[refurb]

You're forgetting to add why the US bombed Cambodia. The North Vietnamese were using the border areas with Vietnam as a refuge and a supply route for war materials.

Note that the US didn't bomb Cambodia until quite late in the war. That probably helped the North Vietnamese more than anything.

[ooooo00000]

The bombing happened all over the country. A few weeks ago I was in Kompung Thom (right in the middle of Cambodia) and talked to quite a few people about this. The members of these communities were farmers, not combatants or VC sympathizers, and they didn't even have much awareness of why they were being bombed.

[ooooo00000]

I also have to add that there is no reasonable "why" to excuse bombing largely civilian areas. Undoubtably the VC were crossing over the border -- the Cambodian side of the Vietnam-Cambodia border is ethnically and linguistically a mixture of Khmer and Vietnamese, and that border has been fluid up until recent history -- but still most people there would have been civilians.

[evgen]

When military convoys are running through town you no longer live in a "civilian area".

[ooooo00000]

I'll stick with "an area with many civilians" as my definition of a civilian area. These people weren't wealthy, and it's where they happened to own land and build houses. It becomes a choice between being homeless and impoverished, or staying where you are and taking the risk of being bombed.

[Amezarak]

If you commit to the idea "I will not bomb civilians", then you offer an enormous advantage to your adversary, who will therefore proceed to make sure civilians are well-distributed in any area of military operation.