MovieChat Forums > The Killing Fields (1985) Discussion > WEstern Support for Pol Pot

WEstern Support for Pol Pot

posted 15 years ago by nuwansube
31 replies | jump to latest

After Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge was toppled by the Vietnamese, astonishingly it was the Khmer Rouge who retained the UN seat, with full support from the "Democratic" West (who just a decade ago fought so "heroically" for the "liberation" of people pf South Vietnam).

And West, ASEAN countries and China sponsored, and recognized the government-in-exile known as the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. It was headed by Pol Pot and the largest group within it was the Khmer Rouge.

And throughout 1980s West, Thailand and China gave military aid to the rebellion carried out by the Khmer Rouge against the Vietnam backed government in Cambodia.

That is "Western Democracy" for you.

And those people who shout "Pol Pot was a communist" and "Cambodia under Khmer Rouge was the closest man ever came to Communism", think again.

"there are amongst the Khmer Rouge some very reasonable people and they will have to take part in a future government in Cambodia"
- Margaret Thatcher

"I'm sorry, I don't speak Monkey..."

[–] HamatoYoshi 15 years ago

Too true, it's funny when the right criticizes the left for supporting China and Soviet, when they at the same time supported dictators in South America (Pinochet anyone?) and the terrible KR-regime in Cambodia.

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[–] GamblinMike 15 years ago

Pol Pot was a communist, what do you imply by quoting that? China was also communist. As far as geography is concerned those countries you mentioned are not the West but East. Nixon had his famous "Nixon Doctrine", where the U.S. would bomb Cambodia to drive the Khmer Rouge out. Cambodia under Pot is the perfect example of the insanity of a communist utopia, as is the case with any country under such system, only that it didn't literally eat its people like in Cambodia. The fact that the UN recognized the Khmer Rouge as the government of Cambodia after its overthrow is pure irony. You shouldn't forget that North Vietnam supported the Khmer Rouge during the earlier part of the decade and the other way around. Both were communist, like China and the Soviet Union. History has shown that today's friend might be tomorrow's foe.

[–] vincent-27 15 years ago

Communist utopia, Capitalist utopia, dogmatic belief that you have the one and only "answer" to the worlds problems is what causes so much destruction. The Tree bends in the wind, it has no grief.

--
"Surrender Dorothy!"

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[–] dont_b_so_BBC 15 years ago

That is "Western Democracy" for you.

That's "Realpolitik" for you.

In practice, ideology and "-isms" are mostly used for dressing up realpolitik and taking moral high-ground (to gather support from believers)-- including the meta-narratives like "The End of History" "The Clash of Civilization".

Karl Marx's predictions and proposals may be seriously flawed, but his economic analysis of history by "following the money/power/interests" still applies a better methodology than most ideologies and "-isms".

"I don't go to movies to escape reality: I go to experience life in a raw, intense way"-- S. Copley

[–] Humanophage 14 years ago

Ideology plays an enormous role in policy. Do you think the Khmer Rouge were slaughtering the populace because it was realpolitik? Realpolitik usually leads to disaster when it is opposed ideologically, Nixon being a good example.

[–] mojorising_you 15 years ago

It's no wonder that Isolationism is gaining some ground. Our friends look like our enemies and vice-versa. Looks like we should have let the Soviets have Afghanistan. Left Vietnam and Korea alone and who cares if Iraq took Kuwait? How about Israel and the Palestinians work it out themselves or have China be the honest broker. We are the biggest buttinskies in the world and all its bought us has been blow-back. Time for a major 50 year timeout from our adventuresome foreign policy.

Seem everything the U.S. touches gets poisoned or becomes a foreign policy nightmare with big costs to this country. I, for one, am less interested in determining if and when our government behaves correctly, but having less consequences when they don't. Let's get rid of 90% of our State department and end all Foreign aid.

[–] overninethousand 15 years ago

China be the honest broker.

Yeah, you had "China the honest broker" in Cambodia alright. What are you doing here on this board, anyway?

[–] Eumenides_0 14 years ago

Seem everything the U.S. touches gets poisoned or becomes a foreign policy nightmare with big costs to this country. I, for one, am less interested in determining if and when our government behaves correctly, but having less consequences when they don't. Let's get rid of 90% of our State department and end all Foreign aid.

The costs are big to the U.S. people, but the profits are tremendous for the business companies that, in tandem with the U.S. government, orchestrate a foreign policy built on forcing free market on other nations. The U.S. people pay for wars with their taxes, and sacrifice thousands of soldiers, so that the U.S. government can create client states for business companies.

Foreign aid is not the problem. The problem is that "foreign aid" is sometimes an euphemism for colonialism. Really helping people is noble and necessary. But countries like Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia weren't invaded oout of nobility. They were invaded to create new markets for business companies, to disrupt nationalist movements fighting centuries-old colonialism (the U.S. inherited the Indochina wars from the French colonialists) because these movements threatened the business interests of an elite that didn't care about the majority of the population.

This continues today, when "foreign aid" is selectively given only to countries that have valuable raw materials: Iraq, Lybia.

This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

[–] overninethousand 15 years ago

Not Pol Pot but Sihanouk.

Yes, the same guy they dethroned in 1970 for secretly collaborating with North Vietnamese. The ultimate opportunist. But anyway.

Oh, and by the way. In "the Vietnam backed government in Cambodia" the KR were the largest group too. Their leaders were former KR. Their foreign-occupier backers were former backers of KR. So this.

One more thing. You've seen the film. Why do you think Dith Pran and his companions were hiding from a Vietnamese tank?

[–] erikriveros 15 years ago

well you know those western democracies...terrible right? i mean, they're almost as well, every other form of government, ever, anywhere right? or is there a better one somewhere that i'm missing?

please say communism, please say communism.

it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

[–] overninethousand 15 years ago

what

[–] erikriveros 14 years ago

well you know those western democracies...terrible right? out of curiosity which system do you find better?

better?

please say communism, please say communism.

it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

[–] simba-18 14 years ago

Pol Pot

Cambodian dictator Pol Pot (aka Saloth Sar), was born May 19th, 1925 in Kampong Thum province, Cambodia according to Ben Kiernan’s The Pol Pot Regime. Father to the infamous Killing Fields immortalized in Academy Award winning movie of the same name.

Phillip Short’s Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare describes a mediocre Cambodian student from a politically connected family sent to study radio tech in France. Instead he focused on communism. Pol Pot is the most brutally efficient dictator of all the Marxists since he killed 1.7 million Cambodians, or 21% of the country’s population—a larger portion of the total population than any other communist tyrant. This occurred through the Killing Fields, a logical extension of Pot’s typically Marxist decision to create a “new economy.” He drove peasants off their land, and city-dwellers from urban areas, into forced labor, reminiscent of Mao’s harebrained Great Leap Forwards, which influenced him, as described here:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/38994

[–] cash_carstar 13 years ago

well you know those western democracies...terrible right? out of curiosity which system do you find better?

What's the line? Ah, (paraphrased): "Democracy is the worst form of government imaginable...except for all the other ones."

"That's what a gym teacher once told me."

[–] erikriveros 13 years ago

that's churchill cash, but yup..exactly.

it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

[–] varuns-1 11 years ago

Churchill said those lines, but he was a racist colonialist bas*ard, who thought democracy was too good for the Africans, Indians, Jamaicans and even the Irish.