XPost: alt.society.liberalism, soc.culture.usa, alt.anarchism   
   XPost: alt.politics.radical-left   
   From: jamesd@echeque.com   
      
    "5295 Dead, 428 since 1/20/09"  wrote:   
   > Hell, Khmer Rouge made the North Vietnamese look like GOOD GUYS!   
      
   But until 1979, when the Soviet line changed, you guys were saying   
   that the Khmer Rouge were good guys, for any leftist who said they   
   were bad guys got instantly cast out of the left and demonized as a   
   right wing capitalist tool of CIA propaganda.   
      
   In 1978 some moderate leftists, notably Joan Baez and Senator   
   McGovern, belatedly acknowledged the crimes of the Khmer Rouge, but   
   this was violently controversial and got them into hot water.   
      
   Then when the Soviet line changed in January 1979 *then* you suddenly   
   started reporting that they were horrible demons.   
      
   But even now, you were still minimizing the deaths that occurred under   
   the Khmer Rouge, hence the slowly rising estimates, as very, very   
   reluctantly, you acknowledged a few deaths, then a few more, then   
   quite a few more.   
      
   Dan Clore still will not admit to any realistic estimate, Anarchissie   
   speaks out of both sides of his mouth.   
      
   In 1976 Time estimated about six hundred thousand. In 1977 Ponchaud   
   estimated about one million two hundred thousand wrongful deaths,   
   Barron and Paul the same, consistent with the estimate of three   
   million three hundred thousand for 1979 issued by the successor regime   
   to the Khmer Rouge. The killing field records we now have show a   
   roughly constant rate of killing throughout the existence of any one   
   killing field, with a moderate increase in the later years, thus these   
   numbers are consistent with each other, and consistent with the   
   records we now have, suggesting about six hundred thousand a year for   
   the first two years, and about one million a year for the next two   
   years.   
      
   In the nineteen nineties, after the fall of communism, outsiders were   
   free to come in and start digging up the mass graves and so forth, and   
   at the start of the twenty first century, found substantial evidence   
   that the estimate of three million three hundred thousand is around   
   about right    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)