Thanks Pat, please share with Chris S, my old classmate from African politics will surely appreciate this story--Soviet/GDR backed Marxist/Leninism v Chinese backed Maoism-- From my book Facing Death in Cambodia: “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot,” Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, announced in 1980. Brzezinski seemed to be enjoying the spectacle of inter- communist warfare....President Carter’s ambassador to Thailand, Morton Abramowitz, attempted to justify supporting a genocidal government in exile: “The real question is whether the United States should have bullied the Thais and Peking not to help the Khmer Rouge but to intern them. We never considered this a serious option because (1) we thought the Vietnamese were wrong in Cambodia; (2) the Thais and the Chinese were our friends; (3) they had greater interests in Southeast Asia than we; and (4) we might not have succeeded. What would have happened if we had said to the Thais ‘Take the Khmer Rouge weapons away’ and then the Khmer Rouge had resisted?”....Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary continued to lead the Khmer Rouge public relations campaign.: “First are the aggressors and expansionists headed by the Soviet Union, and the other part is the movement of struggle for independence against the expansionists. It is good that the U.S.A. and China are agreed here. We too are on this team!” Ieng Sary espoused the Reagan Doctrine with a zeal that would have pleased the Gipper himself: “We set our hopes on the Reagan government, that it will implement its declaration to act uncompro- misingly with regard to the Soviet Union and only negotiate from a position of strength. That would help us a lot.”
My god ... what a story!
Thanks Pat, please share with Chris S, my old classmate from African politics will surely appreciate this story--Soviet/GDR backed Marxist/Leninism v Chinese backed Maoism-- From my book Facing Death in Cambodia: “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot,” Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, announced in 1980. Brzezinski seemed to be enjoying the spectacle of inter- communist warfare....President Carter’s ambassador to Thailand, Morton Abramowitz, attempted to justify supporting a genocidal government in exile: “The real question is whether the United States should have bullied the Thais and Peking not to help the Khmer Rouge but to intern them. We never considered this a serious option because (1) we thought the Vietnamese were wrong in Cambodia; (2) the Thais and the Chinese were our friends; (3) they had greater interests in Southeast Asia than we; and (4) we might not have succeeded. What would have happened if we had said to the Thais ‘Take the Khmer Rouge weapons away’ and then the Khmer Rouge had resisted?”....Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary continued to lead the Khmer Rouge public relations campaign.: “First are the aggressors and expansionists headed by the Soviet Union, and the other part is the movement of struggle for independence against the expansionists. It is good that the U.S.A. and China are agreed here. We too are on this team!” Ieng Sary espoused the Reagan Doctrine with a zeal that would have pleased the Gipper himself: “We set our hopes on the Reagan government, that it will implement its declaration to act uncompro- misingly with regard to the Soviet Union and only negotiate from a position of strength. That would help us a lot.”