William Shawcross was one of the first journalists to report on the horrors of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. He issues a reminder to those hoping for a quick US exit from Iraq to be careful what they wish for:
But horror had engulfed all of Indo-China as a result of the US defeat in 1975. In Vietnam and Laos there was no vast mass murder but the communists created cruel gulags and, from Vietnam in particular, millions of people fled, mostly by boat and mostly to the US. Given the catastrophe of the communist victories, I have always thought that those like myself who were opposed to the American efforts in Indochina should be very humble.
Read the whole thing.
One small difference between Indo-China and Iraq. Indo was ripe for brutal commie take-over.Whether the coallition wins or loses in Iraq makes little difference to the eventual outcome; widespread civil war on a bigger scale than now. The tribal culture and their warlords will continue killing each other until there is only one side left. IMHO, f**k the Iraqis and go help the Kurds. They deserve it far more!
Recall Iraq was a cultural focal point of the mideast.
The cradle of civilization originated there.
It would be a grave mistake to assume that the radical elements are the norm rather than a cancer on an otherwise vibrant body.
Let Americans do what they do best. Bring the hope of democracy and civility to a great people.
“Let Americans do what they do best. Bring the hope of democracy and civility to a great people.”
Bring the illusion of hope and civility you mean, but actually deliver pain, death, and suffering for the innocent people of that country. Just like Southeast Asia, just like in Central America, just like in the Middle East.
No, he said “Bring the hope of democracy and civility”. Like what has taken over in South America (outside of Venezuela), most of Central America (outside of Cuba) and most of Eastern Europe (outside of certain Slavic countries).
The people of Poland are erecting statues to US Presidents (and to a Pope) in thanks for ridding their world of communists. That is what the US has given to the people of Poland, Chile, Latvia, Slovenia, and more other countries than I can name. Democracy and a free market economy.
What in the world makes William Shawcrosson think anything has changed. The Anti-War Nuts like Jane Fonda and crew defended the Khmer Rouge, and condemned anyone who thought the Killing Fields were happening. Claimed it was a myth. And when the bones were found, and the full horror of what happened became undeniable, nothing but silence or denial from these ‘defenders of the innocent’. Same is true today. Bleeding-heart Liberals supported the perpetrators of the three biggest genocides of the Twentieth Century, and look forward to doing the same in the Twenty-First. Funny how that works out.
Don’t believe me? Just ask Justthinkin and albatros39a.
Killing fields then and now
Excerpt:
The ironies are manifold. The Times itself celebrated the assumption of power by the Khmer Rouge and Sydney Schanberg was among those who dismissed doubts about the benign intentions of the Khmer Rouge. Gabriel Schoenfeld writes in his Commentary review (“Was Kissinger Right?”) of the third volume of Kissinger’s memoirs:
In the beginning, middle, and end of this episode, Kissinger shows to telling effect, the barbaric nature of the Communist Khmer Rouge was painted over in soothing tones by much of the American press. The New York Times was the most flagrant offender. In one dispatch, its correspondent Sydney Schanberg described a ranking Khmer Rouge leader as a “French-educated intellectual” who wanted nothing more than “to fight against feudal privileges and social inequities.” A bloodbath was unlikely, Schanberg reported: “since all are Cambodians, an accommodation will be found.” As the last Americans were withdrawn, another upbeat article by Schanberg appeared under the headline, “Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life.” In short order, the Khmer Rouge proceeded to march nearly two million of their fellow Cambodians to their deaths in the killing fields. Also in short order, Schanberg went on to greater glory and a Pulitzer prize.
Shawcross’s second thoughts about American foreign policy in southeast Asia are briefly intimated in today’s column, which applies lessons learned to the challenge before us in Iraq. In his Boston Globe column “Why we fought,” Jeff Jacoby quoted from a 1994 Times column by Shawcross:
Those of us who opposed the American war in Indochina should be extremely humble in the face of the appalling aftermath: a form of genocide in Cambodia and horrific tyranny in both Vietnam and Laos. Looking back on my own coverage for The Sunday Times…,I think I concentrated too easily on the corruption and incompetence of the South Vietnamese and their American allies, was too ignorant of the inhuman Hanoi regime, and far too willing to believe that a victory by the Communists would provide a better future. But after the Communist victory came the refugees to Thailand and the floods of boat people desperately seeking to escape the Cambodian killing fields and the Vietnamese gulags. Their eloquent testimony should have put paid to all illusions.
As Jeff commented in a message to us last year: “Whatever else he may believe or advocate, Shawcross seems clearly to be a man of intellectual integrity. That makes his thoughts on the current crisis all the more valuable.” For more, see John Miller’s “The Shawcross redemption.” …-
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
Minor point: There’s a typo in that Times piece; his name is “Shawcross”, not “Shawcrosson”. (They get it right at the end.)
