Reagan Supported The Khmer Rouge?
Dean
These people claim that Ronald Reagan supported the Khmer Rouge.
Would any of you like to take a turn at answering their charges?
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OMG. People who actually rely on CounterPunch! No wonder you think Michael Moore tells the whole truth.
Alexander Cockburn and his crew are excellent writers of modern fiction. They have invented for themselves the world they fear most--a world in which a handful of powerful people manipulate everything from the news to the weather, sometimes for their own benefit, but often just to fuck with the rest of us.
CounterPunch.com is the modern answer to unfriendly god myths of long ago civilizations. Those who read and believe CounterPunch's short stories evoke the kind of pity one feels for the ignorance of animals.
Further, Pilger reduces to three points regarding Reagan: a purported CIA contact itself officially denied by Thailand (who were reportedly involved), our government's reluctance to recognize the Vietnamese puppet government that replaced the Khmer Rouge, and some stories about US influence in humanitarian NGO work to funnel food to the Khmer Rouge. For these, Pilger himself seems to be the primary source (though I imagine official acts, like not recognizing a government, shouldn't be too hard to confirm).
By contrast, I found several references in Reagan's speeches disapprovingly referring to Pol Pot, as well as a thank-you funeral service held by Pol Pot Cambodian refugees in San Diego.
More later, if I have time.
Bill:
CounterPunch too partisan for you? OK, I can accept that. How about WorldHistory.com?:
"Pol Pot, an enemy of the Soviet Union, also gained support from Thailand and the US. In particular, the US and the PRC vetoed the allocation of Cambodia's United Nations General Assembly seat to a representative of Heng Samrin's government. Influenced by realpolitik the US directly and indirectly supported Pol Pot...Because he was anti-Soviet, the United States, Thailand and People's Republic of China considered him preferable to the pro-Vietnamese government. At times, the United States directly and indirectly supported Pol Pot and his hostility against the Soviet Union."-- http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/P/Pol-Pot.htm
Or the International Herald Tribune?:
"China, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand spent more than $1.3 billion in a largely secret program in the 1980s to support Khmer Rouge and non-Communist guerrillas in Cambodia fighting Vietnamese troops and allied Cambodian forces, the Singaporean senior minister, Lee Kuan Yew, has disclosed in his memoirs."-- http://www.iht.com/IHT/MR/00/mr092900.html
How about the New Statesman?:
"In fact, the US had been secretly funding Pol Pot in exile since January 1980. The extent of this support - $85m from 1980 to 1986 - was revealed in correspondence to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On the Thai border with Cambodia, the CIA and other intelligence agencies set up the Kampuchea Emergency Group, which ensured that humanitarian aid went to Khmer Rouge enclaves in the refugee camps and across the border. Two American aid workers, Linda Mason and Roger Brown, later wrote: "The US government insisted that the Khmer Rouge be fed . . . the US preferred that the Khmer Rouge operation benefit from the credibility of an internationally known relief operation."" -- http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/pilgerpot.htm
Well, you can look at what Reagan said, or at what he did. Your choice...
Perhaps it's me, but last time I checked the Chineese got along quite well with Russia, oh I'm sorry the USSR. Now, perhaps you can explain why it is a communist government would spend so much of it's blood money to hold back development of more communist countries? On that same note, why would the US, a DEMOCRACY, support a communist state? Especially a mass-murdering one that went out of it's way to prevent the US investing in, or even entering the borders during Pol Pot's time in power? (Since I'm sure this is all linked in your mind to US Capitalism being evil.)
Go on....I'm waiting.
On that same note, why would the US, a DEMOCRACY, support a communist state?
For the same reason we supported Saddam Hussein.
On second thought, don't post any links, I'll juust believe whatever you guys tell me to believe from now on.
Nothing like the enlightenment of referring to the president as an "unwashed chipm". Brilliant!!!
And I do love the defense of Edwards as a trial lawyer. The savior himself, apparently. Got a $25 Million dollar reward for a kid mortally injured by a swimming pool drain. Nevermind the fact that I find such ridiculous awards obscene, I'm sure Edwards donated his portion of the 25% contingency on that award to charity, right ? I'm sure Edwards is a big fan of the class action suit. You know, the types where lawyers pull in a tidy $100 Million while those affected by the suit get to wallow in their $5 gift certificates from Sears.
The savior's work indeed.
