[BEARINGARMS] Active shooter events have been tracked by the FBI for over two decades. There are interesting results when those statistics are compared to other data. A new study states that civilian responses to these events are less adverse than police responses. The April 2025 study found that ''armed citizens do not interfere with police, and in active shooter situations, they reduce deaths and injuries significantly more effectively than the police.''
Dr. John R. Lott, Jr. from the Crime Prevention Research Center and Dr. Carlisle E. Moody, Professor of Economics, Emeritus from College of William and Mary, aggregated the data. Their paper, ''Do Armed Civilians Stop Active Shooters More Effectively Than Uniformed Police?'' was released on April 3.
For a list of cases, Moody and Lott pulled from the ''Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2023.'' The Federal Bureau of Investigation published the report. In order to compare those incidents with civilian responses, they pulled data from ''the Heritage Foundation, Defensive Gun Use Tracker, Gun Violence Archive, the American Rifleman, the Daily Signal, and Reddit that met the FBI's definition of an active shooting.''
The report notes that there's a complete list of ''cases where civilians have stopped active shooting attacks,'' which can be accessed at Crime Prevention Research Center's webpage.
Once all the data was compiled, some initial findings were observed.
''The first takeaway is, assuming our count is complete, that armed citizens have stopped more active shooter incidents than the police have, although the difference is not significantly different from zero,'' Lott and Moody noted. ''Also, armed citizens do not appear to interfere with the police or blunder so badly as to get their weapon taken away by the shooter or kill the wrong person.''
Moreover, one of the more significant findings was that ''according to police, armed citizens have stopped 57 active shooter events which otherwise were likely to have escalated into mass public shootings — where 'many' people risked being murdered.''
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2025 00:00 ||
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[Garowe] On Wednesday, the Somali National Army (SNA) abandoned the strategic village of Aboorey, which has been the epicentre of fierce shootout with the al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... , with the soldiers moving out of Yasooman after the gunnies gained control.
And even before synthesising the sad development, government forces also abandoned frontlines in Adan Yabaal, another strategic location in the fight against the group. Before the takeover, it had been raining, effectively disrupting aerial surveillance.
Multiple sources confirmed that the heavy rains, besides affecting surveillance, also reduced visibility, with the gunnies storming the military base from Galharuur, Ceel Muluq, and al-Kawthar directions. The gunnies used at least 12 APCs and Russian ZU-23 guns to penetrate defenses.
At the time of the raid at Adan Yabaal, General Odawaa Yusuf Rageh, the chief of the military tribunals, Colonel Hassan Ali Shuute, and several federal and regional parliamentarians, and multiple were within the town but are safe. Soldiers injured in the attack have since been taken to Mogadishu.
For the last two months, the al-Shabaab gunnies have intensified campaigns to seize more strategic areas within central and southern regions, leading to force confrontations with the Somali National Army (SNA) and local Macawislay fighters.
Military experts insist that the government recover from recent losses, temporarily withdraw from some of the forward operating bases to minimise further losses, regroup and reorganise the army, and narrow the focus are needed urgently.
BUT WHY IS THE MILITARY LOSING?
The recent losses by the SNA can be attributed to the dysfunctional command and control within the formation — the recent SNA command change led to uncertainty and prolonged fighting, including the sacking of General Odowaa Yusuf Rage, only to reappoint him later.
General Odowaa, a fierce land force officer, was hounded out of office during the operations against al-shabaab, only to bounce back in November 2024, when the government operations in various frontlines had stalled due to a lack of proper command.
Throughout this period, multiple sources said, unit commanders were either sacked or reshuffled, leading to confusion, disrupted preparations, and training with no clear command in such critical circumstances.
Military theorists also argue that prioritising Ma’awisley fighters during the recruitment and training of thousands of soldiers was a major strategic error. The local fighters who liberated their areas should have been central to the recruitment, experts say.
