[Al Jazeera] War-crimes court rules Nuon Chea, most senior surviving member of ex-Cambodian regime, "capable" of defending himself.The guy's 88 years old. He should have been dead and in his grave years ago.
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| Southeast Asia |
| Khmer Rouge figure deemed fit to stand trial |
| 2013-03-30 |
| [Al Jazeera] War-crimes court rules Nuon Chea, most senior surviving member of ex-Cambodian regime, "capable" of defending himself. The guy's 88 years old. He should have been dead and in his grave years ago. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 Mike, Sihanouk enabled the communist takeover in both Vietnam (by helping to supply their armies from across the border) and Cambodia; the Khmer Rouge's main foreign backer was China. While they were massacring the population down in Cambodia, Sihanouk was living in a palace in Beijing pretending to wring his hands and crying crocodile tears about how brutal they were. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-03-30 15:04 |
| #6 And let me extend that just a bit: there are a great, great many influential men and women in comfortable, well-fed middle age whose efforts DIRECTLY enabled the Vietnamese to defeat the old Republic of Vietnam and help to destroy the imperfect - but free - nation of Cambodia under Sihanouk. A great, great many influential men and women who were also able to afford a comfortable old age by accepting (or 'misdirecting') money from the same sources that backed the North Vietnamese. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2013-03-30 15:00 |
| #5 I know those who survived live the horror of their experiences every day. My heart goes out to your family members and I will keep them in my prayers. Thank you Bill, thankfully he was too young remember much, he does have the scars from where his mother attempted to burn out a fever because they had no medicine. The lone picture they have of them in the camp is tough to look at, the family is standing holding numbers in front of themselves. Very hard to fathom man's inhumanity. But they were sponsored by a doctor here Atlanta and now I have an awesome bro-in-law. He and my sister went back last year. Thanks for your service, Airborne myself. |
| Posted by: Beavis 2013-03-30 14:09 |
| #4 Beavis, So you know how completely mindless and irrational the Khmer Rouge was. I had to deal with the Pathet Lao and I found a bullet between the eyes or behind the ear to be the only effective means of negotiation. Because I had to deal with fanaticism at a tender age, I do not suffer fools when it comes to dealing with Islamic fanatics (is there a Moslem that is not a fanatic?). I know those who survived live the horror of their experiences every day. My heart goes out to your family members and I will keep them in my prayers. BTW the picture that ole Fred put on this is a painting of one of Tamerlain's pyramids as he rampaged across the Middle East. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2013-03-30 13:06 |
| #3 My brother in law was in one of the concentration camps with his siblings and mother. The Rouge killed his dad because he was Chinese, I think or wore glasses |
| Posted by: Beavis 2013-03-30 12:29 |
| #2 Personally, I would dig up the graves of all of the Pol Pot crazies and try their corpses in court just to make the point. Speaking of complicity, don't forget our own antiwar media and legislature denying every report of the genocide in Cambodia. Heck, The National freaking Geographic did a pictorial on Ankar Wat in the 70s and it was full of pictures of empty abandoned Phenom Phen and surrounding towns and a few words of "rumors" of slave labor camps. There was good intell about this and because our antiwar ninny press couldn't admit to it lest the domino theory be right, they had to bury it. The movie, the Killing Fields, the Sam Waterston character was a bunch of crap. What happened in Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam after we left would have happened sooner if we had not intervened, and it sure as hell would have never happened if the communists in Congress and the Soviet funded antiwar movement had not got in the way. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2013-03-30 12:23 |
| #1 ...Problem here is that the current regime was put there by the Vietnamese, who were more than a touch complicit in the rise of Pol Pot and his gang of merry men. Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, and all the others who died quietly in their house arrest beds did so because a trial would have been far too embarrassing to the Noble Vietnamese Liberators. And let me extend that just a bit: there are a great, great many influential men and women in comfortable, well-fed middle age whose efforts DIRECTLY enabled the Vietnamese to defeat the old Republic of Vietnam and help to destroy the imperfect - but free - nation of Cambodia under Sihanouk. Men, for instance, like our current Secretary of State. One cannot help but think that at various times, they quietly passed their concerns on to the Liberators as well. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2013-03-30 09:48 |