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Jimmy Carter’s Blood Drenched Legacy

Matt Peppe

Five months ago, I wrote an article titled “Jimmy Carter’s Blood-Drenched Legacy” about how the former President’s record in office contradicted his professed concern for human rights. Despite campaigning on a promise to make respect for human rights a central tenet of the conduct of American foreign policy, Carter’s actions consistently prioritized economic and security interests over humanitarian concerns.

I cited the examples of Carter’s administration providing aid to Zairian dictator Mobutu to crush southern African liberation movements; financially supporting the Guatemalan military junta, and looking the other way as Israel gave them weapons and training; ignoring calls from human rights activists to withdraw support from the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia as they carried out genocide in East Timor; refusing to pursue sanctions against South Africa in the United Nations after the South African Defence Forces bombed a refugee camp in Angola, killing 600 refugees; financing and arming mujahideen rebels to destabilize the government of Afghanistan and draw the Soviet Union into invading the country; and providing aid to the military dictatorship in El Salvador, despite a letter from Archbishop Oscar Romero – who was assassinated by a member of a government death squad weeks later – explicitly calling for Carter not to do so.

This list was not meant to be exhaustive, but merely to highlight some of the most prominent contradictions between Carter’s ideals and his actions. After subsequent research and reader feedback, I realized there were many examples I had not mentioned. Their significance to the history of American foreign policy, and the repercussions they produced, is worth exploring in a subsequent analysis.

Carter announced in early December that he is cancer free. Sadly, that news was followed shortly thereafter by the tragic, premature death of his 28-year-old grandson. But Carter seems to have maintained his positivity. He has kept up his public schedule and says that healthwise he still feels good.

A person’s record and legacy should be debated while they are still alive – rather than after they are gone, when nostalgia or reluctance to speak ill of the dead can easily lead to embellishment and historical revisionism. And a person should be able to defend himself and his actions. Otherwise, it is merely an academic exercise instead of a demand for accountability. In this spirit, I present six more foreign policy positions that demonstrate Carter’s prioritization of American political and economic hegemony over actual support for human rights while he held the highest office in the United States.

Vietnam

Article 21 of the Paris Agreement in 1973stipulated that “the United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and throughout Indochina.”

When asked in 1977 if the United States had a moral obligation to help rebuild Vietnam, Carter responded that “the destruction was mutual. You know, we went to Vietnam without any desire to capture territory or to impose American will on other people. We went there to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese. And I don’t feel that we ought to apologize or to castigate ourselves or to assume the status of culpability.”

The United States went to Vietnam after they could not convince the French to further continue a war to recolonize Vietnam. The Geneva Accords reached between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1954 called for a temporary division of Vietnam pending unification, which was to take place after national elections two years later.

In 1955, the Eisenhower administration began granting direct aid and providing American military advisers to the Bao Dai monarchy. Ngo Dinh Diem assumed control later that year through a fraudulent election. Knowing he would be trounced by the Communist party, he declined to participate in reunification elections called for by the peace agreement..

The United States government was indispensable to the survival of the Diem regime – and after complicity in Diem’s assassination, the Theiu regime. They funded and organized the police, military and intelligence services and were complicit in the reign of terror they unleashed on the South Vietnamese. Throughout the military dictatorship, tens of thousands of people were imprisoned without charges or trial; tortured and held in notorious Tiger Cages; assassinated extrajudicially; and displaced forcibly from their homes and transferred to concentration camps as American forces “helped to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese.”

The South Vietnamese people are still suffering from the refusal to grant reparations for the devastation wrought by the U.S. military. More 100,000 Vietnamese have been killed or injured (an average of 2,500 per year) due to land mines and other ordnance dropped on Vietnam that did not explode on impact.

Residents also still suffer the horrific after effects of chemical weapons. The U.S. military sprayed millions of gallons of chemical defoliants, including including Agent Orange, throughout South Vietnam. The President’s Cancer Panel in 2010 determined that “(a)pproximately 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities and a half million children born with birth defects.”

Had Carter not so flippantly dismissed the U.S.’s role in the destruction of Vietnam and recognized its responsibility to uphold their obligation to pay reparations, likely tens of thousands of lives of lives may have been saved with funds that could have been used for demining, and the cleanup and treatment of chemical agents that have gone on spreading the horrors of war for decades after the fighting ended.