For instance, during the push into Galmudug ...a semiautonomous region in central Somalia, bordering Puntland on the north. Galmudug is not trying to obtain international recognition as a separate nation, but rather considers itself autonomous within the larger Somali federalism, for what that's worth... , the role of local fighters was reduced as the government mainly focused on its soldiers in preparations. In Middle Shabelle and Hiran, the local fighters were in the lead in the charge against al-Shabaab.
The damage was also witnessed in Galmudug they were playing a secondary role. The government scored more successes in Hiran and Middle Shabelle compared to Galmudug, experts further told security analyst Harun Maruf.
As the government trained more soldiers, the presence of AU forces in Middle Shabelle was reduced. It’s now obvious that newly trained government forces with only about 3 months of training were not ready to take over security responsibilities from the AU forces, experts argue.
CHANGE OF FOCUS IN OPERATIONS
Besides the confusion in the command, experts also believe the decision by the government to turn its focus from the offensive against al-Shabaab to controversial constitutional amendments, which created friction between stakeholders, may have disrupted the unity and the support the government received in its fight against al-Shabaab.
The biggest damage from these setbacks is perhaps the potential loss of confidence in the government by the ordinary people who stood up and took the side of the government against al-Shabaab in these areas. The ordinary people were critical in the sharing of intelligence during the crackdown.
But despite these setbacks, the government militia still controls some of the areas seized since 2022, in Middle Shabelle, Hiran regions, Galgudud, and Mudug regions. In Hiran, local fighters seized vast areas in the countryside and are still holding those areas.
But with Wednesday's fall of Adan Yabaal, al-Shabaab regained most areas it lost in Middle Shabelle since 2022, except Nur Dugle and Wargaadhi, which are still in government hands. In the neighbouring Galgudud and Mudug regions, the government still holds Masagaway, El-Dheer, and Harardhere.
Annoyingly, the Somali army has been sacrificing a lot, losing many men and women, from 15 May school opposite the Presidential Palace, all the way to Harardhere. They have been rebuilding while also fighting.
Security experts interviewed certainly have confidence that the army will continue the fight and have better days. Central to this will be the level and quality of leadership and political support they receive, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud exuding confidence that the country would eventually defeat al-Shabaab.
[Townhall] Despite leftist U.S. District Judge James Boasberg finding probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court on Wednesday for violating his previous order, Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz believes Boasberg should be the one held in contempt instead "for issuing such a vague order." Boasberg never issued a binding order, Dershowitz explained.
Look, I've been practicing law for 60 years, and what I was always taught is you follow the judge's written order. And as I understand it, there was no written order requiring bringing back these folks," Dershowitz told Newsmax. "He's flexing his muscle. He will be reversed on appeal. The United States Supreme Court is not going to allow criminal contempt against an administration for violating as vague an order as was allegedly violated in this case."
Articles of Impeachment were introduced against Boasberg by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) last month.
We're in the middle of Holy Week and that always brings me back to my Easter Duty story.
"Easter Duty" is the Catholic equivalent a "Get out Of Jail Free" card.
My wife goes to Confession almost every week. Me, not so much. I'm sure the priests are sick of her rattling off her puny sins as an excuse to make conversation with the padres. They know it's her; they see her every day when she is a Eucharistic Minister or Lector at daily and sometimes even Sunday masses.
While I would argue that the "lovely Mary" is not a big sinner, she's as close to perfect as I'll ever encounter. Of course I am a different story. I've broken all the commandments on a regular basis for years, but I like the mercy Our Lord shows if we only make it once a year. The Easter Duty is kind of like the bill collector who texts you with a "friendly reminder" that you have not paid up in a good while. Ain't nothin' "friendly" about it.
So, I usually wait until Holy Week to hit the confessional box and "make my Easter duty,"
I don‘t go in for any of the modern face to face crap either, I like going into the privacy of the box where it's dark and mysterious. Also, it's mandatory to go to confession at a church where they don't know me. I can sneak in and sneak out with my indulgences and stroll to my car back to my own neighborhood a couple miles away.