A lot of the people who want the Americans out of Iraq actually want them to loose. They would also have supported the Khmer Rouge. The Americans leaving will not end the war in Iraq any more than the Americans leaving ended the war in Vietnam. I wonder what all the people who wanted the Americans to loose in Vietnam would have to say to the millions of Vietnamese “Boat people” who became refugees as a result
Powerfull stuff Maz. Unfortunately the vast majority of intelligentsia will avoid the obvious. For the most part they are incapable of extrapolating the consequences of the simplest of law’s…the law of the jungle.
In a theoretically sound world this stuff doesn’t happen. Too bad university isn’t a little more like high school, the odd shit kicking might prove benificial for all involved.
Syncro
The killing fields were the result of the US invasion of Vietnam and the resulting destabilization of SE Asia.
The situation in Iraq today has it’s genesis in the CIA overthrow of democracy in Iran in 1953.
Just a couple of CIA chickens come home to roost.
The left will never except the responsibility their actions have caused. Not in a million years.
They still believe after 100 years now of failed socialist states & mass murder that its still politically viable.
Life is cheap for the left. Its mankind as a mass of flesh to drive, not individuals they care about.
Death is their currency for change. Poverty their gift. Corruption as a way of life. Individual liberty as sin. The family only breeders for the Elite to enhance their power. Tribalism, not harmony practiced to divide. The lie as truth.
The left learnt long ago if you control the language, you control the debate. This is why you have PC police & human rights boards to enforce their form of reality.
Now after all this misdirection, treachery, lies to enforce collectivity. Does anyone for one NY. second think they will feel any guilt or remorse. I think not. They will do as always. Ignore it or call people liars or deny anything. Than there is always my favorite. The leader cult excuse. More BS than on a stud farm.
They will not even admit to their socialist friends in France . That it may have been French ( By the way no connection with French Canadians . Who I think of as North American first & foremost) commando’s helping the genocide in Rwanda, if not the cause.
Just my opinion.
The big thing in VIETNAM was the treason of the left-wing news media like WALTER KRONKITE
The killing fields were the result of the US invasion of Vietnam and the resulting destabilization of SE Asia.
The situation in Iraq today has it’s genesis in the CIA overthrow of democracy in Iran in 1953.
Just a couple of CIA chickens come home to roost.
Posted by: claire hoy at March 4, 2007 12:01 PM ”
bingo !!!
cambodia got dragged into it with nixon’s unauthorized bombing raids and deep incursions by americans onto cambdian territory, at the full knowledge and guidance of ….. the cia.
cia chickens returning to roost. I like that.
the puppet shah pahlavi was according to my sister who spent the better part of a year hobnobing with the locals in the early 70s and should know, was the most hated man in the country because of his ever increasing repression.
and it did increase more and more over time, it is a function of despotism; the more they reppressive they get the more hated they are and the more efforts to fight the regime resulting in still more breaches of civil rights. a vicious circle.
and remember all you right wingers, jimmy cahtah was a real big fan of the shah, describing him an important ally as he was in the process of being ousted.
do the math.
the cia long ago lost its vision to COLLECT intelligence about the goings on in foreign lands and changed the emphasis onto altering those events to suit amaricanism.
vietnam was a CIVIL war; the south would have won hands down if the corrupt thieu rigime had the support of the ordinary people. instead they did everything possible to drive them in the sphere of the communists. and remember it was vietnam that was first to invade cambodia and put a stop to the grisliness that can to light there, whilst your precious americans oh so interested in rights and dignity sent rosalind carter to a refugee camp for a photo-op.
the american legacy in the genuinely bizarre means of handling that situation can be found in the logic of ‘destroying the village to save it’.
the soldiers called them BIC raids after the BIC lighters used to burn the straw huts.
how the &^$%^ can someone living in a straw hut represent such a dire threat to the most powerful nation in the history of friggin civilization????
do that 10,000 times and you get a cumulative effect.
do the math again.
That’s right moonbats….blame America.
the only thing ‘batty’ about vietnam and the ‘moon’ was a hairbrained scheme by the americans to put mammouth reflecters in orbit above the country to turn every night into something like a full moon. to enhance the nite vision goggles which were still in early development.
kinda like the agent orange ‘fertilizer’ programmes where they would send soldiers into the areas within days of the spraying instead of about a month or 2 when it had had its full effect and the excess had washed away, at least do that oh leadership, time it and wait for some rain or sumptin but noooooo, gotta do it their way and sicken your own personnel.
in this case I godam well DO blame the americans and the frenchies before that and the dutch before them. meddle meddle meddle.
ommag youre going to have to come up with something newer than the 5 yr old ‘moonbat’ snipe. I also notice you had no other rebuttal.
“Bleeding-heart Liberals supported the perpetrators of the three biggest genocides of the Twentieth Century, and look forward to doing the same in the Twenty-First. Funny how that works out.”
