Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge

[Comrade Hector]

Greetings Comrades! I couldn't help to point out Capitalist Lawyer's exaggerated "study of 'Communist atrocities'". What he said about the Khmer Rouge must be criticized. He, like every other Capitalist and western patriot foolishly believes that Pol Pot and his genocidal Khmer Rouge was an act of Communism. Lets have a look at Pol Pot and his program. Under Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge siezed control of Cambodia in 1975 from the Monarchy of Prince Norodom Sihanhouk. From that point on Pol Pot transformed Cambodia into a xenophobic genocidal state. People in Cambodia were denied education, medicine, books, and proper housing. People with literacy, and spoke a foreign language were punished with death sentences by the Khmer Rouge. These victims included a high number of Cambodian Communists as well. Ethnic minorities were met with the same fate. Soviet and Eastern European diplomats were expelled from Cambodia. How can this fanatic Pol Pot be called a Communist, when the program of Communism guarantees education, medicine, housing, and equal rights for all the citizens of a country after the Revolution? Ongoing slaughter of ethnic minorities and hatred of foreigners, does this not contradict Marx's popular slogan "Workers of the World, Unite"?

Pol Pot's hatred of minorities extended to anti-Vietnamese racism. Pol Pot took an anti-Vietnamese and anti-Soviet position as he allied himself with reformist China. The ethnic Vietnamese of Cambodia became a primary target for the oppression of the Khmer Rouge. Therefore in Pol Pot the USA saw an oppurtunity to regain its interests. The CIA began sending money and arms to the Khmer Rouge for the genocidal campaign. US goal was about taking revenge against the Vietnamese for defeating them and ending their interests. US aid to Pol Pot was hoped to encourage an ethnic-Cambodian uprising in Vietnam to where the Khmer Rouge would intervene and drive a counter-revolutionary dagger through Vietnam, restoring capitalism, and the US making the dollars in Saigon off the Vietnamese people. Fortunately in 1979 the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia along side Cambodian Communist exiles who fled Pol Pot's terror. The revolution succeeded, and Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge was brought down, as they fled to Thailand. When the Vietnamese discovered the "killing fields" of Pol Pot, many of them hardened by war with the Japanese, French, and Americans were appalled and retched their stomaches out. Heng Samrin and Hun Sen (two of the many Communists who fled to Vietnam from Pol Pot's terror) became the leaders of the now Socialist Cambodia, as friendship with their Vietnamese comrades was restored. US support for Pol Pot continued in Thailand to wage war against the Cambodian Socialist government for the next decade. Zbigniew Brzezinski, US national security advisor even said, "I call on China to support Pol Pot. The US as China has sent arms to the Khmer Rouge through Thailand" as he winked publicly. Obviously the USA looked at Pol Pot as a "freedom fighter" and "defender of democracy". Today they cry bogus tears of hypocrisy for the victims of Pol Pot's murderous regime.

In 1991 the Cambodian Socialist state fell to counter-revolution which restored the Monarchy under Prince Sihanouk. Pol Pot would eventually find comfort living in Cambodia under the Monarchy. He would never be tried, indicted, or investigated for crimes against humanity. Before his death in 1998 he stated, "My conscious is clear". Hmm, I wonder why did the US never indict Pol Pot? Perhaps the Capitalists can answer that one for us.

In the mean time read these articles for more information on US aid to the Khmer Rouge "Freedom Fighters":

The U.S. Is Even More Guilty Than Pol Pot (http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/pol/polpotmontclarion0498.html)

US supports Pol Pot (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_PolPot.html)

[Comrade Hector]

I must say I'm rather disappointed. I had hoped that Capitalist Lawyer and other right-wingers would be able to debate in the subject of the US secretly supporting Pol Pot. I wonder what positions such people would have if this was widely known.

[Louis Pio]

One would imagine that this change their view on Pol Pot from bad guy to good guy :P

[Comrade Hector]

Surely there must be some pathetic "freedom" and "democracy" excuse from the Capitalists of the US supporting Pol Pot. Possibly just the same ones they give when the argument comes up about how the US supported Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. When you get the Capitalists to think, they usually shut up. I live in a town where even the Mexicans are Republicans (no joke), so I know.

[Solzhenitsyn]

I'm willing to deal.

