimes resulting in death and misery for decades after the bombing stops.

And they're still cleaning up the unexploded ordnance (UXO) which kills Cambodian farmers almost daily still in 2008. I know this because I've been to Cambodia to visit my close friend who's been living there and working to clean up the landmines and UXO. He estimates that the landmine problem (99% of the mines are not American) will be done in a decade, but the UXO may be around from 50 to 100 years from now. He told me that some farmers keep a pile of unexploded American cluster bombs in the corner of their field. The shit explodes all the time, maiming and killing as it goes.

"Honorable," eh? Coming from the lips of war-hungry politicians, that word should sound very spooky to you.