I guess that comes from a bad experience I had with a priest back in New York City right after I got married. I hadn't been to confession in many years and when I saw the Chinese priest enter the confessional box from across the aisles, I knew this was my chance. I thought to myself, "Geesh this Chinaman probably barely speaks English," I thought as I flopped to my knees in the darkness and started rattling off a lifetime of mortal sins, probably about ten years' worth for sure. It was at the Church of The Holy Cross in Hell's Kitchen and right down the street from my favorite Blarney Rock pub on 42nd Street where my old pal Mike Monaghan would crack wise with me while he was bartending. After years of listening to rummies stories at the bar, Mike had probably heard more confessions than this Chinese priest over the years.
So, I spew my decades of debauchery into the darkness and wind up with "and for these sins and all the sins of my past life, I am truly sorry."
So, I figure a quick Act of Contrition and I'm outta there, but then the Chinaman sez to me, "Where do you live?"
Uh oh. "Whoa whoa whoa, pal. You ain't supposed to ask stuff like that."
I'm sitting there thinking, Geesh I can't lie while I'm IN the confessional box, so I start to back pedal and tell him, "Sorry father I've been away from the church for years, but I just got married recently at St. Malachy's the Actor's Chapel and have done a full 180. So, ya see…" And he cuts me off.
"Where do you live?"
Finally, I blurted out my address at 400 West 43rd Street.
Now he is yelling, "That's right across the street! You got married without going to confession first, that's blasphemy! This is your parish; you must go to confession here!
Now I was pissed off and barked, "Hey are you gonna absolve me or not?'
He mellowed a bit and doled out my penance, a full-on Rosary for cryin' out loud and reminded me, "You not a parishioner at St. Malachy, you go here Holy Cross, this is your parish!"
Thanks Father, sure I'll be a regular here for sure.
So fast forward over forty years and my most recent Easter Duty story. Once again it is Easter season but this time in Chicago and I went downtown to St. Peter's in the Loop on Madison Street.
The place is packed with long lines outside each confessional, everybody making their Easter Duty. I hate waiting but don't want another Chinese surprise and spy two little old ladies waiting in line at one of the confessional boxes. Slam dunk I figure, it ain't like they're gonna be in there long with hardly any sins, so I take up my position behind them with a smile.
Big Mistake! Both were in there gabbing with the priest for over a half hour each. I looked around, it was still the shortest line, but it wasn't moving very fast, and I had places to be!
Finally, the last little old lady comes out and I hear her sweetly intone, "Thank you father!" with a big smile on her face as I slide past her to the kneeler.
"Bless me father for I have sinned, it's been about a year since my last confession, I guess I have sinned a lot, but mostly having anger issues, lose my temper a lot."
Priest sez to me, "Oh you got anger issues? What are you angry about?"
"I'll tell ya what makes me angry Father, you playing Doctor Phil with those two old ladies before me in line while everybody wants to get in to confess. What the hell, no wonder this place is so crowded, I doubt those old ladies had any big sins to confess!"
And he sez, believe it or not, "Hey, that's BULLSHIT!" Settle down ya big jerk!" Honest to God, that's what he said….so now I'm apologizing and back pedaling and asking forgiveness and he finally sez, "for your penance five Hail Mary's and come back with a better attitude."
I'm researching churches for my Easter Duty now, hope it's not too far of a drive. Happy Easter everybody!'
Just a fun read for 'those in the know'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/18/2025 08:22 ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Artemy Sharapov
[REGNUM] Exactly half a century ago, on April 17, 1975, the residents of Phnom Penh – workers, intellectuals, clerks and hundreds of thousands of refugees who had gathered in the city – joyfully greeted the liberators who had entered the capital of Cambodia almost without a fight. Young partisans (among whom were many teenagers and even children) in black robes and under red flags – the Khmer Rouge – walked along the avenues and avenues laid out by the French. People hoped that the fighters who had emerged from the jungle would put an end to the long-standing civil war.
