Addendum

The former post was penned in response to our visit to S-21 and the Killing Field. A week or so removed, I have some additional thoughts, new experiences, and corrections to make.

1) On the day following our visit to the two more graphic sites, we spent the morning, touring, exploring and learning about the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam). DC-Cam is the one organization that is seeking to educate future Cambodians and see justice brought to those who oversaw the atrocities committed during the DK. They have published numerous books and documentaries about everything from the survivors of S-21, children soldiers: victims and perpetrators, survivors stories, just about everything involved with the Khmer Rouge. They also have translated works like the Diary of Anne Frank as well as albums of the photographs from the KR period. Most recently, they have been relentlessly working with the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Finally, they have published the only textbook in Cambodian about the Khmer Rouge. Soon, they will attempt to have the text implemented into schools. Time will tell if the government will allow for it.

2) I cannot claim authorship of the term, but have readily accepted and now use it. Becky Burns, one of the students from CIEE, coined "The Commodification of Atrocities" in our discussions about such memorials as S-21. Yesterday, we visited the War Remnants Museum, previously known as the Museum of American Atrocities, the Vietnam War Memorial Museum. It must be noted that many of those who erected and authored the signs and displays of Tuol Sleng and Choeng Ek are the same as those who constructed the War Remnants Museum. The similarities are striking: including the boasting of it being one of the number one tourist spots in Ho Chi Minh as well the on-the-premise souvenirs shops. The only difference is that those carrying out the ghastly deeds are not foreign, distant Khmer Communists, but US GIs. This term perfectly captures the present atrocity that churns my stomach.
Who is worse? The one who who douses a pregnant woman's village in Agent Orange? The one who takes hers and others photographs? Or those who turns a profit to display these photos? Is it truth-telling or the "commodification of atrocities"?

3) It's one thing to discuss Hitler, or Pol Pot--the gruesome, near-mythologicized conductors of crimes against humanity and genocide--but if these men are such devils, incarnations of anti-Christs, because at their orders thousands, millions of innocent people died in horrific near-unthinkable ways...then what does that make Henry Kissinger? Pol Pot's atrocities at least were contained to Cambodia and Vietnam; Hitler, Europe; Kissinger's John Hancock signed away the lives of thousands on three continents. I can't comprehend it.

One interesting tid bit I've picked while abroad was that in the initial drafting of the UN definition of "genocide" it included that those who ordered the killing of another group based on that group's "politics" were guilty of genocide. In the final draft, "political" was conveniently removed. Why? Because then the US (as others) would be overwhelmingly guilty, blood up to the elbows, of genocide against any communist group.

In my World War II Japan class my professor made the biting remark that still haunts me. "Those who win the war, never face war-crime trials." The context was of Curtis Lemay, who's fire bombing techniques razed Tokyo to the ground and destroyed 16 Japanese cities. Lemay also oversaw the early bombings of Vietnam and Cambodia in the following decades. He never stood trial--"Bombs away" Lemay never faced charges of the mass-killings of soldiers and citizens in Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia.

But we didnt win the Vietnam War, and Kissinger was still awarded a Noble Peace Prize which he "humbly" accepted in 1973 for his work for peace in Vietnam.

"Lord knows that this world is cruel, and I ain't the Lord. No, I'm just a fool...but if I was" I would see to it that whatever damned blazing banquet of misery that Hitler and Pol Pot now dine at, Kissinger would be asking for them to please pass the salt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissinger: yes, I know Wiki isn't a "creditable source" and do take note that any incriminating remarks against old Henry in relation to Cambodia need be cited and cleaned up...but I'm not entirely sure that they can be.

Thank God I am not Him, because I don't know the truth, and I feel He may be the only One who does. Therefore, I'll just have to let Him be Judge and I'll just write scathing opinion pieces.