Forget Ayers, Let's Talk About Kissinger

I would agree with you that Ayers is a red herring in the discussion today, and that Kissenger represents a much more important influence in the policies of John McCain than Ayers has to Obama. If Ayers has any relevance, it is only to say that Obama has perhaps shown through multiple examples that he is willing to use and discard people with potentially toxic backgrounds in order to advance. Not to say that other politicians are not equally cynical, only to note that Obama's own clear political cynicism is at odds with the image he presents of himself as an agent of change.

However, I certainly disagree with your argument that Kissenger's influence is negative. Mark, you have made clear in your numerous articles for the Hoya that you are opposed to nearly all wars and generally see the US's foreign policy over the past 50 years (and further) as being imperialistic and negative. Kissenger, therefore is a perfect example of the kind of person who has advanced these policies.

The problem is that you take a very simplistic view of Kissenger's role and decision making. Richard Nixon was and is widely considered to be one of the most successful presidents in the field of diplomacy in the 20th century, and the main reason for this was Kissenger's role in the Nixon administration. There are many examples of the great good that came from Kissenger's actions, but perhaps the easiest to note is his role in the opening of economic relations with China, which over the past 30 years has raised 300 million people out of abject poverty.

As far as Vietnam, it is important that we view Kissenger through the lens of his school of thought. Kissenger is an unappologetic realist in foreign policy. As it applied to the conflict in Vietnam, he likely would not have started a conflict there as it would have been a direct affront to the Eastern Bloc, but as he inherited the conflict, allowing the US to be embarrassed by the Vietnamese would have been dangerous for the position of the US and NATO allied countries, who would all of a sudden be seen as much weaker. The attacks in Cambodia and Laos has everything to do with stopping the illegal flow of weapons and supplies going to guerilla fighters in South Vietnam, and therefore were reasonable. As far as his complicity in wiping out villages as you say, the evidence for such actions is thin and misleading at best. Were there unfortunate civilian casualties? Of course. But whether we like it or not, armed conflict is a reality, and no amount of modern thought among Western elites will change that. The Kissenger quote that you provide is taken out of context, it in fact refers to anything that moved in and out of military targets in Cambodia.

With the general failure of the neo-conservative theory of spreading democracy to the world, a strong dose of realism to counter the growing threats of Russia and Iran, as well as in pulling back from missions that would only serve to over extend America's resources, is badly needed. While you see Kissenger's role in foreign policy in a more sinister light, the fact remains that his knowledge of the complex field of international relations and diplomacy are unmatched, and whether McCain or Obama become president, Kissenger would be an asset. Lest we forget, even Clinton readily used advice from Kissenger and (in his first term) Nixon.

Mark Lance
RT: Thanks for the thoughful comments. I welcome this discussion.

I have to say, thought that I don't understand your defense of Kissinger. And I wonder if you would apply a similar charity to someone who was not American.

First, however useful his diplomacy was regarding China, that is just not relevant. I'm not ok with a war criminal just because at some other time he did something that was ok.

Neither do I see that the "lens of his school of thought" is very helpful here. Everyone has a "school of thought", nazis, the Khmer Rouge. If his school of thought implies that it ok to kill millions of civilians to further the power interests of one country, it is an evil school of thought.

Similarly you say " The attacks in Cambodia and Laos has everything to do with stopping the illegal flow of weapons and supplies going to guerilla fighters in South Vietnam, and therefore were reasonable." I don't understand this. Suppose that this were true. (I don't think any of it was illegal. Resistance against US aggression against Vietnam was perfectly legal, but forget that.) That one has a legal goal does not mean that one is entitled to any means to that goal. This is the logic of Al Qaeda -- we want the US out of Saudi Arabia so we get to blow up civilians in NY.

And there is nothing ambiguous at all about the targeting of civilian infrastructure, and the emptying of villages. This is copiously documented. Neither is the quote out of context It is what Nixon meant and what Kissinger did.

Finally, I see not the slightest evidence that kissinger's knowledge of anything is unmatched. He certainly has done an enormous amount to promote himself as uniquely knowledgeable, but I don't buy it. There are many statesmen with as much experience, and ones who are not war criminals.