Almost 45 years ago, the same city was entered by men in khaki — the Vietnam People's Army. One of the most combat-ready forces in the Soviet bloc, which had recently defeated the Americans, drove out the "wrong" communists — the pro-Chinese Khmer Rouge — in less than two weeks. No one met the Vietnamese.
The word "post-apocalypse" was not yet in the lexicon, but that's what it was. The permanent population of Phnom Penh in April 1975 was over 2 million people. The population in December 1979 was zero.
"Luxurious villas with white walls and spacious terraces, covered with bright purple flowers up to the roof. I have never seen a city in Asia that was so harmoniously built... Only Southern California could compete with its charm... But the city was completely, absolutely empty. As if after a neutron bomb. As if after an epidemic," this is how Wieslaw Górnicki, a journalist from the Polish People's Republic who arrived "in the train," described the capital of the former Democratic Kampuchea.
Soviet international reporter Viktor Pritula, who visited the same place at the same time, remembered the city as less romantic: Phnom Penh “was still beautiful, but dirty, like a whore from a village brothel. In broad daylight, rats scurried around the backyards between the high-rise buildings…” The long civil war showed no sign of ending.
The overthrown, or rather retreated to jungle bases, regime called itself more than modestly: "Angka", which simply means "Organization". The pro-Soviet press from East Berlin to Hanoi called this strange dictatorship "the bloody Pol Pot - Ieng Sary clique ". Cambodians themselves still call the years of their rule "samai a-Pot" - the era of the despicable Pot.
The era lasted less than four years. During this time, the regime of "brother number one" Pol Pot turned the country he inherited into an experimental field for building agrarian socialism (with "killing fields"). From 1.7 to 3 million people died as a result of the genocide of the "exploiting classes" and ethnic cleansing, died during deportations and from backbreaking labor on rice plantations and simply from "unforeseen" famines and epidemics.
The brutal experiment in the rapid creation of a classless society (“ the socialist regime in its development moves directly, like a flying arrow, to communism!” – stated the resolution of the “Organization” in 1978) looked like a revived and illogical dystopia – with the abolition of not only money and religion, but also culture, medicine, technology and cities.
But both the emergence of the Khmer Rouge and their rise to power were a logical consequence of the games of the great powers, into which little Cambodia/Kampuchea was drawn. And when the regime decided to act independently, to restore the greatness of the country by relying on its own forces and at the same time to be the first in the world to come to communism, then the catastrophe turned into an apocalypse.
MAKE CAMBODIA GREAT AGAIN
The country of the Khmer people once dominated its part of the world. From the 9th to the 15th century, an empire with the Sanskrit name Kambujadesha existed in Indochina (its name refers to the Indian epic Mahabharata, which mentions the warlike people of Kambuja). The founder of the Khmer Empire, Jayavarman, whose name means "protected by victory", bore the title of chakravartin - the ruler around whom the universe revolves. At the height of its power, the Khmer Empire included, in addition to modern Cambodia, all of Laos, almost all of Thailand, and the south of modern Vietnam.
But from the 13th century onwards, the warlike and refined empire weakened in wars with the Thais, Vietnamese and the Cham people who had adopted Islam. A century later, only a memory remained of the Khmer state. But a “weighty” one: the huge temple of the god Vishnu – Angkor Wat and other palaces and temples in the abandoned imperial capital of Angkor. The Khmers themselves found themselves vassals of their former subjects – the Thais.
When Cambodians developed an intelligentsia in the 20th century, all of its members – liberals, conservatives, communists – were, among other things, Khmer nationalists who dreamed of making the country great again. Angkor Wat was on every Cambodian flag, even under the Khmer Rouge – and still is.
The French colonialists “brought in” the national intelligentsia for their administrative and technical needs. As a result of the game of redistribution of the great powers that lasted throughout the 19th century, the British received India, Burma and Malaya, and the French – Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Formally independent Siam-Thailand lost its possessions on the edges and found itself in the sphere of influence of Britain and France. Cambodia with its aristocracy and the royal dynasty of Norodom was considered a protectorate, but in fact it was a colony.