What political party was Pol-Pot general secretary of?
What political organization in France provided Pol-Pot with an education?

when the program of Communism guarantees education, medicine, housing, and equal rights for all the citizens of a country after the Revolution?

A guarantee which Communism has never delivered nor intends to. How is Pol-Pot unique in this regard?

These victims included a high number of Cambodian Communists as well.

So what? Other, supposedly less enthusiastic Marxists are prime canidates for, in Lenin's terms, liquidation to a newly minted Communist government.

Soviet and Eastern European diplomats were expelled from Cambodia.

If memory serves me correctly wasn't China and the Soviet Union involved in some mutually assured diplomatic explusions gambit. So was Vietnam and China. Evidence that Pol-Pot was marching to a tune playing in Beijing.

Pol Pot's hatred of minorities extended to anti-Vietnamese racism.

Pol Pot hated the Vietnamese because the Vietnamese were in a fratricidal squabble with China. He put the screws to the Vietnamese (most of which where refugees from the Shangra-la on the Hanoi) to force the Vietnamese government to get with the Maoist program.

Zbigniew Brzezinski you need say no more. Z.B. (Carter's NSA) was and still is a fucking lunatic of the highest order (He thinks Eastern Orthodoxy was the animating force behind Communism). I doubt he could think clearly enough to piece a grammatical sentence together. Your source for the quote is?

[LSD]

What political party was Pol-Pot general secretary of?
What political organization in France provided Pol-Pot with an education?

Was National Socialism socialist because they used the word?
Was the Democratic Republic of Germany democratic?
Is the People's Republic of China a republic of the people?

If you haven't learned by now that names mean nothing...


A guarantee which Communism has never delivered nor intends to. How is Pol-Pot unique in this regard?

FLASH: New York, 1770. (if you had been a "founding father"):
"Democracy has never worked properly, Athens was defeated, Rome became an empire. Democracy cannot work because of-"
"Yes, you are indeed correct, let us not attempt to form a democracy on these shores."
"Yes indeed, let us consume much beer instead!"


Lack of precedent doesn't disprove the theory.
"Communism" has been misused just as Christianity has been misused and every political and philisophical and ecnomic theory throughout history has been misused.
"Democratic Kampuchea" is not the only example, but the name alone proves nothing.

You have to look at the actions themselves to determine whether or not they were truly communist.


So what? Other, supposedly less enthusiastic Marxists are prime canidates for, in Lenin's terms, liquidation to a newly minted Communist government.

Haven't you heared, Leninism is "Marxism in the age of imperialism".
In other words, it ain't Communism.


Pol Pot hated the Vietnamese because the Vietnamese were in a fratricidal squabble with China. He put the screws to the Vietnamese (most of which where refugees from the Shangra-la on the Hanoi) to force the Vietnamese government to get with the Maoist program.

Yes and no.

North Vietnam originally aided the Khmer Rouge, but politics is politics right...

Cambodia did ally with China, but, again, that proves nothing. China is probably the least communist "Communist" nation on earth.
Can you say Chairment Deng?


Zbigniew Brzezinski you need say no more. Z.B. (Carter's NSA) was and still is a fucking lunatic of the highest order (He thinks Eastern Orthodoxy was the animating force behind Communism). I doubt he could think clearly enough to piece a grammatical sentence together.

hmm.. so the American National Security Chief durring much of the period in question both was a "fucking lunatic of the highest order" and "[couldn't] think clearly enough to piece a grammatical sentence together."

I think that proves Hector's point.

Pol Pot overthrew the Cambodian government inlate '75. Brezhinski was NSA from 76 through 80, exactly the years in which the Khmer rouge needed political and financial and surrupticious support. I think a lunatic on the level you describe would be perfectly capable of exactly what hector accuses him.

[Nyder]

I support laissez faire free market capitalism.

I do not support the US Government or any government.

An attack on the US Government is not an attack on capitalism.

The US Government is a public institution that funds itself through taxation. A business is a private institution that funds itself through trade. There is a difference.

A business that influences the US Government to do favours for them is un-ethical and does not represent the way most businesses operate.

[Nyder]

I support laissez faire free market capitalism.

I do not support the US Government or any government.

An attack on the US Government is not an attack on capitalism.

The US Government is a public institution that funds itself through taxation. A business is a private institution that funds itself through trade. There is a difference.

