With the on-again-off-again story of Pol Pot's capture and Hun Sen's coup in Cambodia, we've been witnessing a resurgence of the standard erroneous account of the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s. According to conventional reports from the Associated Press and The New York Times, Pol Pot was responsible for the death of "up to a million" or "as many as two million" Cambodians during his four year reign from 1975 to 1979.

The conventional account has received a pretty thorough critique and debunking from Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in volume two of "The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism," and "Manufacturing Consent" (the book, not the movie). They point out that the numbers of deaths were inflated by reporters and editors who displayed little regard for accuracy. Much of the devastation and death in Cambodia was due to famine and disease, factors whose origins could be traced to the massive U.S. bombing and the subsequent U.S.-led international blockade of that country during the 1970s.

Cambodian scholars have determined that the actual number of deaths was closer to 500,000-700,000. Of those, only a fraction were political murders. Most of the political killings were the result of fighting between factions of the Cambodian Communist party, one side loyal to Pol Pot and traditionally based in the Northwestern and Southern provinces of Cambodia, the other aligned closely with Vietnam and based in the Eastern provinces of the country. In the initial stages of the Pol Pot regime, most of the "revenge killings" occurred in the Northwest provinces, which had traditionally been a staging area for CIA-funded death squad activity dating from the early 1950s. The history of CIA involvement in Cambodia dates back much earlier than the Vietnam war, yet none of this history (and its murderous impact on Cambodian politics) is part of the public record.

The ABC Nightline airing last week of a tape of Pol Pot's trial was a stomach-turning exercise in smugness; no context given, only the trial, a few interviews with Cambodians angry at the legacy of murder, and Ted Koppel's feeble attempts at teleprompted profundity. There was no sense (naturally) that the U.S. had any role in the drama other than that of appalled bystander and provider of humanitarian relief.

What's missing? The secret and illegal U.S. bombing of Cambodia. The history of CIA incursions into Cambodia in the years prior to and during the Vietnam War. And, the more recent, much more chilling, and equally invisible history: U.S. arms manufacturers and Thai businessmen funneling money and weapons to the Khmer Rouge during the 1980s to destabilize the Vietnamese-backed Hun Sen regime and terrorize the peasant population of Cambodia.

The 1980s was a booming decade for the Khmer Rouge. They formed a bloody partnership with Prince Norodom Ranariddh's royalist troops and terrorized the Cambodian countryside, kidnapping journalists, tourists, students, and government officials. To finance their rampages, they sold logging and mining rights to Thai businessmen in the areas they controlled. In 1992, in an effort to keep the Khmer Rouge from power, the isolated Hun Sen government invited the United Nations to supervise general elections-- widely hailed as the historic first U.N. "peacekeeping" mission. Meanwhile, the U.S. insisted that the Khmer Rouge be seated in the U.N. as the "legitimate" Cambodian government.

Even while U.N. troops occupied Cambodia, journalists wondered (but not too loudly) whether the Khmer Rouge should be allowed to join the elections, join the new government in some capacity, or whether they should be "eliminated," an activity that didn't fit well with the U.N.'s role of "peacemaker." Instead of resolving the issue, the U.N. simply ignored the Khmer Rouge entirely, asking them only to maintain a cease- fire and not disrupt the elections. Many politicians pointed out that, because the Khmer Rouge fought side-by-side with Prince Ranariddh's troops throughout the 80s, they were simply biding their time, hoping that Ranariddh would win the elections and invite them into the new government as his personal military force. As recently as this month, Hun Sen revived this argument to justify his coup. In truth, Cambodia has become the spoils for corrupt, power-hungry politicians and murderers from all parts of the political spectrum. The precedent was set with U.S. influence, U.S. money, U.S. weapons, and U.S.-spilt blood.

Cambodia's infrastructure has been destroyed by three decades of war. Any attempt to raise this issue in the press and in U.S. society in general will, in all likelihood, be seen as the ravings of demented lunatics who sympathize with, or apologize for, a monster, whether it be Pol Pot or Hun Sen. Thinking of mass murderers as monsters, rather than as rational (if ruthless) politicians, is a favorite technique for people who prefer to imagine that they themselves could never be implicated in similar sorts of crimes--even if all the historical evidence indicates that we already are.