Duncan wrote:I think those two in the photo were just posing for the camera. If they were trained soldiers they would not have two fingers on the trigger.

what percentage of the khmer rouge were actually trained soldiers?

The chick on the right is kind of hot, if you are into the uniformed sort.

Some of the photos look quite joyful, which is really sinister when you know how things turn out:

The calm did not last long. By early afternoon the Khmer Rouge were ordering all residents to leave the city with a minimum of belongings, the start of what turned out to be a death march for thousands. The city remained mostly empty until the Vietnamese invasion almost five years later.
“Some soldiers were shooting in the air in order to force the inhabitants to flee the city,” said Neveu.

It has been estimated that at least 20,000 people perished during the evacuation of the capital. It marked the start of what the Khmer Rouge leaders called the “Year Zero” campaign, emptying towns and cities and forcing city-dwellers to become slave laborers in the countryside. By some accounts, Phnom Penh’s population dropped from two million to 25,000 in only three days...

Photos by Roland Neveu and the article from KT:
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/23877/ ... e-started/

Duncan wrote:I think those two in the photo were just posing for the camera. If they were trained soldiers they would not have two fingers on the trigger.

The vast majority were not "trained soldiers", but teenagers with little to lose. Still dangerous though...

prahkeitouj wrote:Many people almost forget 17 April but they remember 7 January .

because we don't really talk about it. What did you see on those stupid TV channels on 17 April. Plus, we have never learned about it at school.

Samouth wrote:

prahkeitouj wrote:Many people almost forget 17 April but they remember 7 January .

because we don't really talk about it. What did you see on those stupid TV channels on 17 April. Plus, we have never learned about it at school.

I heard they introduced a book into the schools about 5 or 6 years ago? Do most kids not read it or is the book really terrible?

I don't have a TV, what were they showing? or do you mean they weren't showing anything?

I always presumed that it was still too early to talk about it for most people, but then I heard that the Germans started talking about WW2 and the extermination camps after only after about 20-25 years iirc. Do you think the CPP don't want people to talk about it? Or is it maybe that the war didn't really end until the mid 90's ?

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:

Duncan wrote:I think those two in the photo were just posing for the camera. If they were trained soldiers they would not have two fingers on the trigger.

The vast majority were not "trained soldiers", but teenagers with little to lose. Still dangerous though...

Child soldiers are more dangerous than anything else. Sociopathic, emotionally undeveloped, indoctrinated and with absolutely nothing to lose in the way of money or families. These are the kind of people entering Europe from ISIS controlled areas as "refugees".

On the US side you had young adults far from home, relatively well paid and restrained by RoE. That last one is most important. I can't imagine these kids were chewed out about how to engage the enemy, they probably went on suicidal missions and slaughtered any surviving opposition at a whim. Lon Nol's army likely resembled the US model.

ot mien kampf wrote:

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:

Duncan wrote:I think those two in the photo were just posing for the camera. If they were trained soldiers they would not have two fingers on the trigger.

The vast majority were not "trained soldiers", but teenagers with little to lose. Still dangerous though...

Child soldiers are more dangerous than anything else. Sociopathic, emotionally undeveloped, indoctrinated and with absolutely nothing to lose in the way of money or families. These are the kind of people entering Europe from ISIS controlled areas as "refugees".

On the US side you had young adults far from home, relatively well paid and restrained by RoE. That last one is most important. I can't imagine these kids were chewed out about how to engage the enemy, they probably went on suicidal missions and slaughtered any surviving opposition at a whim. Lon Nol's army likely resembled the US model.

Lon Nol's army likely resembled the US model.

Excuse me? Isn't that when wide spread liver eating re-emerged ? I have read the FANK were incredibly brutal.

Gen. Lon proceeded to transform with American help the old FARK into the FANK to accommodate the character of the new Republican regime. By contrast, new recruits were readily available from the ranks of the far-right Khmer Serei, a US-backed anti-communist guerrilla group led by the hardline Nationalist Son Ngoc Thanh which had fought against Sihanouk’s regime during the 1960s and who always viewed him as a communist crony.