A business that influences the US Government to do favours for them is un-ethical and does not represent the way most businesses operate.

[Nyder]

I support laissez faire free market capitalism.

I do not support the US Government or any government.

An attack on the US Government is not an attack on capitalism.

The US Government is a public institution that funds itself through taxation. A business is a private institution that funds itself through trade. There is a difference.

A business that influences the US Government to do favours for them is un-ethical and does not represent the way most businesses operate.

[LSD]

support laissez faire free market capitalism.

I do not support the US Government or any government.

An attack on the US Government is not an attack on capitalism.

The US Government is a public institution that funds itself through taxation. A business is a private institution that funds itself through trade. There is a difference.

A business that influences the US Government to do favours for them is un-ethical and does not represent the way most businesses operate.

What does any of that diatribe have to do with the Khmer Rouge!?!?!?!

[LSD]

support laissez faire free market capitalism.

I do not support the US Government or any government.

An attack on the US Government is not an attack on capitalism.

The US Government is a public institution that funds itself through taxation. A business is a private institution that funds itself through trade. There is a difference.

A business that influences the US Government to do favours for them is un-ethical and does not represent the way most businesses operate.

What does any of that diatribe have to do with the Khmer Rouge!?!?!?!

[LSD]

support laissez faire free market capitalism.

I do not support the US Government or any government.

An attack on the US Government is not an attack on capitalism.

The US Government is a public institution that funds itself through taxation. A business is a private institution that funds itself through trade. There is a difference.

A business that influences the US Government to do favours for them is un-ethical and does not represent the way most businesses operate.

What does any of that diatribe have to do with the Khmer Rouge!?!?!?!

[Comrade Hector]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2004, 11:44 AM
I'm willing to deal.

What political party was Pol-Pot general secretary of?
What political organization in France provided Pol-Pot with an education?

What did Pol Pot do to make him a Communist? What was it about his program that was Communist after he took power? As I stated, nothing about Pol Pot was Communist. Communism is not based on extreme nationalism, hatred of minorities, and denying the people to their basic human needs!


A guarantee which Communism has never delivered nor intends to. How is Pol-Pot unique in this regard?

In ever Socialist country employment is gauranteed, as well as housing, education, medicine, equal rights. Name one country (except for China) that has not followed these programs. Perhaps you may be getting Communist program confused with Capitalism?


Zbigniew Brzezinski you need say no more. Z.B. (Carter's NSA) was and still is a fucking lunatic of the highest order (He thinks Eastern Orthodoxy was the animating force behind Communism). I doubt he could think clearly enough to piece a grammatical sentence together. Your source for the quote is?

I must congratulate you. You're the only Capitalist to make a pathetic attempt to prove me wrong about Pol Pot. At least it was a try. But you don't deny US support to Pol Pot. Look at the two links I have previously posted, those are two of my sources. Both will have Brzezinski's famous quote about supporting the Khmer Rouge "freedom fighters". How could you have missed them? Good try!

[Comrade Hector]

Hopefully the cappies will get the message second time around. Especially capitalist lawyer.

[red_orchestra]

I ask those who supported Pol Pot over Ho Chi Min to watch the movie...

The Killing Fields

You see I met the man behind the film, the true survivor of Pol Pot's Cambodia...Dith Pran. Fucking horrific.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

This guy, Synder, grants the state some neutral status, sitting "above" society. He would have fit in well in Germany in 1844.

[Publius]

FLASH: New York, 1770. (if you had been a "founding father"):
"Democracy has never worked properly, Athens was defeated, Rome became an empire. Democracy cannot work because of-"
"Yes, you are indeed correct, let us not attempt to form a democracy on these shores."
"Yes indeed, let us consume much beer instead!"


Lack of precedent doesn't disprove the theory.

We didn't erect a democracy.

We erected a Republic.

Need I quote the passages that I, Publius, wrote in my fantastic Federalist Papers about the ills of democracy?

This is basic civics, come on.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2005, 04:22 PM
We didn't erect a democracy.

We erected a Republic.
Fine, republicanism obviously was dead in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars; the U.S. and Switzerland - the only remaining republics in the world - obviously relics of a dead past. Why do those colonial hicks persist in holding on to a failed dream, which can only lead to tyrants like Napoleon?