Ummmmm…..the only thing bleeding about me Mark,is you after a few well deserved rounds into you. Jane Fonda should be tried and executed as the traitor she is. So just where do you think I support the left? Somebody put drugs in your Alpo this morning? Sheeesh,point out a minor difference between two 13th century countries,and suddenly you’re a leftie. I am truly confused in that reasoning.
“I wonder what all the people who wanted the Americans to loose in Vietnam would have to say to the millions of Vietnamese “Boat people” who became refugees as a result”
We’ve already got millions of Iraqi refugees. The main difference this time is that America isn’t taking them on.
Vietnam was a FRENCH colony. The USSR agitated for an overthrow of the South Vietnamese government and the South begged the US for protection. The leftard traitors like JFkerry and Hanoi Jane Fonda ensured that protection failed.
The US invaded only after the communists invaded from the North first. The left always talks about chickens (a subject to which I will credit them with expertise) but never the why’s and the who’s. The left are people without a memory, a history or any degree of logic.
USSR
Cold War
If you don’t see the US actions from the end of WWII up until 1990 though the prism of the cold war you are historically illiterate. In other words, you are a socialist retard.
The left is responsible for the killing fields, the gulags and the deaths. The left in those countries perpetrated them and the left here enabled them. The left are responsible for 100+ million dead in one century. Nothing else in any period in history comes within 1/1000th of that. Not anything in history.
Oh, and for you leftards who think that the killing fields only happened because the US was there, you’re idiots.
Do you think that if the US was there the N.Vietnamese would have stayed home? Do you think all the killers in Cambodia would have become plumbers instead?
The communists were attempting to take over before the US got there. Is this not a clear Cause/Effect situation? Do you not see simple logic and process that obvious information into a coherent conclusion? I guess that lack of intellectual ability is what makes you people lefties to begin with. If you weren’t inferior intellects, you would have rejected the left long ago.
The communists did the killing. They, not the US, are the perpetrators. The US tried to prevent that. You leftard traitor enablers of genocide prevented the killings from being stopped.
It’s the equivalent to actively stopping Rommel et al from assassinating Hitler (instead of mere fate keeping the Hitler alive.)
cambodia got dragged into it with nixon’s unauthorized bombing raids and deep incursions by americans onto cambdian territory, at the full knowledge and guidance of ….. the cia.
Which they did strictly for fun, of course – lord knows the Viet Cong weren’t running supply lines through Cambodia, nor were they launching attacks into the south from Cambodian territory, eh?
remember it was vietnam that was first to invade cambodia and put a stop to the grisliness that can to light there
One has nothing to do with the other. The Khmer Rouge was staging raids into Vietnam in a half-baked attempt to seize the whole Mekong Delta region, and this triggered the Vietnamese response. Given the treatment the Cong dished out to their own citizens, it’s safe to say they wouldn’t give a flying rat’s ass about how the KR treated Cambodians.
yo dud dudley: key word here is ‘and’
… invade cambodia AND put a stop ….
in other words stopping the killing fields was a byproduct. otherwise the wording would have been
… invade cambodia TO put a stop ….
get it ?
cia meddle meddle meddle and what did it get ?
‘air america’ (I saw about 1/2 hour of the movie)
cia meddle meddle meddle.
the simple fact is n vietnam WON for a slew of reasons, not the least was americans and 10,000 zippo raids ie ‘destroy the village to save it’ rube goldberg logic.
blaming hanoi jane is a leftist diversionary tactic.
warwick is ignorant of the fact the fatal destabilization of the entire area due to american mismanagement of the entire conflict gave the KR its foot in the door which in true extreme marxist fashion led to the killing fields in order to arrive at the ‘ideal’ population size and devoid of a professional class.
if it were a murder trial, the great ‘democracy ‘r us’ usa would be an accessory to the crime by setting the stage. guilty of reckless endangerment.
also: “the South begged the US for protection”
uh huh. would that be the south of ngo dhin diem? assassinated in a coup with american complicity ??
meddle meddle meddle. thanks a lot white house assholes lookitwhatchadidtomycountry !!!!!
you people really dont get it yet after this long.
you dont win the hearts and minds of the people by propping up every tin pot anti commie right wing spoutin’ tyrant. this myopic short term view fails time and again.
and one day after squandering the lives of 10,000 mil. personnel washington will finally tire of being present in baghdad and its environs and leave as they did saigon. because they refuse to win the hearts and minds of the common people and instead adamantly insist on a tried and failed formula called go for the short term gains.
how much of the present price tag of *half a trillion* has gone into the bank accounts of stock holders of the military suppliers? LOTS. plenty enough to finance the lobbyist cadre. its what they do and do very well.
all the pap about ‘democracy’ in iraq is the equivalent of one very long sound bite.