Mark, transporting arms meant to support a rebellion through a country which publicly espouses either neutrality or non-involvement in a conflict is illegal, and plainly so. By using these countries, either the North Vietnamese were violating the sovereignty of these non-actors, or else Cambodia and Laos were complicit, and therefore by definition parties to the conflict making military targets within their borders fair game. This is not the logic of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda bombed without any regard to potential loss of civilian life in a coutry thousands of miles away from Saudi Arabia. They did not bomb supply lines as the US did in this case. While, again, I acknowledged that there were unfortunate casualties, this does not mean that the US used "any means" as you suggest.

Although you claim with clarity that the there is "nothing ambiguous at all about the targeting of civilian infrastructure, and the emptying of villages" the truth is somewhat more nuanced. Much like in Iraq today, Viet Cong combatants shielded themselves inside of villages in order to cause American soldiers to make a difficult decision: go after VC in villages and risk the lives of innocents or else allow them to stay there, resupply, and then attack their fellow soldiers from privileged positions. In a few cases, the soldiers made what was perhaps the wrong choice, and went into villages. This was not genocide, it was misguided attempts at self-survival. This is war. It happens, and it is awful, it is why war should be a last case scenario. But it is not terrorism. And compared to how an Eastern Bloc nation would have approached such a scenario, the Americans showed admirable restraint.

And yes, the quote was taken out of context. Here is a Washington Post Article which sheds more light onto that quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58802-2004May26.html

This was Nixon's comment immediately prior to Kissenger's statemnt to Haig: "It's a disgraceful performance," Nixon went on. "I want gunships in there. That means armed helicopters, DC-3s, anything else that will destroy personnel that can fly. I want it done!! Get them off their ass."

The key term here is "personnel".

Finally, if you can not see the unique qualifications of Kissenger as a proponent of the realist school of thought (which is not racist, fascist, etc., it is an academic theory that is well respected) then it would seem you are attempting to ignore a vast body of experience and research to his name. Very few people have distinguished themselves in academia and practice as much has he has, whether or not you agree with the decisions and policies he has promoted.

Professor Lance,

I'm just wondering if you're OK with LBJ based on your statement that you are not OK with Kissinger despite his good works. LBJ certainly did a lot of good with the whole Civil Rights Movement, but he also lied to the American people and Congress to get the United States heavily involved in the Vietnam War. He selectively left important details out in an effort to get the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed. Lying to start a war that killed millions certainly sounds like a war crime to me. Nixon and Kissinger had to clean up the mess that LBJ got them into.

I do not appreciate your claim that "brown people" were the main victims of Kissinger's actions. Despite the blatant attempt at pandering, your supposition is patently incorrect. Southeast Asians are not "brown people" (which, by the way, is a tired and overused biologically invalid term). Chileans are not "brown people." Please think a bit before you try to get people riled up by using a buzzword.

Also, about Salvador Allende, he won an extremely narrow plurality, and the party that was instrumental to his confirmation in the Chilean Congress (the Christian Democrats) quickly grew dissatisfied with his Socialist aims. They switched sides and some began calling for the military to step in. During his presidency, inflation became rampant, deficits soared, and things such as rice and flour disappeared from supermarket shelves. Chile defaulted on foreign debts under Allende and the nation was near chaos on the eve of the military coup. The Chilean Supreme Court publicly complained that the government could not enforce the law. Inflation reached over 500% by September of 1973. In short, he was a terrible president who did not have the support of the people. Military coups were the modus operandi in South America in such situations. While the United States may have been involved, an overthrow of Allende's government of inevitable. Also. Allende actively sought the aid of the USSR through contacts in the KGB in his attempt to win the Chilean presidency. He kept these contacts while he was in office. Was the United States supposed to sit idly by while the world's other superpower attempted to swing another state to the Soviet side in the United States' backyard? Call it imperialism if you like, but some of us call it looking out for the best interests of the United States.

GV

Mark Lance
RT: Transporting arms through your country in defense against foreign invasion of a neighbor is not plainly illegal, but bombing the civilian infrastructure of said country in support of that invasion is. The majority of those in Cambodia were not North Vietnamese in the first place, but even if they were, and even if this meant that Cambodia was a "party to the conflict" that neither makes what they did illegal, nor what the US did legitimate. The entire US involvement was illegal. We had no legitimate reason to be involved in the destruction of the whole region. And we did not primarily attack military targets. We systematically bombed the entire infrastructure of Cambodia.

