A RAT BASTARD TRIES TO RE-WRITE HISTORY

The LA Times decided to give some op-ed space to Henry 'The Butcher" Kissinger. In it, he essentially urges us to not to let the "diry stinking hippies" end another pointless war. I notice that here was not one word about Cambodia. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Cambodian Incursion, here's a brief recap:

Nixon consequently refrained from striking North Vietnam, but he could not resist the opportunity to intervene in Cambodia, where a pro-Western government under General Lon Nol had overthrown Sihanouk's neutralist regime in March 1970. Since that time, the new regime had attempted to force the communists out of their border sanctuaries. The North Vietnamese easily fended off the attacks of the Cambodian army and began to arm and support the Cambodian communist movement, known as the Khmer Rouge. Eager to support Lon Nol and destroy the sanctuaries, Nixon authorized a large sweep into the border areas by a U.S. and South Vietnamese force of 20,000 men. The allies captured enormous quantities of supplies and equipment but failed to trap any large enemy forces.¹

William Shawcross wrote the defnitive account of this fiasco: Sideshow, Revised Edition: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia. Here's a fair review:

THERE WAS a special sadness about Cambodia and Laos, victims of geography and the mistakes, ambitions and cynical strategies of more powerful nations.Cambodia's tragedy has been best told by the British author William Shawcross. His 1979 book Sideshow (Simon and Schuster) chronicled the 1970-75 war between the communists and the U.S.-backed Lon Nol regime. Though unsparingly critical of the Vietnamese as well, Shawcross portrayed American policy as both heartless and futile.Shawcross made some factual errors, which Kissinger and other former Nixon aides have used to try to discredit his book. But by any fair measure, it remains a devastating indictment of Washington's role in a terrible and needless catastrophe.<sup>2


1</sup>Vietnam War. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved June 1, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-234638

²The Washington Post
April 21, 1985, Sunday, Final Edition
SECTION: Book World; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 2378 words
HEADLINE: VIETNAM;
Selected Reading
BYLINE: By Arnold R. Isaac