[lbo-talk] Pol Pot: Not Such A Bad Guy

[John Wesley]

That's correct, he technically was.
If I remember correctly, the US was actually not in favor of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979.
In the bizarre Cold War strategic orientations of the superpowers, it was critical for the US to back Pol Pot (who was supported by Beijing) over the Vietnamese (who were of course aligned with Moscow).
The US even opposed the seating at the UN of the delegate representing the Vietnamese-installed regime, favoring  instead the retention of Pol Pot's representatives.
 
Mike G.

El pueblo armado jamas sera aplastado!

 

________________________________

 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org 
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Pol Pot: Not Such A Bad Guy

  

On Oct 16, 2012, at 4:25 PM, "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> Something like this has always seemed to me fairly obvious. Mostly because
> the voluminous "criticism" of these regimes has never, once, led to anything
> useful, except perhaps to the moral self-satisfaction of the critic.

Actually, Vietnam staged one of the only admirable and successful humanitarian interventions in history and deposed Pol Pot - over U.S. opposition. So this glorious hero of socialism was actually a useful pawn of Washington.

And your comment is, of course, utterly free of moral self-satisfaction.

Doug
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