And your Al Qaeda comment confuses me. Wasn't bombing the pentagon bombing a military target? And wasn't Cambodia rather a long way from the US? You say Cambodia is nearby, but not nearby the US. Rather it is nearby the country that the US had illegally and immorally invaded. Would it be ok for Al Qaeda to bomb the US if they had previously invaded Canada, since we would likely be sending arms over the border to stop them?

Your defense of bombing villages assumes a number of things. But most especially you again talk as if this US invasion was a "last resort". What could be further from the truth? Did Vietnam attack us? Did they do anything to justify the US invasion? No. We chose to invade to prop up a dictator. And then you use the fact that the villagers supported the resistance as justification for the murder millions of them. Yes, I'm afraid that is blatantly terrorism, and I'm certain that you would call it such if it were any country other than your own doing it.

Why does the term "personel" change anything? Are you reading that as somehow meaning military personel? Doesn't say that. If it does, then that is certainly not what was done.

Finally, I don't see you giving any argument for unique qualifications and I don't see that he has them. Sure, he's a realist. So are lots of people.

Now, GV:
Yes, I think LBJ committed crimes by lying to Americans and thereby getting us into a war. I take that to be pretty uncontroversial. Nixon and Kissinger, however, are hardly justified because of that.

Nor do I understand your complaints about "brown people". Why do you say this is "patently incorrect". I'm of course not endorsing racial categories. I am saying that those who make use of them see SE asians as people of color, and consistently take the killing of people they see as of lesser races as less important than the killing of people they take to be of their race. Maybe there is another explanation for why so many see Ayers as a terrorist for endagering the lives of Americans without killing any, but don't see Kissinger as a terrorist for killing millions of SE Asians, but I don't see what it is, and the pattern of discounting lives of people of color is pretty consistent.

Your recounting of the history of El Salvador is pretty one-sided. There are plenty of legitimate things one might say in opposition to Allende, but the idea that the country was near chaos or inevitably facing a coup is not true according to any of teh histories I have read. But more importantly, why is it relevant? Does the fact that a government is becoming unpopular, in a democratic system, give the US the right to support a military overthrow? Why not wait for someone else to be elected, since you think that was inevitable anyway. And why doesn't Chile have a sovereign right to ally with any other country they want?

I have no problem at all with characterizing what we did as "looking out for the best interests of the UNited States." (Well, other than that we have to clarify that by "united states" we only mean certain powerful sectors of the US.) That's a fine definition of imperialism -- the system in which a country intervenes in the internal affairs of another country to further its own desires. Again, that is a justification that would suit Al Qaeda just fine. They are looking out for the interests of radical Muslims by trying to change conditions they don't like in the US. When they do it, it is easily seen as terrorism. I just apply the standard consistently.

"Ayers and his comrades were on the right side of every issue,"

The Weather Underground wanted to overthrow the U.S. government and "kill all the rich people." Dohrn expressed sympathy--indeed, delight--for the Manson murders. How is that on the "right side of every issue"? And by the way, many people still agree that Kissinger's actions were justified by the struggle against Communism. Breezing by those arguments severely undermines the juvenile moral equivalence point you're trying to make.

You also move right past, without mentioning, the fact that Kissinger was a civil servant in a democratically elected government who broke no domestic laws (if he did--prosecute him!). Ayers just tried to blow up the property of his own country and endangered his fellow citizens. You don't think that difference matters when we're electing the chief law enforcer of our country?

By your standards, almost any American civil servant obeying democratic will to pursue military action would be, at least arguably, morally equivalent to a terrorist. No matter what intervention America makes, it could be simplistically termed "imperialism." And it would kill people. It doesn't require a lot of thought to show that your standard lacks all nuance and practical understanding. Actions taken by nation-states are always going to be on shaky ground if judged by the same metric we use to evaluate private domestic action.

