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Comment by anticodon | Hacker News Reader

Pol Pot came to power due to USA backed coup. USA spies tried to kill king of Cambodia multiple times but failed. So, they taught and financed guerillas to oust the king by means of military coup and install a pro-USA government.

Pro-USA government didn't last long, and Pol Pot took its place.

And, BTW, the most well hidden secret is that USA supported Pol Pot and even provided financial support to his government.

USA: making a better world through revolutions, coups and military invasions for more than a century!

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>” And, BTW, the most well hidden secret is that USA supported Pol Pot and even provided financial support to his government.”

According to Wikipedia, the USA did not materially support the Khmer Rouge, though they did vote in favor of certain UN resolutions which favored the regime. Do you have some evidence or support for your claims?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_United_States_s...

IIRC from [0] US politicians long regarded the horror stories out of Cambodia as exaggerated tales at best, enemy propaganda at worst, since the Cambodian regime was opposed to the newly formed Vietnamese government.

They couldn't politically support the cause of their former enemy, so Cambodians suffered for longer, until Vietnam got bold enough to invade and liberate them (Edit: I don't know whether the aim was to liberate, the aim probably was to invade but it resulted in liberation).

But yeah, I don't remember any material support either. But the political support was deciding in keeping the madmen going in the country.

[0] "A Problem from Hell" by Samantha Power

Again according to Wikipedia, the Khmer Rouge were initially supported by the North Vietnamese and Chinese, only turning against the former later on. The USA appears to have opposed the Khmer Rouge until they were largely a spent force. Given the articles on the subject, and my understanding of the political situation at the time, I find it hard to believe that the USA abetted any Khmer Rouge activity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_Civil_War

The article you cited ends with the victory of the Khmer Rouge in 1975. It deals with the events before the Khmer Rouge rule of terror, which lasted until 1979.

In terms of support, it seems you can even quote Kissinger on it:

"You should tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs but we won't let that stand in our way."

"The Thais and the Chinese did not want a Vietnamese-dominated Indochina. We didn't want the Vietnamese to dominate. I don't believe we did anything for Pol Pot. But I suspect we closed our eyes when some others did something for Pol Pot." (Edit, others meaning China in the context) [0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_United_States_s...

It's more that they spent the entirety of the Cold War period propping up any dictators they could find as long as they weren't communists, and it usually backfired.

>” It's more that they spent the entirety of the Cold War period propping up any dictators they could find as long as they weren't communists, and it usually backfired.”

But the Khmer Rouge were the communists! They were officially the “Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK)”.

Yeah they supported the right-wing dictator that deposed the king who then joined Pol Pot and enabled his rebellion to succeed. And policy shifted after the 70s when they decided communism was ok, as long as you opposed the USSR. This was the justification for normalizing relations with China, who wound up supporting the Khmer Rouge, since they opposed post-war Vietnam (who they had just supported in the Vietnam War), which was a USSR ally.

It was a complicated time to be deciding who to coup.

USA murdered many Cambodian civilians while bombing enemy soldiers in Cambodia [0]. This behavior gave a lot of political capital to revolutionaries who later did genocide.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freedom_Deal

Pol Pot was classic Marxist and everything USA fought against in the Vietnam, Korean and other Cold wars.

> Pol Pot was classic Marxist

It's not true. Pol Pot was a madman that created his own crazy theory that included parts of Marxism.

Where does Marx said that the city populations must be evacuated to the villages and teachers killed?

Anyway, the point is not in the details. My point is that USA meddling with politics in remote countries usually results in civil war, millions of dead people and economical decline that lasts for decades. It was true for Cambodia, it's true for Arab Spring countries, it's true for Ukraine which is the last known victim of USA backed revolution to this day. How many more victims this world needs?

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