During the Second World War, French Indochina was occupied by Japan. Anti-French and simultaneously anti-Japanese resistance units, mostly of a left-wing nationalist persuasion, emerged throughout the colony. First of all, in the most populated and developed part of Indochina – Vietnam, and then in Laos and Cambodia.
When the French tried to restore colonial rule after 1945, the Indochina War broke out from northern Vietnam to western Cambodia. The 1946–54 conflict was one of the first proxy clashes of the Cold War. France was supported by the United States, Britain, and the Chinese Kuomintang. Behind Ho Chi Minh’s army (and the Khmer and Laotian patriots who were sponsored by Vietnam) stood the USSR, the countries of the socialist camp, and Mao Zedong ’s People’s Republic of China.
The Khmer Issarak movement for the revival of Cambodia was led by two former Buddhist monks and founders of the Cambodian Communist Party, Son Ngoc Minh and Tu Samuth. Many, however, perceived them as “not quite their own.” The independence movement was created under the supervision of the Vietnamese, both leaders came from Khmer Krom (historical Cambodian lands in the Mekong Delta, which were then and are still part of Vietnam), and Son Ngoc Minh was half Vietnamese.
Be that as it may, the Khmer Issarak successfully beat the French and by 1954 controlled up to half of the protectorate’s territory.
MR. SALOT, AN ADMIRER OF ROUSSEAU
The alternative to the "Hanoi protégés" were two men linked to both France and the Khmer royal dynasty. One would play an important role in the early years of independence, the other in the darkest years of independent Cambodia. The first, Crown Prince and later King Norodom Sihanouk, was educated at a military academy in Saumur, France, while in the metropolis the prince became acquainted with liberal and socialist ideas.
In 1941, Sihanouk was enthroned by decision of the French Governor-General of Indochina, then the king swore allegiance to the Japanese occupiers, after the war he did not contradict the French, but did not forget about the idea of reviving the state of Angkor.
The second person important for Cambodian history was born under the name Saloth Sar. From a family of wealthy peasants, but connected to the royal court. Saloth Sar's elder brother served at court, his sister and cousin were concubines of King Sisowath Monivong (and the cousin even became the mother of the royal bastard).
Saloth Sar received an excellent education - first in his homeland, at the Sisowath Lyceum, and then in Paris, at the School of Radio Electronics of the Paris-2 University. In France, Sar was imbued with socialist ideas - Stalinist and Maoist, and together with other Kampuchean comrades in the Cercle Marxiste - the "Marxist Circle" published the leaflet "Iskra", in honor of Lenin's newspaper. The more moderate experience of Josip Broz Tito, whom the Khmer met in a detachment in Yugoslavia, did not particularly inspire.
A colonial intellectual with a Parisian education, having returned to his homeland, chose a purely peaceful profession - a teacher. A quarter of a century later, the world will know the modest, delicate and ideologically strong comrade Saloth Sara under a new name - Pol Pot. According to one version, from the French pol itique pot entielle ("potential policy", which refers to the pan-European aphorism about the "art of the possible").
The author of one of the best books on the history of the Cambodian catastrophe, David Chandler, names another source of inspiration for Pol Pot, in addition to Lenin, Stalin and Mao. "A quiet teacher, educated in Paris, an admirer of Rousseau." This French educator of the 18th century taught: "natural", primitive humanity lived in peace, prosperity and freedom, while the state, private property, and even urban culture with civilization brought only evil to the world.
“Simplification” according to Rousseau, plus the communist experience of the 1920s-50s – the Red Terror, Stalin’s purges and the Maoist “Great Leap Forward”, plus the memory of the past greatness of the Khmer nation and the desire to punish all its enemies – and the ideology of Comrade Pol Pot is ready.
But in order to realize this potential, external conditions were needed.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY, YELLOW-FACED BROTHER."
