“Exterminate the 50 million Vietnamese… and purify the masses of the [Cambodian] people" Another quote from there.
Can there ever be a Khmer Rouge thread that does not go Godwin?
So what did the U.S government say considering Sino-U.S rapprochement wasn't that long ago?
It gets better; Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) was born into a wealthy land-owning family and was educated in private French schools in Phnom Pen before studying in Paris. He never did any sort of manual work and can best be described as an intellectual; when his Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Pen, they emptied the city, driving the entire population into the countryside; once there, anyone identified as an intellectual was immediately targeted for elimination.
The other members of the Khmer leadership, the Angkar Padevat, had similar backgrounds. None had any experience with manual labour or agriculture. They promptly demanded that every hectare of arable land produce 3 tons of rice per year, and rations for labourers were set at 1 cup of rice (180g) every second day; that much rice provides 230 calories, so people were working 15 hour days on 115 calories a day. 800 calories a day is generally considered a borderline starvation diet.
In addition to large numbers dying from malnutrition and starvation, others died of disease; doctors in particular had been singled out for elimination by the Khmer Rouge. Camps set up to deal with members of the 'old society' were ruthlessly efficient; S-21, a prison set up in a former high school on the outskirts of Phnom Pen, processed 14,000 people; seven are known to have survived.
What did the US say about the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, carried out, it is generally thought, in defense of the Khmer Rouge? That would probably give a pretty strong clue about what they thought about Vietnam Vs. Cambodia.
Of course, the US supported the Khmer Rouge(in a colation with other groups) after they'd been tossed from power. But that doesn't neccessarily prove that they wanted the 1975 -79 Democratic Kampuchea to continue uninterrupted.
Though that didn't stop the American government from quietly hoping the KR would give the "VC" hell, and may or may not have provided support to them when they left power. See, the Vietnamese were pro-Soviet, while the KR was at least notionally pro-Beijing (who we were playing off against the Soviets). So basically the US was supporting anything that pissed off the Soviets, IIRC, even if said people were genocidaires. Remember, this is the era of (more) Realpolitik, and we're talking about a government who was willing to support people who shot priests for sport, if it pissed off Moscow.I remember that too. The general feeling seemed to be that they needed to be wiped out, and if the "VC" wanted to do it, so much the better.