[net.religion] Cambodian Massacre: re to Guy

orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (03/12/86)

> 
> >You conveniently refer to Tibet, Cambodia and the Ukraine. At least 
> >in Tibet and Cambodia, I am convinced that atrocities, killings and
> >mass movement of populations took place. (I know nothing about the
> >Ukraine, but I also know that the U.S. shares the guilt for what
> >happened to Cambodia. Remember Kissinger and his saturation bombing?)
> 
> Tricky ol' me.  After all, if the Communists would refrain from
> genocide, I'd find it less 'convenient' to criticise them.
> The US has responsibility for failing to defeat the Communists in
> Southeast Asia.  The Communists bear all the responsibility for what 
> they did after the war was over.  Incidentally, they weren't 
> 'driven' to murder 1/3 of the population by anything the US did.
> Many of the policies the Khymer Rouge implemented were described years
> before in the writings of their leaders.  I think it is interesting
> that the US is at fault for what it does, _and_ for what the Communists do.
> Makes a lot of sense, right?
> 
 
Yes, in fact, it does make some sense.  The US backed the regime of Pol Pot
and still backs the insurgents largely composed of Pol Pot's forces
simply because they are enemies of the Vietnamese Communists.  Nixon
and Kissinger's decision to invade Cambodia and draw it directly into
the Vietnam War had a lot to do with the instability which led to Pol
Pot's rise to power.  Before the Cambodian invasion Prince Sihanouk
had led a precarious balancing act between leftist insurgents and
right-wing generals.  The invasion destabilized this fragile balance
and led to Sihanouk's ouster (into retreat in mainland China, another
Communist government opposed to the Vietnamese Communists ).
The Cambodian massacre was finally stopped by the invasion of
Vietnamese troops.

This teaches several lessons we should remember:
1)the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily a good friend or any kind
  of friend we would like to be associated with
  Thus, for example, the Contras who are even criticized by
  Nicaraguan exiles who fled the Somoza regime to live in Miami,
  are led by a former high officer in the Somoza National Guard
  and 48 of their highest commanders are ex-National Guards.
  These are people who will reinstate the same terrorism Somoza used
  if they should ever return to power
  Likewise, Jonas Savimbi, toasted by the Reagan wacko rightwing,
  is an avowed Maoist who earlier received Chinese support and
  now receives support from the apartheid gov't in South Africa.
  Provinces under his control show no evidence of either the
  "democracy" or "freedom" the Reagan wacko rightwing likes to
  ascribe to its "freedom fighters".
 
2)Communism is not monolithic and not all Communist governments are
   equally bad.  Indochinese and Chinese experts of the stripe ousted
   from the State Dept. during McCarthyism and the idiotic
   "Who Lost China" debate noted during the Vietnam War the traditional
   enmity between Vietnam and China over many centuries.  Yet one of
   the major reasons given for supporting French colonialism in Vietnam
   and later stepping in ourselves was the fear that the Red Chinese
   hordes would take over all of Southeast Asia in a domino effect.
   Those experts have turned out to be right - after the war of
   course China attacked Vietnam (and suffered grievous casualties)
   and the two Communist regimes remain at loggerheads.
   The horrors of Pol Pot's insanity were stopped by Vietnamese
   Communists who may be bad but have not committed genocide.
   
    tim sevener   whuxn!orb