In the year of Stalin's death, in 1953, Saloth Sar joined the People's Revolutionary Party of Cambodia (senior Vietnamese comrades believed that the Khmers were "not mature enough" for the Communist Party) and began to make a career - at first, quietly. He generally loved secrecy and obscurity. At the same time, as the curator from the senior comrades Phan Van Ba noted back then, Saloth, despite his average abilities, was consumed by ambition and a thirst for power.
At that time, another ambitious politician was on everyone's lips - Norodom Sihanouk. In order to untie his hands, he abdicated the throne in favor of his father and appointed himself prime minister. Sihanouk experimented with moderate leftist ideas, called himself a "Buddhist socialist" (whatever that means), but most importantly, he tried to play with multi-vectorism. Distancing himself from the conflicts of pro-Soviet North and pro-American South Vietnam, while maintaining consistently good relations with the USSR and the USA.
At the same time, the logic of the game of great powers forced the prince to drift towards Moscow and Beijing. The Americans did not forgive this - and already in 1959, with the help of right-wing generals, they tried to overthrow Sihanouk, but did not succeed.
And the following year the Vietnam War began - first as a war of the South Vietnamese Viet Cong guerrillas supported by Ho Chi Minh against the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. The further the Americans got bogged down in Indochina affairs, the less they were satisfied with the local regimes playing at "neutrality". In 1963, the Americans removed Ngo Dinh Diem as insufficiently loyal. After the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, the US directly intervened in the war between the two Vietnams and in 1965 sent troops.
"We even pushed them (loyal South Vietnamese) aside, saying, 'Get out of the way, little yellow brother. The good guys are here,' " recalled General Norman Schwarzkopf. One of the bloodiest conflicts of the second half of the 20th century had begun, in which, like the Indochina and Korean wars of the 1950s, the interests of the United States, the Soviet Union, and China clashed.
The war could not help but “affect” neighboring countries: Laos and Cambodia.
THE ROYAL WARPATH
Meanwhile, in Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk has finally turned his back on the "good guys" in Washington. Gone are the days when you could chat nicely with both John Kennedy and Mao Zedong.
Sihanouk concluded an agreement with the PRC (which was then supporting North Vietnam) on the presence of North Vietnamese troops and bases in the kingdom and on the transit of military materials through the port of Sihanoukville. The "Sihanouk Trail" stretched across Cambodia, similar to the "Ho Chi Minh Trail" that went through Laos. This flirtation with the old rival, the Vietnamese, did not please the Phnom Penh elite. The pro-Western generals and officials were "annoyed" by the fact that the ruler began to receive assistance from the USSR, Czechoslovakia and China. The elite was also unnerved by the fact that the US Air Force began to strike Cambodian territory - so far only pinpoint strikes, targeting Vietnamese bases.
At the same time, Khmer peasants were happy that the Viet Cong were buying rice at inflated prices. But the government was unhappy, because rice was the kingdom's main export commodity. Sihanouk sent "food detachments" of soldiers to the provinces to confiscate rice. In response, a peasant revolt broke out in 1967, starting in the remote province of Battambang, a traditional base for the rebels. The uprising was led by the communists - the Khmer Rouge.
Thus began the civil war.
To counter the Khmer Rouge, the "Khmer Rose" Sihanouk had to make a sharp turn - and turn to the Americans for support. At their "request", General Lon Nol, an anti-communist and friend of the United States, became prime minister.
By that time, the future "brother number one" Pol Pot had apparently already seized power, neutralizing the "founding fathers" delegated from Vietnam. Tu Samuth had died in a safe house in Phnom Penh back in 1962 (according to some accounts, he was killed on the orders of Saloth Sar). A few years later, another party leader, Son Ngoc Minh, went to Beijing for treatment and died just as mysteriously in the hospital. It is known that Saloth Sar's closest comrade, Ieng Sary, strongly advised Comrade Son to go to China for treatment.
