Saw this thread on DU

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5392666


patrice (1000+ posts) Sat Apr-04-09 09:51 PM
Response to Original message
2. War is proof positive of FAILED LEADERSHIP.
Edited on Sat Apr-04-09 09:53 PM by patrice
Killing people and destroying their homes and land for something that you calculate that they may, or may not, do, only insures that they will, in fact, go ahead and do whatever it was that you don't want them to do, at the earliest opportunity.

At first this comment sounds like it agrees with the OP that "Humanitarian Intervention" is just a grim imperialist joke. But then you stop to ask..what is his objection? That the imperialists aren't "leading" properly? That somehow those people who are hostile to us (for reasons unknown of course) simply need more open hand and less closed fist to get them to do our bidding. How radical..

Gotta be some kinda commentary on DU..

Secondly, a question for the Reality Bender from the same thread:


the Vietnamese didn't go into Cambodia to save Pol Pot's victims.

Why did they go into Cambodia?

Saw this thread on DU

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5392666


Secondly, a question for the Reality Bender from the same thread:


the Vietnamese didn't go into Cambodia to save Pol Pot's victims.

Why did they go into Cambodia?





They went in to save their own victim's of Pol Pot.

The whole Cambodia thing is such a nest of lies. The whole Pol Pot crew were simply upper class students in Paris who organized on a nationalist basis because they considered the Cambodian Communist Party to be subservient to the hated Vietnamese. Their "victory" in Cambodia was due to everyone but them. The Chinese "support" was opportunist, at best (as a counter to the Soviets and Viets). They were ideologically closer to bin Laden and other right-wing nationalists than to any "communists" before or since, and in any case, by far the greatest support for them came from the U.S.A. The Cambodian story gives hypocrisy a new standard.


The Wiki article on the Vietnamese invasion is actually pretty accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian-Vietnamese_War



The war between Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea began shortly after the fall of Saigon. On May 1, 1975, a team of Khmer Rouge soldiers raided Phu Quoc Island against little or no Vietnamese resistance, and then executed more than five hundred Vietnamese civilians on Tho Chu Island. Angered by the Khmer Rouge's aggression, Hanoi launched a counter-attack that resulted in the liberation of those islands by Vietnamese forces. The battle over Phu Quoc was a cause of concern for the newly-established Socialist Republic of Vietnam as the country was challenged by a new enemy at a time when relations with the People's Republic of China began to deteriorate due to Vietnam's ideological alignment with the Soviet Union. That concern was further strengthened by the presence of Chinese advisors to Pol Pot's regime and increasing shipments of military hardware to Kampuchea's armed forces.

Following the raids on Phu Quoc and Tho Chu Islands the Khmer Rouge conducted two major incursions into Vietnam. The first attack occurred in April 1977, when regular units of the Khmer Rouge army advanced 10 kilometres (6 mi) into Vietnam, occupying some parts of An Giang Province where it massacred a large number of Vietnamese civilians. The second attack was in September of the same year. This time they were able to advance 150 kilometres (93 mi) into Vietnam. In retaliation, six divisions of the Vietnam People's Army invaded Cambodia on December 31, 1977. The Vietnamese army advanced as far as Neak Luong and later withdrew, taking with them some key Khmer Rouge figures, including future Prime Minister Hun Sen. The invasion was intended only as a "warning" to the Khmer Rouge. The Vietnamese offered a diplomatic solution to the border conflict that would require the establishment of a demilitarized zone along the border, but the offer was rejected by Pol Pot and fighting resumed.

Meanwhile, as the fighting continued to rage in the border areas between Vietnam and Kampuchea, the Khmer Rouge leadership began to purge members of its own party, as well as military commanders who escaped from Vietnamese forces after the short offensive in September 1977. Undeterred by earlier defeats the Khmer Rouge launched another major offensive into Vietnam using two regular divisions. Once again the Khmer Rouge was able to occupy some townships in Vietnam, conducting clearing operations that included the massacre of civilians. In one notable event the town of Ba Chuc was raided by the Khmer Rouge forces; by the time it was over most of Ba Chuc's inhabitants were brutally slaughtered leaving only two survivors.