(The analogy's more than superficial; Napoleon was the Stalin of the French Revolution. The regime of half-counterrevolution was just longer-lived in the USSR.)

***

It's a moronic quibble anyway; the U.S. is a capitalist democratic republic. "Republic" by itself is an extremely vague term - literally, "the public thing", almost anything that isn't a monarchy can accurately be described as a republic.

People who think the U.S. political system can be described simply by calling it a republic, or think that's counterposed to democracy...like I said, moronic quibblers.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 1 2004, 02:02 PM

A guarantee which Communism has never delivered nor intends to. How is Pol-Pot unique in this regard?

In ever Socialist country employment is gauranteed, as well as housing, education, medicine, equal rights. Name one country (except for China) that has not followed these programs. Perhaps you may be getting Communist program confused with Capitalism?
In China as well, programs improving health care and education for the population were implemented after the revolution. Comparing the statistics for China and India is illuminating...two countries are of roughly equal size and, in 1949, roughly equal levels of development. The positive effects of the Chinese Revolution come through.

The point becomes even clearer when you look at Cuba, which hasn't had the tyrannical apparatchik regime, with its forced collectivization and ruinous policy lurches (Great Leap Forward, etc. etc.)

Anticapitalist revolutions, which result in the creation of workers' states, have positive effects for the conditions of life for workers and farmers. Even when bureaucratic regimes have dominated from the beginning, there have been important advances for working people, due to their participation in making those revolutions.

The Khmer Rouge takeover did the opposite; their approach was reminiscent of the "Barracks-room communism" Karl Marx denounced, which was aimed at "making everyone produce as much as possible and consume as little as possible." It regarded the Cambodian workers as its deadly enemies.

The contrast is clear; the Khmer Rouge had nothing whatsoever to do with communism, or workers' revolution, or anything of the sort.

****

LSD wrote:

Haven't you heared, Leninism is "Marxism in the age of imperialism".
In other words, it ain't Communism.

What? God forbid anyone apply Marxism to the concrete situation of today, huh? Ceases to be simon-pure utopian communism then?

Seems to me the standard way of explaining why "that wasn't communism" to people in OI suffers from a utopian approach.....

It emphasizes the few features Marx projected of what a future communist society is likely to look like, and treats it as the utopian "goal" which defines the communist movement. "Actually existing" societies are compared to this ideal, and found lacking.

Well, yeah. Of course.

That doesn't answer, though, whether the people leading these regimes were communists, or those societies were on the road to socialism....

Which they weren't, of course. They represented the rule of a privileged bureaucratic caste, not the working class. And the communist movement is all about the interests, struggle, and self-liberation of the working class.

The first of these bureaucratic regimes arose due to the very difficult conditions facing the young Soviet Union....from there, the pattern was extended to other countries, also lacking the material conditions for socialism, by the Red Army or Moscow-franchised "Communist" parties.

Cuba, where a new revolutionary organization bypassed the Kremlin-oriented party, is noticeably different. Despite also facing adverse conditions.

[Publius]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 01:28 AM





Fine, republicanism obviously was dead in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars; the U.S. and Switzerland - the only remaining republics in the world - obviously relics of a dead past. Why do those colonial hicks persist in holding on to a failed dream, which can only lead to tyrants like Napoleon?

(The analogy's more than superficial; Napoleon was the Stalin of the French Revolution. The regime of half-counterrevolution was just longer-lived in the USSR.)

Much better.

Sorry, but being Publius, I feel the need to be pedantic about this.


It's a moronic quibble anyway; the U.S. is a capitalist democratic republic. "Republic" by itself is an extremely vague term - literally, "the public thing", almost anything that isn't a monarchy can accurately be described as a republic.

People who think the U.S. political system can be described simply by calling it a republic, or think that's counterposed to democracy...like I said, moronic quibblers.

No, there are vast differences between a true democracy (Athens) and a true Republic (Early America).

Need I break out the Constitution?

In a democracy, the people rule. In a Republic (Like ours), the Constitution rules.

In a true democracy, nothing is preventing the demos from taking what they want. In a Republic with a government granted limited, ennumerated powers, the demos is not the absolute rule.

The fact that you are simply not listening to what the creators of the country intended cannot be ascribed to my quibbling, but to your (Willfull) ignorance.