about the US support for the khmer rouge....this is well documented and a undenied fact. just make a google search. the US backed pol pot exactly because of his opposition to the vietnamese.
To begin with, Realist, I apologize for mixing up my facts. It was the government of Lon Nol the US supported, not Sihanouks.
Now, as for your quote above. As I earlier said, your facts seem quite misguided. Pol Pot initially was a supporter of the North Vietnamese. Pol Pots Khmer Rouge pointed to the US bombing of Cambodian areas in 1969. Former New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg said the Khmer Rouge "... would point... at the bombs falling from B-52s as something they had to oppose if they were going to have freedom. And it became a recruiting tool until they grew to a fierce, indefatigable guerrilla army." The debate still rages as to whether or not the Khmer Rouge gained power due to the US bombing and subsequent invasion of Cambodia. As one who was there for the invasion of Cambodia in 1970, I was all for it since the North Vietnamese were operating from across the Cambodian border and running back into Cambodia for safe haven. From the other side of the debate, Henry Kissinger has dismissed the idea that the US bears any responsibility for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. He argued in his memoir, "It was Hanoi-animated by an insatiable drive to dominate Indochina- that organized the Khmer Rouge long before any American bombs fell on Cambodian soil."
Once the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, Cambodia became a closed country. News of the killing fields leaked out and it was the anti-war faction that was initially dismissing them as inaccurate. After the involvement in Vietnam, US politicians desired to stay out of Southeast Asian involvement, especially given that the anti-war faction had such support and the country was still somewhat divided between hawks and doves. It was in 1978 that Jimmy Carter declared the Khmer Rouge "the worst violator of human rights in the world."
However, after the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and deposed the Khmer Rouge, Sihanouk aligned himself with the Khmer Rouge and both the Chinese and Americans supported them, in opposition to the pro-Vietnamese government installed in Cambodia. However, the killing fields had been stopped by then. I also find it odd that Carter would lend support to a group that he himself condemned just 2 years earlier. It was also the Carter administration that refused to recognize the new government of Cambodia and helped the Khmer Rouge keep its seat in the United Nations, a huge blunder, in my mind, as it has kept the criminals of the Khmer Rouge from being brought to justice.
In my searching, yes, there were Americans that did support the Khmer Rouge during the US involvement in Vietnam, but it wasnt the government. It was the leftist academia of Berkley and the anti-war factions, the same ones that refused to believe the genocide going on inside Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge took power from Lon Nol.
Undoubtedly, we do bear some responsibility for events in Cambodia today as it was the US that drug Cambodia into the war and then abandoned the area to Communism. Again, political and public manipulation by the anti-war crowds also bears a big responsibility for the genocide as well as the elongation of American involvement in Vietnam itself.
I will go to my grave believing that had we been allowed to fight the Vietnam War on its terms and had the public support we needed, the entire region would be better off today. It may not be perfect, but it would be a lot better off.
50% of the citizens do have a rather low living standard in the US compared to many european countries.
I have to disagree with this number. Yes, there are those that do have a low standard of living in this country, but they also have the freedom to raise their standard of living by working and being educated. They even have the freedom to design and start their own business, anytime they wish.
but unfortunately in most cases the cause is not to free the people (although this is what the media tells the public) but rather to secure industrial interests..
To help raise ones standard of living, do you not have to also have industry? Or, do you advocate total socialism where the government hands out what they deem you deserve? The Soviet Union tried this approach and failed.
As I have said, we are not a prefect society, but we do have the freedoms to be pretty much what we wish. You may condemn industrial interests, but it is industry that builds and supplies jobs and wages to the citizens, not the government. Yes, industry has to be responsible and often times, it isnt. But still, it is industrial technology that has brought us many luxuries we take for granted.
Do not take this as a slur on you, it is not meant to be, but this exchange has shown me that you have bought into many myths. You seem to see the world as one big conspiracy against the people. Communism has used this claim for decades to seize power and once established, it is they who stifle the people and cause them to lose freedoms. There is no ideal society in the world, but I still feel democracies fair better. We at least have the freedoms to change and become hopefully better.
Lew W
