At this time, USA B-52 planes begin secret carpet bombing of the country. This term means bombing indiscriminately. The bombing would continue until 1973 and would eventually destroy the country's stability leading to the chaos and anarchy of the killing fields under the Khmer Rouge.
According to Ben Kiernan, director of the Genocide Studies Program: "... beginning in 1969 the [USA] Air Force deployed B-52s over Cambodia. The new rationale for the bombings was that they would keep enemy forces at bay long enough to allow the United States to withdraw from Vietnam. Former US General Theodore Mataxis depicted the move as 'a holding action . . . . The troika's going down the road and the wolves are closing in, and so you throw them something off and let them chew it.' The result was that Cambodians essentially became cannon fodder to protect American lives."
