From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Fri Aug 30 2002 - 07:18:28 MDT
"Dickey, Michael F" <michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com>
.
> I am sure that the 1 million south vietnamese people and the 2 - 3 million
> cambodian people who were killed would have been much better off had we
> 'won' the vietnam war.
South Vietnam would have been better off, the USA and Cambodia would not.
The murderous regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia was overthrown not by the USA
but by North Vietnam.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
---------------------------
Where do you think the Khmere Rouge got its weapons to overthrow Lon Nol and
the Western Friendly government of Cambodia from? That the US Congress
completely cut of funding certainly didnt help Cambodia either. The Khmer
Rouge got their weapons from the North Vietnamese, who no longer needed them
after trouncing south vietnam after the US completely abandoned it. Pol Pot
after succesfully enslaving the populace and taking control of the country
then started attacking North Vietnam. North Vietnam eventually responded by
building up forces and overthrowing Pol Pot, setting up a communist puppet
regime. Had the US 'won' the vietnam war, the North Vietnamese would have
been in no place to supply Pol Pot with the soviet tanks and guns he needed
to defeat Lon Nols conventional army. Pol Pot's worker party of peasant
farmers would not have defeated a modern military without the use of other
modern military devices.
North Vietnam may have overthrown pol pot, but North Vietnam PUT HIM THERE
in the first place, and the only reason they were in that position was
because the US abandoned South Vietnam causing them to lose the soviet
supplied invasion by the north.
Michael
(This is a letter sent to US Ambassador to Cambodia, John Gunther Dean, from
Sirik Matak, a high ranking official in the Lon Nol government, in 1975. In
it, he refuses the US government offer to escape his country in the face of
the coming Khmer Rouge victory.)
Dear Excellency and Friend:
I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to
transport me toward freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly
fashion. As for you, and in particular your great country, I never believed
for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which
has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do
nothing about it.
You leave and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness
under this sky. But mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and
in
the country I love, it is too bad, because we are all born and must die one
day. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you.
Sisowath Sirik Matak
(Sirik Matak was one of the first officials executed by the Khmer Rouge,
some
five days after this letter was received by Dean.)
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