In point of fact Reagan was one of the only national politicians of the 1970s to speak out loudly against Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge--and was called a paranoid lunatic and a liar for it until the evidence became irrefutable.
By comparison we have the fact that in the 1980s the Reagan administration opened ties to them. And this, apparently, is "supporting the Khmer Rouge?" Yeah whatever. Smoke another one.
Didn't Ho Chi Minh try to appeal to the U.S. for help only to fall on deaf ears? (yes, that was under the Truman administration)
What bothers me is that anytime anyone criticizes any of the conservative icons they are automatically labelled traitors or liars. (yes, there are liars on both sides). Has the Bush administration done anything wrong? Did Reagan ever make a mistake? If your answer is "no" to both questions, you are a dishonest turd.
Actually, yes...I would consider giving them millions of dollars to be "supporting" them.
And I will smoke another one, thank you very much. Gotta light?
I'm rather stunned that anyone would say we "always" back the wrong people. Who do you expect us to back? When the cold war was ongoing the object was to oppose Soviet puppets like Allende, Castro, Ho, the Communists who took over Afghanistan, etc. This by necessity meant that we sometimes backed unsavery people--the question was, back the bad guy or the worse guy? Why make us out to be devils because we tried to choose the lesser of two evils? I must note that the alternative woudl be to invade the country and install democracy--which is what we did in Iraq and are being criticized for now by the very same people who said we did wrong by doing the opposite during the Cold War.
This is why some critics get lambasted as anti-American Tim. Because whenever there's a situation where America made a choice, they always say that choice was bad. They never say "we did the best with what we had to work with " or "we had to make tough choices." Just "America is evil and backed evil people."
I don't call that treason but it's hard not to notice when people decide that NO MATTER WHAT AMERICA DOES IT'S WRONG IN THEIR EYES.
Please don't tell me you think that the DNC is the radical left.
I'm sorry, but that's incredibly naive. And something else too: revisionist. A lot of the people saying now that the Soviets were destined to collapse are people who in the 1970s and 1980s were saying we had to just live with the Communist system because it was powerful and better and more efficient than ours in a lot of ways and we were fools to think we could beat them.
No. No, no, no. Over 100 million people were slaughtered in Communist death camps and in forced starvations. It was the most murderous system in human history. And their pattern was always the same: either invade directly, or, use subversion to overturn a government and then send in "military advisors" to consolidate their grip. It's what they did in most of Eastern Europe, in Africa, in Asia, in Cuba, and it's what they tried to do in places like El Salvador and Nicaragua and Chile. But fortunately for the world, the United States took a stand and opposed them.
We were right to oppose Allende. We were right to oppose the Sandinistas. These were bad, bad people, murderous people who were puppets to Castro and the Soviets. They needed to be stopped.
Does that mean we got into bed with seedy characters? YES! That's the reality of what you do if you get involved in opposing a worldwide movement of death and repression like Communism. It's for the same reason that we allied with Stalin against Hitler: Stalin was a monster and we knew it—we always knew it—but he was less of a threat than Hitler. So we did what we had to do.
And so again I say: you guys on the left (I used to be one of you, remember, so I'm including me here) get your reputation for lack of patriotism precisely because when it comes to issues like this, you almost invariably say that America is the bad guy and did the wrong thing, and don't even ask if maybe we were doing the best we could with the information and resources we had.
Remember, John F. Kennedy gave us the largest nuclear arms buildup in American history (much, much bigger than any other President before or since). Truman fought Kim in North Korea because he knew the Communists were a threat. Jimmy Carter the so-called "wimp" actually threatened to use nuclear weapons on the Soviets if they didn't cease their aggression in places like Afghanistan.
It is horrible, horrible revisionist history to say that Communism was no threat and was destined to collapse even if we'd done nothing. If we'd done nothing, most of the world would have gone Communist. Would it have collapsed after that? Maybe.
But maybe not. I notice who's still in charge in China and North Korea.
Remember that the Khmer were Communist (thus "Rouge" or "Red").
Well, you can look at what Reagan said, or at what he did. Your choice...
Or what the Cambodians did. Would refugees from the Khmer choose to honor his supporter?
Some people have no problem throwing around accusations of hypocrisy whenever it concerns someone they oppose. The problem with that is that most people, ultimately, do make sense in some way, and that once you understand what motivates them, some acts show themselves as fundamentally contradictory to their nature.
Put another way, no one can be purely evil or wrong, as there are too many contradictions inherent in that.
