Was the Killing Fields of Cambodia America's Holocaust?

[chequita guevara]

Kinda sorta. It was more pragmatic than ideolgocial. The KR were enemies of the Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese and the PRC were somewhat hostile. After Sihanook was driven from power, he ended up in China and "joined" the KR, giving them his still considerable legitimacy within Cambodia.

[DanS]

In other words, yes China was behind Pol Pot.

[chequita guevara]

So was Reagan.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The only thing we bear direct reposibility for, IMO, is actually backing the Khmer Rouge once the Vietnamese invaded.

I was in Cambodia a couple of months ago, toured both the Killing Fields and the infamous S21 detention center, and spent a lot of time talking with survivors of that period. They tend to talk about the Vietnamese invasion in '79 the way the French talked about the arrival of the Allies at the end of WWII (that is to say, the way we wish Iraqis were talking about the US now). We definitely backed the wrong horse there. But Pol Pot was not our creation, no.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The U.S. created the conditions that allowed Pot to come to power, including engineering a coup d'etat against that twit, Sihanook. The invasion and bombings and coup created a groundswell of support for the KR, and the bomgins also resulted in the loss of a massive amount of farmland (both from the bombs themselves and driving peasants off the land). Hence, the conditions were created for a massive famine, which is what occured. Pol Pot and the U.S. take equal blame for the Killing Fields.

What is worse, however, is that once the world knew what occured in Cambodia, after the Vietnamese drove them from power, the U.S. decided to give support to the KR.

We left South East Asia in 73, Pol Pot came to power April of 75. The killing fields were later that year or early in 76.
It must of been those delay bomb that we left behine.

The massive famine was after they killed an million farmers.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Joseph
We left South East Asia in 73, Pol Pot came to power April of 75. The killing fields were later that year or early in 76.
It must of been those delay bomb that we left behine.

The massive famine was after they killed an million farmers.

Dude, we left in '75, in the very month that Pol Pot came to power. The newspapers were just full of stories about the 30th anniversary of our departure and teh fall of Saigon. Just FYI.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Joseph
We left South East Asia in 73, Pol Pot came to power April of 75. The killing fields were later that year or early in 76.

We were bombing Cambodia up to the fall of Phnom Phen. That was one of the proximate causes of the famine that resulted in the deaths of two million people. The other cause was the way the KR "organized" the country. Let's split the difference and call it even. We'll take a million, they can take a million.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Dude, we left in '75, in the very month that Pol Pot came to power. The newspapers were just full of stories about the 30th anniversary of our departure and teh fall of Saigon. Just FYI.

My name is never dude get it. Our military left in 73. Our Ambassador left in 75.

[DRoseDARs]

Dude, chill.