Hanoi was now resolved to remove the threat of the Khmer Rouge permanently. The Vietnamese assembled a force of 10 divisions along the border with Kampuchea, with strong armour and air support they advanced into Khmer Rouge-held territory on December 25, 1978. The Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation (KNUFNS), created with assistance from Hanoi, also went along with the military operation.

The Khmer Rouge had prepared a force of 70,000 to resist the invasion, but was not able to prevent the Vietnamese from advancing to Phnom Penh, which was captured on January 7, 1979. The Khmer Rouge switched to a guerrilla campaign and began to attack the long and exposed line of communication of the Vietnamese forces. The Vietnamese used the pretext that none of their own troops were actually fighting but only supporting the KNUFNS in their struggle against the brutal Khmer Rouge. This was not the case: Vietnam had over 150,000 troops in Cambodia, while the KNUFNS force numbered only 20,000. For the remainder of the occupation, the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge were locked in a bloody guerrilla war. Vietnamese forces held the cities while the Khmer Rouge controlled the rural areas, especially along the Thai border. The struggle did not end until Vietnam withdrew its troops in the late 1980s. The number of casualties is uncertain but is estimated at 30,000 on each side.

The Pol Pot regime of Democratic Kampuchea was largely supported with the People's Republic of China, with both regimes based on closely associated Maoist ideologies. The Vietnamese attack on Cambodia was followed by massive amounts of troop deployments along the vast China-Vietnamese border. On the dawn of February 17, 1979, the People's Liberation Army moved into Vietnamese territory, at which point the Cambodian capital already had been captured by the Vietnamese and the Pol Pot regime toppled (see below), reportedly accusing the Vietnamese government of "revisionist" ideologies and the mistreatment of ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam. The Chinese kept moving into the north of Vietnam, reportedly advancing towards Hanoi at a high speed though not on good terms with their supply lines. The Chinese army captured Cao Bang on March 2 and Lang Son on March 4. The following day, however, the Beijing regime announced that it would not participate in further action moving more deeply into Vietnam, apparently after meeting fierce and unexpected harsh resistance by the well trained and experienced Vietnamese forces, supplied with American technology left behind earlier.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5351VF20090406


Khmer Rouge jailer says U.S. contributed to Pol Pot rise
Mon Apr 6, 2009

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Pol Pot's chief torturer told Cambodia's "Killing Fields" tribunal on Monday that U.S. policies in Indochina in the 1970s contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge.

Duch, the first of five Pol Pot cadres to face trial for the 1975-79 reign of terror in which 1.7 million Cambodians died, said the Khmer Rouge would have faded if the U.S. had not got involved in Cambodia.

"Mr Richard Nixon and Kissinger allowed the Khmer Rouge to grasp golden opportunities," the 66-year-old former jailer said at the start of the second week of his trial by the joint U.N.-Cambodian tribunal.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, was chief of the notorious S-21 prison where more than 14,000 enemies of the revolution were tortured and killed.

Last week, he apologized and begged forgiveness for his crimes. Duch faces life in prison if convicted on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and homicide. When asked by a judge to explain how he joined the Khmer Rouge, Duch gave a long, rambling answer that included references to former U.S. President Richard Nixon and ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Cambodia became a Cold War battlefield in 1969 when the Nixon administration began bombing routes in the east of the country that Soviet-backed North Vietnamese troops were using to transport men and supplies for their war against the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon.

In 1970, then Prince Norodom Sihanouk was ousted in a coup led by U.S.-backed General Lon Nol, who cranked up the war against Vietnamese and Cambodian communists.

Sihanouk later formed an alliance with the Khmer Rouge and he urged Cambodians to join the fight against Lon Nol's regime, which fell to Pol Pot's army in 1975.

"Prince Sihanouk called on the Cambodian people to go and join the communist Khmer Rouge in the jungle and that allowed the Khmer Rouge to build up their troops from 1970 to 1975," he said.

Without these events, Duch said: "I think the Khmer Rouge would have been demolished."