While the future Pol Pot was intriguing at bases in the jungle, in Phnom Penh, their own intrigues were being woven against the Prime Minister, Prince Sihanouk.
In January 1970, the "Buddhist socialist" and Queen Monica went on a long vacation to a resort on the French Riviera. From there, Sihanouk flew to Moscow. It was from us, from the lips of the head of the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin, that the ruler of Cambodia learned the following: riots had broken out in Phnom Penh, nationalists had smashed the North Vietnamese embassy, where they had allegedly discovered plans to seize Cambodia with the Viet Cong. In order to "restore order," the army staged a coup and proclaimed the Khmer Republic. With the full approval of the United States, General Lon Nol was appointed president.
Parisian publications, which were cautiously disapproving of what the Americans were doing in the former protectorate, noted that the Richard Nixon administration, having placed its bets on the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam and the “Vietnamization” of the conflict, clearly benefits from the establishment of a pro-American regime in the Cambodian rear.
The ex-king rushed to Beijing, where he was assured that Chairman Mao recognized Sihanouk as the legitimate ruler of Cambodia and would try to convince Comrade Kim Il Sung of the same. Moreover, His Highness Norodom Sihanouk formally became the head of the rebel coalition, where the main role was played by the most radical "leftists" in history - the Khmer Rouge.
The civil war entered a new phase.
And the United States and South Vietnam openly intervened in it on the side of their new ally, Lon Nol. The US Air Force ironed out the positions of the Viet Cong and Cambodian guerrillas, but often "worked on the ground." According to historian Ben Kiernan, by 1973, B-52s had dropped up to 500,000 tons of bombs on the small country (other sources mention 2.75 million tons of bombs). According to the most conservative estimates, up to 100,000 people fell victim to air attacks.
GENERAL'S SAND CIRCLE
Hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees headed for Phnom Penh. When the Khmer Rouge took power, many of them would become victims of the razing of the cities. But then, every American attack added points to the Khmer Rouge. Not only peasants (including peasant children and teenagers who grew up under American bombs) but also soldiers and officers of Lon Nol's army went over to their side en masse.
The jungle people promised to stop the ruin of the peasants, fight corruption and put an end to the "eternal dependence" on any foreigners if they won. The ghost of a revived Angkor empire arose again.
It is not surprising that by 1973 the guerrillas controlled two-thirds of the country's territory, and by early 1975 the rebels had surrounded Phnom Penh, beginning a blockade of the city.
The Soviet press happily stated: “Kampuchean patriots” had cut off roads number 3, 4 and 5, connecting Phnom Penh with the agricultural regions, the city was under siege, Saigon and Washington would not come to the rescue.
In March, the Nixon administration and a number of Asian countries asked Lon Nol to negotiate with the Khmer Rouge and resign. However, the head of government refused and began to "act eccentric." The president consulted with Buddhist mystics and soothsayers and, on their advice, he built a "protective line" of sand around Phnom Penh.
However, the blockade of the city led to the loyalist forces running out of ammunition. Realizing the futility of the struggle, Lon Nol resigned and fled on board an American military plane. The president did not forget to take a million dollars, which he later used to buy a villa in Honolulu.
Another pro-American client has fallen: like the Batista regime in 1959, like South Vietnam in April of the same 1975, or like the Kabul government under pressure from the Taliban in August 2021. But, as already mentioned, the fall of Lon Nol was only a prologue to the most terrible act of the Cambodian drama.
YEAR ZERO
The victors, with Maoist Beijing behind them, began in the classic way - with the Red Terror: with the execution of Lon Nol's family members and his closest supporters who had not managed to escape. It is curious that the former king Sihanouk and his wife Monica were allowed to return to their homeland, he was even declared the head of the State Council of the new country, Democratic Kampuchea. But the royal couple was immediately arrested.
And then the "Organization", headed by the "rubber plantation worker", brother number one Paul Pot, began to implement the plan.