Good thing no serious person actually does that. Obviously, the moral issues involved in war and diplomacy are incredibly complex--intervention can kill, but so can non-intervention in the face of a Communist regime. Either way, critics will call the decision-maker a murderer. It's equally obvious that lots of good arguments could be made about what exact moral standard we should apply to heads of state and their subordinates when they're making these tough calls.

However, no such good argument appears here. For a philosophy professor to run roughshod over all that complexity in order to falsely contextualize the guilt of a terrorist, and minimize the embarrassment to the Presidential candidate he's connected to, is shocking.

Finally, the above argument may also apply to Al Qaeda (although...they're not a democracy, or a state, and their justification for attacking us is rather idiosyncratic). But I'd be fine with a realist perspective that says we can't blame them for attacking us, but no one can blame us for destroying them to protect our security.

Mark Lance
Chris;
If you would leave out the pointless insults like "juvenile" it would be easier to take this seriously.

But let's look at the substantive points. If Dohrn approved of the manson murders, that was obviously insane. So I'll retract the claim about being on the right side of every issue. But on the big issues of the day, SDS, and to a large extent the WU, were on the right side.

How can you say I "breeze past" the point that Kissinger was in the government when I talk about it explicitly? Yes, he was elected. But of course he broke domestic laws. In repeated lying to congress. In every violation of the Geneva Conventions which, as signed and ratified treaties of the US are "the supreme law of the land" (from the constitution.) I would love to prosecute him, but of course you know as well as I do that prosecuting politicians is not a legal matter as much as it is a political one and Kissinger is perfectly immune in practice.

Nor am I making a "moral equivalence point," juvenile or otherwise. I think Kissinger's actions were roughly 1 million times worse, because I think that roughly every life is equally valuable.

Next you say that it doesn't take much thought to see that my standards lack all "nuance and practical understanding". Again, you are substituting insults for argument. I would suggest that it is a lack of thought that leads you to your interpretation of what I wrote. I did not say that any war is terrorism. Arguments have been made along that line, but I didn't make them. I explained that this was a war in which civilians and civilian infrastructure were systematically targeted, and that it was a war without any legitimate point to begin with. As another writer pointed out, it was a war begun with a lie. So unjust wars that attack whole populations are -- as is completely clear in legally binding conventions -- criminal acts. And prosecuting those wars by murdering masses of people so as to terrorize them into not supporting the opposition is terrorism.

The next two paragraphs are sort of "grading" my article. You announce that it is really bad and doesn't understand various things, but you make no arguments yourself, and as I just pointed out clearly didn't attend to what I wrote. So I'm going to skip that.

On Al Qaeda: You say it is idiosyncratic to want another country's troops off your "holy land"? I don't much approve of that as a reason for war myself, but it is hardly idiosyncratic. Imagine a Muslim nation set up a military base in the Vatican. But beyond that, I am honestly shocked to hear someone say that they think it was not immoral for Al Qaeda to murder thousands of people. Are you really so willing to leave moral judgment behind that you would say this? (Imagine someone like Obama, or Ayers, or Ward Churchill saying that.) I'm inclined to point out that we did not destroy them, but rather the countries of Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving them quite healthy. I'm inclined to say that killing fred because joe attacked you is pretty patently immoral. But you've essentially said that you don't care about immorality, and only figure we'll use violence to settle who is stronger.

You see there is nothing I can say to that. I was making a moral argument, and assuming that we would like to have a president who exercises moral restraint in his foreign policy. (cf the end of my article.) If you disagree with that, you scare me, but I don't know that we have enough common ground to continue arguing.

Mark, thank you for twisting my words beyond comprehension. First, personnel does mean military, if Nixon meant "anything" he would have said so. Or else he would not have chosen a word which has a clear military connotation. To try to say that personnel actual refers to civilians is to clearly ignore reality. Second, Saudi Arabia and the 911 bombings are thousands of miles apart, Vietnam and Cambodia are not. I will cede to you that the Pentagon is a military target, but perhaps you have forgotten the other ones in the attack: two business towers in NYC, a number of civilian airplanes, and another unclear target which was perhaps the White House. Third, it is illegal to allow the transport of weaponry through your country if you are a non-party to a conflict; perhaps you should talk to one of the International Law professors at GU who I am certain will confirm that. As civilian infrastructure was being used in the transport of those weapons, they became legally acceptable targets. It is a strategic imperative to disrupt supply lines, even if those lines may also be used for civilian means. If those countries wanted to keep that infrastructure intact, they should not have allowed it to be used for the transport of weaponry.