I remember some African friends in the Gambia were telling me of reports on TV about the fighting in Siera Leone. He said they saw film of small children around 10 or 11 going into a village spraying machine guns everywhere and just killing everything in sight. Frightening stuff. My friends were of the same opinion as yourself.

Some good movies about child soldiers. I saw a recent one set in Africa that was good. Beasts of No Nation and Johnny Mad Dog is excellent.

juansweetpotato wrote:

ot mien kampf wrote:

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:

Duncan wrote:I think those two in the photo were just posing for the camera. If they were trained soldiers they would not have two fingers on the trigger.

The vast majority were not "trained soldiers", but teenagers with little to lose. Still dangerous though...

Child soldiers are more dangerous than anything else. Sociopathic, emotionally undeveloped, indoctrinated and with absolutely nothing to lose in the way of money or families. These are the kind of people entering Europe from ISIS controlled areas as "refugees".

On the US side you had young adults far from home, relatively well paid and restrained by RoE. That last one is most important. I can't imagine these kids were chewed out about how to engage the enemy, they probably went on suicidal missions and slaughtered any surviving opposition at a whim. Lon Nol's army likely resembled the US model.

Lon Nol's army likely resembled the US model.

Excuse me? Isn't that when wide spread liver eating started again? I have read they were incredibly brutal.

In the later years when all was lost and they knew that they were all likely to die, yes.

The problem is that leftist academia felt that it needed to demonize the US-supported side to justify the socialist experiment (which failed dismally) and you get them searching for justification for the KR's brutality by scouring for brutality committed by Lon Nol's side. From what I read, in the late 60s Lon Nol's army was a copy of the South Vietnamese one. The KR was obviously like the VC. One had the trappings of a real army, the other was pure insurgency.

At some point around 1971-73, Lon Nol would have realized that the US was on the way out and the KR, who were at that stage supported by the VC and NVA, were going to be in a significantly better position, so the generals must have presumed that shifting to more insurgent-styled tactics would be better. Loses on the battlefield and the knowledge that they were all dead once the KR took control would have created incredible brutality.

This history-rewriting is being borne out in Syria too. People scour history for crimes by Assad to justify the fact that the left wing has supported brutal rebel groups (including Jihadists) with arms.

ot mien kampf wrote:

juansweetpotato wrote:

ot mien kampf wrote:

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:

Duncan wrote:I think those two in the photo were just posing for the camera. If they were trained soldiers they would not have two fingers on the trigger.

The vast majority were not "trained soldiers", but teenagers with little to lose. Still dangerous though...

Child soldiers are more dangerous than anything else. Sociopathic, emotionally undeveloped, indoctrinated and with absolutely nothing to lose in the way of money or families. These are the kind of people entering Europe from ISIS controlled areas as "refugees".

On the US side you had young adults far from home, relatively well paid and restrained by RoE. That last one is most important. I can't imagine these kids were chewed out about how to engage the enemy, they probably went on suicidal missions and slaughtered any surviving opposition at a whim. Lon Nol's army likely resembled the US model.

Lon Nol's army likely resembled the US model.

Excuse me? Isn't that when wide spread liver eating started again? I have read they were incredibly brutal.

In the later years when all was lost and they knew that they were all likely to die, yes.

The problem is that leftist academia felt that it needed to demonize the US-supported side to justify the socialist experiment (which failed dismally) and you get them searching for justification for the KR's brutality by scouring for brutality committed by Lon Nol's side. From what I read, in the late 60s Lon Nol's army was a copy of the South Vietnamese one. The KR was obviously like the VC. One had the trappings of a real army, the other was pure insurgency.

At some point around 1971-73, Lon Nol would have realized that the US was on the way out and the KR, who were at that stage supported by the VC and NVA, were going to be in a significantly better position, so the generals must have presumed that shifting to more insurgent-styled tactics would be better. Loses on the battlefield and the knowledge that they were all dead once the KR took control would have created incredible brutality.

This history-rewriting is being borne out in Syria too. People scour history for crimes by Assad to justify the fact that the left wing has supported brutal rebel groups (including Jihadists) with arms.

I take your points and can't remember enough about Son Ngoc Thanh at the moment. So I am going to do a bit of re-reading and get back to you.