1975 was declared the year zero — history was to start from scratch. The return to the natural state, according to the precepts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was to be based not on Vietnam, the USSR, or even China, but only on one’s own strength. A kind of analogue of the North Korean Juche, with an important difference: Comrade Kim was creating an industrial power modeled on Stalin’s USSR, and not an equalizing peasant utopia. For which, moreover, there was clearly not enough rice.
On the eve of the capture of Phnom Penh, the US Agency for International Development (now abolished USAID) noted that Cambodia was facing a famine that could not be prevented without international assistance. The country needed at least 250 thousand tons of the main product. But the Khmer Rouge immediately set a course for isolation - and made a simple decision: rice would be grown by the former urban population.
And under the pretext of the danger of another American attack, Pol Pot's men began an unprecedented "evacuation" of millions of residents of the capital. Those who try to justify the actions of the Khmer Rouge compare them with the decision taken by the North Vietnamese who captured Saigon in 1975. Some of the residents of the former enemy capital were resettled in "new economic regions." But the fighters of the Vietnamese People's Army did not separate families or drive "exploiters" hundreds of kilometers to rural communes - essentially to slaughter.
Very soon, Moscow realized that the "patriots" (about whom practically nothing was known) were incapable of reaching an agreement. The staff of the Soviet embassy in Phnom Penh recalled: as the Khmer Rouge approached, diplomats hung outside - in addition to the red flag - a portrait of General Secretary Brezhnev. But the image of the "revisionist" seemed to only anger the victors.
"Having torn apart the main entrance with grenade launchers, the Khmer Rouge burst into the embassy building, " wrote journalist and Indochina specialist Mikhail Ilyinsky. " They pushed all the Soviet people in the embassy out into the street and ordered (journalist Yuri) Kosinsky, who was in the embassy, to dig a grave. For several hours, in forty-degree heat, he dug into the rock-hard earth, taking his time, hoping for a miracle. And it happened: one of the Khmer Rouge commanders ordered the prisoners to be taken to the French embassy, where the foreigners remaining in Phnom Penh were being taken." And from there the "Soviet revisionists" were taken along with the bourgeois foreigners to the border with Thailand.
"Democratic Kampuchea" has been completely encapsulated.
All Kampucheans were divided into castes, “categories” of people according to their loyalty to the regime, Ilyinsky noted: “Personal property was also liquidated along with private property… The doors of educational institutions were boarded up tightly, and one official information leaflet was issued to the entire country.” The Khmer Rouge did not forget to settle old scores – with the ethnic minority of the Cham, descendants of the ancient enemies of the Angkor Empire. But their desire for great power failed them – Democratic Kampuchea “decided” to return Khmer Krom, lands that now belong to Vietnam. The attack on the victors, the United States, turned out to be insane and suicidal.
Just as the truth about the Holocaust came to light in 1945, so in 1979 the whole picture of the accelerated construction of a bright future became known. The world saw the "killing fields", facts of mass murders in communes and labor armies became known. The new government established by the Vietnamese from repentant Pol Pot supporters - the "People's Republic of Kampuchea" - held a tribunal over the overthrown clique. Among other things, torture invented by the Khmer Rouge was mentioned:
"With hoes, picks, sticks, iron rods they beat their victims on the head; with knives and sharp sugar palm leaves they cut their victims' throats, ripped open their bellies, extracted the liver, which they ate, and the gall bladders, which they used to make "medicines". They threw people into ponds where they kept crocodiles, they hung people from trees by their arms or legs so that they would dangle in the air for a long time..."
But the organizers of the genocide did not live to see a full-fledged analogue of Nuremberg. The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, who had not been completely defeated, retreated to the Thai border, to their old bases in the jungle, where they fought for another decade against the "Vietnamese occupiers and collaborators."
In this struggle they found unexpected allies, and "brother number one" himself lived to old age and died a natural death. But that's a completely different story.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
[Townhall] Despite leftist U.S. District Judge James Boasberg finding probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court on Wednesday for violating his previous order, Harvard Law School professor emeritus 