You can try to stretch and skew my words and Nixon/Kissenger's to make your point, but you must also understand when reasonable people see your arguments as being extremely biased and misleading.

Mark Lance
RT:
What words did I twist? It's a normal condition of these things that if you are going to accuse me of doing something you should give an example.

Thanks so much for the condescending geography lesson. Did you think I didn't know how far apart these areas are? The point is that the US was invading another country with no justification, so the proximity of Cambodia to Vietnam is utterly irrelevant to the defense. I gave you a completely comparable case -- if Al Qaeda had invaded canada, the US would be close by. Would that have changed anything? You ignore this question.

I really don't understand the hostility and condescension on points like the legality of Cambodian action. You wrote that the bombing was legal even if we consider Cambodia a party to the conflit. I disputed that and now you say that I'm ignorant because they weren't a party to the conflict. And no, the fact that civilian systems are in some way related to military uses does not take the Geneva conventions out of effect. And in any event we are talking about the fact that the US bombed dikes, bombed farms, killed every draft animal in the country -- really, literally -- none of which had any military use.

I didn't twist your words in any way or any regard. I responded to what you said, and to what Kissinger did. I don't even think I twisted anything in the one small quote you dispute. It is just not obvious that "personel" means "military personel", but even if it did, the charge is that Kissinger is a terrorist, not that this one statement makes him one. He is convicted by his actions. You have put forward nothing to intelligibly refute anything I've said about him, and have focused on whether one comment that he made is interpreted properly, expanding this to some charge that I have globally misinterpreted him and you.

What this comes down to is exactly what I said in the article. You are not going to worry about presidents being advised by people who think it acceptable to kill millions of civilians in an effort to project US Power - that is to determine how other countries will be governed. I find that horrifyingly immoral. I guess we'll just have to disagree about that.

Mark, I do not think you are ignorant. I just think you choose to willfully ignore those facts which do not support your viewpoints.

It was clear what I meant and what I was referring to in my response, and I do not think I need to explain myself further. Clearly, you will not give my arguments the slightest bit of respect, so it is useless for me to continue this "discussion".

I don't know who should bear most of the blame: the writer of this article or me for reading thehoya.com.

1. Do you make any distinction between war (and by war I mean modern war, not musketeers and swordsman meeting on a field and trying to outflank one another) and terrorism? Disagreeing with the brutality of Kissinger's tactics is certainly defensible, but if he is a terrorist, is every decision maker in every defense department/military of every modern military power a terrorist? If so, excellent point.

2. By the same logic that you use to identify Kissinger as a terrorist, would you call Dick Cheney or GW Bush a terrorist as well? Do you pay your taxes? If so, does this make you a terrorist sponsor?

3. Can you name anyone who has had McCain's level of involvement in the US Government over the past 30 years without crossing paths with Kissinger? And how many of those people are vocally anti-Kissinger? Is anyone who was politically active during that era guilty of associating with a terrorist?

4. I say this despite the fact that I am voting for Obama and think a McCain presidency would be disastrous, but do you really think that vetting a career Military man and politician for associating with the former Secretary of State who (literally) wrote the book on diplomacy is more important than vetting a much newer face for choosing an admitted, avowed, and unrepentant terrorist as the launching pad for his political career? This seems naive, transparently partisan, and -- frankly -- borderline irresponsible.