And if there's anything we know about Reagan, it's that he was anti-Communist to the very core of his being. He did some rash things in the service of his anti-Communism. He hurt others of his causes in the service of his anti-Communism, in ways that would have been trivial to avoid by simply compromising his anti-Communist nature in some way.
And yet we're supposed to believe that he was really into propping up a Communist movement in Cambodia? This doesn't pass the smell test.
Remember that the alternative to the Khmer was the Communist Vietnamese. So, we've got two Communist systems fighting each other. Which "son of a bitch" was better? Who can tell? It's my recollection that the Vietnamese weren't saints, either.
I think the most telling quote from the IHT is this:
That strikes me as the best outcome that could have been expected. If this was Reagan's goal, then I think he's been exonerated from the charge of "Pol Pot puppet".
(If I seem like I'm focusing on the IHT, it's because I see them as the only seriously credible source I've seen quoted so far by Don. Besides, worldhistory.com seems to be down, and the zmag piece is obviously Pilger, which I've dealt with already.)
This tribute to Reagan by Cambodians is also telling, as is the response indicated here.
This from:
And, if you read the article, you see him defending and eulogizing Reagan, not attacking him.
Cato was not impressed, either:
And this, admittedly secondhand, quote from an otherwise excellent article:
(No links, unfortunately. Is he repeating Pilger?)
And speaking of John Pilger, his writing betrays his agenda: anti-Vietnam-War. And yet, he seems to have the most firsthand knowledge of the subject, and seems to have been one of the earliest voices decrying the Khmer Rouge. It would be nice to get some independent confirmation for some of his assertions, but that may not be possible.
If Don and friends are trying to make a case that the world is not simple, well, mission accomplished. Ditto for proving that the Vietnam War messed up nearly all of Southeast Asia, and that the recovery process is still going on. And, no, we weren't waiting for proof that Reagan would do nearly anything to destabilize Communism; Iran-Contra taught us that.
But I get the impression that Don and company are really more about shoving something in someone's face, and about trying to convince us that the USA should be impotent, in spirit if not in fact, in pentinence for its past sins and in fear of its future ones.
The former sentiment isn't worth dignifying with a response. And the latter? Maybe that's one of the reasons Dean is getting so pissed off.
Perhaps the USA is a son of a bitch, but it's our son of a bitch. And it's really not that bad, given the history of global hegemons past. Most of our sins have arisen from good intentions or mistakes. That's a good reason to be more careful, but not a reason to hide in fear. Other parties are waiting in the wings to take the throne from us, and all of them look much worse to me.
BTW, Don, it doesn't look good when your opponents come up with better sources than you can for your own arguments. Keep that in mind the next time you go off half-cocked to push someone's face in the mud.
Thanks for the links and the thoughful analysis---all of which support my original statement, which was that the Reagan gang supported the Khmer Rouge. Together I think we've demonstrated to Dean and the other Reagan-worshiping revisionists that this is indeed a historical fact.
I'm not sure I agree with all your arguments as to why this was a good thing, but you make a strong case and have given me a lot to think about.
Thanks for the links and the thoughful analysis—-all of which support my original statement, which was that the Reagan gang supported the Khmer Rouge.
Just for the record, I do not see Don's statement as supported at all.
Don has yet to answer several questions: whether the main primary source, John Pilger, is lumping anti-Communist insurgents in with the Khmer Rouge, for one (given the contradiction between Pilger and Lee's memoirs). It would also be interesting to hear some theory as to how Reagan's supposed support of the Khmer Rouge fit with his strident anti-Communism.
But then, given his stated goal:
Together I think we've demonstrated to Dean and the other Reagan-worshiping revisionists that this is indeed a historical fact.
I don't expect a fair treatment of these issues anytime soon.
I cannot believe that any reasonable person wouldn't consider giving the Khmer Rouge millions of dollars in overt and covert aid to be "support."
Instead you try one of Dean's favorite tricks---redefining your premise in ever narrower ways while ignoring the 'elephant in the living room.'
And all this grew out of a throwaway comment about Reagan's many, many crimes.
I must mention that certain intellectuals of the Left, Noam Chomsky and Anthony Lewis of the "New York Times" and who knows how many in our universities, denied or downplayed Pol Pot's murders.
Fuck Pol Pot. Rot in eternal shit, Pol Pot and all of his loathsome collective.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.