| Chapter 1: | History and Consequence |
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the consequent quantitative ordnance evaluation, Appendix A provides descriptive narratives for each of the factions described.
1.6.1. US Carpet Bombing
—Henry Kissinger
Bombing campaigns in Cambodia are inextricably linked to the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. North Vietnam, in an effort to bypass the 17th parallel, established alternative and informal travel routes through Laos and Cambodia that became known collectively as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Soldiers, armament, and supplies traveled south beyond the 17th parallel, reentering Vietnam at numerous places. Travel routes on the infamously illicit trails consisted of a complex network of paths and trails both above and below the earth. Given that there were no clearly traveled trails or paths in the complex network comprising the Ho Chi Minh Trail, efforts by the United States to restrict the surreptitious Viet Cong were complicated at best.
The United States viewed the existence of the Ho Chi Minh Trail as a breach of neutrality on the part of Laos and Cambodia. As a response to covert travel into Cambodia and Laos, Henry Kissinger and President Nixon secretly began a mammoth bombing campaign in both war-neutral countries. Next, in what remains today an act intolerable to many Cambodians, on March 18, 1970, the United States replaced Prime Minister Norodom Sihanouk with Lon Nol, a pro-American political puppet.7 Lon Nol allowed the bombing of Cambodia to take place and was provided millions of dollars of military and financial support from the United States to build an army against the Khmer Rouge,8 a Communist guerrilla army forming in the northeast of Cambodia.
In an effort to recapture his rightful throne, King Sihanouk joined forces with the Khmer Rouge. Cambodians still loyal to Norodom Sihanouk subsequently joined the Khmer Rouge en masse. Specifically, official statistics of Khmer Rouge fighters grew from a mere 6,000 before