Professor Lance, I don't know how Georgetown University is still paying your salary while you waste all of our time by throwing ridiculous accusations at loyal Hoya readers. Firstly, I am disappointed that, as a professor, you would use such a terribly incorrect definition of 'terrorism.' If you'd ask any of your colleagues teaching at the School of Foreign Service, they will tell you that the widely accepted definition of terrorism is an insurgency which commits heinous acts to terrorize a local populous and turn public opinion against an OCCUPYING FORCE. How, exactly, would the United States be both a terrorist force and an occupying force in South Vietman? Your use of the term is as inflammatory as it is incorrect. Secondly, I take umbrage at the following quote: 'That's a fine definition of imperialism -- the system in which a country intervenes in the internal affairs of another country to further its own desires. Again, that is a justification that would suit Al Qaeda just fine.' The fact that you would associate US foreign policy for the entire span of the Cold War with Al Qaeda is dishonest and is a disappointment. To make the jump from saying that looking out for the best interests of the United States to imperialism is one thing. To make the next jump from imperialism to Al Qaeda is grossly inappropriate. Shame on you. Your responses certainly do seem to stretch respondents' words to their logical breaking points, a rhetorical device which Karl Rove would definitely applaud. I am no fan of Henry Kissinger, good sir, but I certainly respect him more after reading your column.

Mark Lance
RT:
So I'm ignorant- which you most certainly said - and a liar. And you don't have to give any argument for any of that. Have a nice day.

Spotswood:
Again, leaving aside the pointless insults at the beginning, let's answer your question. As I said in the article and in earlier responses, the charge is quite precise and doesn't apply to every war. It applies to the use of illegal violence against civilians in order to generate fear with a political motive. I explained why Kissinger is guilty of that. A legal war that takes legally appropriate steps to avoid targetting civilians is not terrorism.

Bush and CHeney certainly launched an illegal war. This is beyond serious question. They did not, so far as I know intentionally target civilians, at least on a large scale. Their actions had enormously bad consequences, including death. SO they are war criminals, but not precisely terrorists.

The question about taxes is an interesting one. Certainly one who pays taxes to a regime engaged in terrorism is supporting terrorism in a literal sense. The level of moral or legal culpability is complicated by many factors -- the ability to resist, how effective that would be and what other consequences there would be, etc. Anyone serious about the lives of innocent people would face these issues and try to think seriously about what to do to stop their government.

Yes, as I said, I think vetting anyone who associates with one of the great mass murderers of the 20th century is far more important than vetting an association with a hot-headed radical.

GGL (cute):
Is it impossible to write in a letter disagreeing with me without beginning with a completely irrelevant insult? Do your professors in SFS teach you to do that?

OK, on to substance. Of course one can pack anything one likes into the definition of a word. The historically first uses of the word 'terrorism' actually applied to actions of a state against its own people. But if you want to insist on defining terrorism to be attacks on civilians designed to terrorize, when committed by a resistance force, or when committed on Thursday, or when committed by people with brown hair, you can do so. The standard literature on terrorism most certainly does not include such things in the definition, but there is no substantive issue. Define words however you want. I'll make up a new word - schmerorism. It is just like terrorism, same murder of innocents, same attempt to cause fear to bring about political ends, except that by definition anyone can commit schmerorism. So Kissinger is a schmerorist, and my question is why that matters less than terrorism, since the difference is a legally and morally irrelevant definitional criterion.

The rest of what you wrote doesn't even purport to have an argument. You just announce that you don't like what I wrote. Al Qaeda certainly believes that it is ok to murder people in the US to compel the US to behave politically in the way it wants. The writer I was responding to was endorsing that behavior by the US, and insisting that it was predjudicial to call it terrorism. (He was explicitly defending killing civilians in Cambodia if it protected US interests.) Why is it unfair to compare our murdering people for our ends with Al Qaeda murdering people for their ends. Seems like a rather straightforward example of logical consistency to me.

It's interesting to see how after two or three posts of condescending pseudo-intellectual claptrap Mark can make even the most polite person with the best of intentions disgusted with his antics and unwilling to continue a pointless argument with someone who doesn't even understand the word "personnel."

Anyway, the US didn't intentionally kill "millions of civilians" as Mark claims here: "We chose to invade to prop up a dictator. And then you use the fact that the villagers supported the resistance as justification for the murder millions of them. Yes, I'm afraid that is blatantly terrorism, and I'm certain that you would call it such if it were any country other than your own doing it."

It was the Khmer Rouge that killed millions, which Mark hopefully knows since he wrote that very thing in his article. But I know you'll take any chance you get to paint the US in a negative light Mark! I've never known you to let facts get in your way!

