by Bill Shakey » Thu Jan 05, 2023 10:54 am
The thesis provided in the link should be treated with extreme caution I'd say. Written by a miliatry man, assessed by military men using military sources. Hmmm. Objectivity - zero. Critical thinking - zero. Worldview - extremely limited.
Anyone quoting Kissinger and Nixon on the history of Cambodia or any other state in Southeast Asia without offering contrary views or any other analysis is already on a slippery slope. Kissinger is bascially a war criminal and if he'd ever wound up at the ICC that's what they'd have said. Many of the references for the thesis are just other US military sources, doubtless trotting out the same military-speak with authors limited to Reader's Digest mentality and heavily US-centric worldviews.
In his introduction to Chapter One he makes some unsubstantiated claims; ‘In 1970, the political leadership of Cambodia under Prince Norodom Sihanouk clearly supported the Communist movement in Southeast Asia. Actually, Sihanouk had been virulently anti-communist, at least in Cambodia, which is how come all the “Khmers Rouges” (his terms and yes, all the “s’s”) wound up in the countryside as his secret police hunted them down.
And then this; ‘Public opinion in Cambodia soon turned against Sihanouk for his pro-Commiunist [sic] policy.’ Did they?
Interesting that one of the few non-military sources he quotes early on is by François Bizot (claim to fame is as the only Westerner to have survived captivity by the Khmer Rouge) who had nothing good to say about the West in Cambodia or Southeaast Asia especially the Americans as he despised their uncouth methods, ‘crass ignorance of the milieu in which they had intervened, their clumsy demagogy, their misplaced clear conscience, and that easy-going, childlike sincerity that bordered on stupidity. They were total strangers in the areas, driven by clichés about Asia worthy of the flimsiest tourist guides, and they behaved accordingly.’
One of the most cutting descriptions of the US in Southeast Asia, and probably accurate of their foreign policy elsewhere, is by an American himself, Stanley Karnow, who said of a leading US advisor in Southeast Asia at that time that he; ‘exuded a brand of artless goodwill that overlooked the deeper dynamics of revolutionary upheavals, and he seemed oblivious to the social and cultural complexities of Asia.’ The guy who wrote this thesis would fit into that category.
Goodness me.
The thesis provided in the link should be treated with extreme caution I'd say. Written by a miliatry man, assessed by military men using military sources. Hmmm. Objectivity - zero. Critical thinking - zero. Worldview - extremely limited.
Anyone quoting Kissinger and Nixon on the history of Cambodia or any other state in Southeast Asia without offering contrary views or any other analysis is already on a slippery slope. Kissinger is bascially a war criminal and if he'd ever wound up at the ICC that's what they'd have said. Many of the references for the thesis are just other US military sources, doubtless trotting out the same military-speak with authors limited to Reader's Digest mentality and heavily US-centric worldviews.
In his introduction to Chapter One he makes some unsubstantiated claims; ‘In 1970, the political leadership of Cambodia under Prince Norodom Sihanouk clearly supported the Communist movement in Southeast Asia. Actually, Sihanouk had been virulently anti-communist, at least in Cambodia, which is how come all the “Khmers Rouges” (his terms and yes, all the “s’s”) wound up in the countryside as his secret police hunted them down.
And then this; ‘Public opinion in Cambodia soon turned against Sihanouk for his pro-Commiunist [sic] policy.’ Did they?
Interesting that one of the few non-military sources he quotes early on is by François Bizot (claim to fame is as the only Westerner to have survived captivity by the Khmer Rouge) who had nothing good to say about the West in Cambodia or Southeaast Asia especially the Americans as he despised their uncouth methods, ‘crass ignorance of the milieu in which they had intervened, their clumsy demagogy, their misplaced clear conscience, and that easy-going, childlike sincerity that bordered on stupidity. They were total strangers in the areas, driven by clichés about Asia worthy of the flimsiest tourist guides, and they behaved accordingly.’
One of the most cutting descriptions of the US in Southeast Asia, and probably accurate of their foreign policy elsewhere, is by an American himself, Stanley Karnow, who said of a leading US advisor in Southeast Asia at that time that he; ‘exuded a brand of artless goodwill that overlooked the deeper dynamics of revolutionary upheavals, and he seemed oblivious to the social and cultural complexities of Asia.’ The guy who wrote this thesis would fit into that category.
Goodness me.