Whether the US bombing campaign allowed the Khmer Rouge to come to power, which is highly unlikely, is irrelevant to my point, the US did not kill those millions. They may have accidentally killed thousands (see: doctrine of double effect) while destroying the infrastructure the VC were using to transport weapons and PERSONNEL into South Vietnam (see: Ho Chi Min Trail) but certainly not millions.

Mark Lance
JP: So the only substantive point you try to make here, aside from more name-calling, is that the US did not kill millions. YOu seem to think I can't tell the difference between the people killed by the KR and those killed by the US. But you are wrong. As I said in the article, perfectly clearly distinguishing KR murders from US, the exact numbers of civilians killed by the US is in dispute. The estimates range from over 1 million to around 3 million. Most set it at over 2. This is not controversial. Please consult any reputable history of the conflict before accusing me of not having done so. You can debate how intentional it was - though I don't think successfully -- or how necessary it might have been for other purposes. But the US did kill well over a million civilians in SE Asia.

(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Personnel:
1.
a. The body of persons employed by or active in an organization, business, or service.
b. (used with a pl. verb) Persons.
So once again, the facts are exactly as I said they were, though as I pointed out the flurry over this quote is utterly irrelevant to any of the main points.)

I continue to find the tone of these posts amazing. I would never assume that a student had read a history of the US war. There is no reason why one should know how many civilians the US killed in the war. But the idea that you have no actual idea about this, and have never consulted a history, but at the same time feel free to just assume that a professor is ignorant -- himself has no idea what the facts are that he is writing about -- and stupid -- confuses facilitating KR killings with killings itself even though he clearly distinguishes them in the article -- is really just amazing. I try to understand what is going on here. Is it that you consider this a sort of practice for working for candidates and you assume that the goal there is to score points rather than to argue seriously? I'm honestly wondering.

All these white people should just "shut the f#ck up," right Mark?
We all know that's how you feel (given that you've used those exact words in a previous article), so you should just be a man and come out with it.

What a joke you are.

Mark, you always do this. I was talking explicitly about those killed in Cambodia, not in the whole of SE Asia. If I was talking about the whole of SE Asia, I wouldn't have mentioned the Khmer Rouge as the killers. I may be some dumb student who's "never consulted a history" about the war but I at least know the difference between the Khmer Rouge and the VC. Your condescension is astounding.

Even radical estimates from your leftist brethren don't hold that the US killed millions in Cambodia: "Up to 150,000 civilian deaths resulted from the US bombing campaigns in Cambodia from 1969 to 1973, before the Khmer Rouge genocide took another 1.7 million lives in 1975-79"

http://www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/collateral_damage.html

Mark Lance
Sorry JP, what you said was "Anyway, the US didn't intentionally kill "millions of civilians" as Mark claims here: "We chose to invade to prop up a dictator. [obviously a reference to Vietnam] And then you use the fact that the villagers supported the resistance as justification for the murder millions of them. Yes, I'm afraid that is blatantly terrorism, and I'm certain that you would call it such if it were any country other than your own doing it." It was the Khmer Rouge that killed millions, which Mark hopefully knows since he wrote that very thing in his article. But I know you'll take any chance you get to paint the US in a negative light Mark! I've never known you to let facts get in your way!"

So your claim that we didn't kill millions was in direct challenge to my claim that was patently about the whole of SE Asia. So you may have meant to say that the US didn't kill millions in Cambodia alone, but that isn't what you actually wrote. Saying that would not be challenging anything I said. You wrote that I "didn't let facts get in the way" and, hence were talking about my claim (in your typical insulting manner).

So again, you call me names on the basis of patently false claims. I have not condescended to you at all, despite the fact that every word out of your mouth - keyboard - is disrespectful, condescending, and name-calling and almost always patently factually incorrect.

I really have to say that I've had enough of that. I've been, I think, more than patient with you while you misrepresent, name-call, insult, etc. And it seems to result in no progress at all. So this is my last post in response to anything you write.

Mark,

JP must be a white person. You should tell him to shut the f#ck up. We all know that you're not interested in hearing from white people, as you've explicitly stated in past articles.

Mark Lance
Anon: it's kind of cute that you post this on every column, but it would be good if you learned to read. Oh, and why anon?