Nicaragua

“Carter Must End Aid To Somoza,” proclaimed an editorial in The Harvard Crimson in September 1978. The paper demanded that the U.S. government cut off all forms of aid to the dictatorship of Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza, who was using indiscriminate force to try to crush a popular revolutionary movement to oust him, so the Nicaraguan people could choose their own manner of governance.

William Blum writes in Killing Hope that with the Somoza regime on the verge of collapse, “Carter authorized covert CIA support for the press and labor unions in Nicaragua in an attempt to create a ‘moderate’ alternative to the Sandinistas.” The Carter administration’s plan, according to Blum, was to allow the Somoza regime to take part in a new government, while leaving the state’s military and security institutions largely in tact.

The Sandinistas were victorious in July 1981, as Somoza was forced to flee the country in disgrace. They were able to dismantle the dictatorship and create a new revolutionary government.

The meddling and funding for opposition organizations by the Carter administration, however, would pale in comparison to the full-scale terrorism and aggression that would follow under Ronald Reagan, who had by then taken over as President.

Cambodia

Starting in March 1969, President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger waged a massive, secret bombing campaign (Operation Menu) on Cambodia in which the U.S. military was instructed “anything that flies on anything that moves.”

The American aggression likely caused higherthan official estimates of 150,000 Cambodian civilian deaths. When the operation was discovered by a Congressional Committee, it was not even included in the impeachment articles against Nixon, much less used as a basis to refer Nixon and Kissinger for prosecution for war crimes.

Radicalized, destitute and shell-shocked by the destruction wrought by the American bombing, Pol Pot and his previously marginal Khmer Rouge were able to rally enough recruits to seize control of the government in 1975.

It is generally accepted that the Khmer Rouge’s massacres in the Killing Fields and drastic measures to create a primitive agrarian society amounted to genocide. On the high end, two million deaths is a common number – though that number has likely been highly inflated for anti-Communist propaganda purposes. The American establishment and media were loudly outspoken against Khmer Rouge atrocities, especially considering the near unanimous silence regarding the nearly simultaneous genocide by the Indonesian military taking place in East Timor.

But, strangely, after a Vietnamese invasion in 1978 ousted them, the Khmer Rouge lost their status as evil Communists, as the official American foreign policy narrative recast them as victims of Vietnamese aggression.

The Carter administration began supporting the Khmer Rouge, who had been relegated to remote rural sections of the country, by financial and diplomatic means. Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinskireportedly told an American journalist he “encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot… Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could.”

According to columnist William Pfaff, financial support started by the Carter administration and continued by the Reagan administration to the Khmer Rouge totaled more than $15 million annually.

Despite the fact they had been driven from power, with American support the Khmer Rouge managed to maintain their UN seat – as the Carter administration had refused to recognize the government installed after the Vietnamese invasion.

The remnants of the Khmer Rouge fought a guerilla war until Pot’s death in 1998. There is no precise count of the dead and injured that resulted from the fighting so long after the regime was ousted, but it is known that hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes and became refugees.

The Carter administration’s decision to fan the flames of violence for frivolous reasons – mainly to punish Vietnam for their defeat of American forces five years earlier – was a scandalous example of vindictiveness.

South Korea

In December 1979, the South Korean military led by General Chun Doo Hwan led a coup d’ état in which Chun imprisoned potential military rivals and cleared the way to his succession as dictator. On May 17, 1980, Chun declared martial law across the country. The next day, popular protests emerged in the city of Kwangju in opposition.

Chun’s support from the United States would be crucial to maintain legitimacy as he brought in the military to crush the uprising.

“The White House had tacitly shelved President Carter’s human rights campaign in its anxiety that nothing should ‘unravel and cause chaos in a key American ally’,” writes The Guardian. “It agreed to continue supporting thuggish General Chun Doo Hwan, a major figure behind the coup who was by now imposing stringent military rule.”

Journalist Tim Shorrock studied more than 3,500 documents obtained by FOIA request and determined that more than mere complicity, the Carter administration played a “significant background advisory role in the violent 1980 military crackdown that triggered the May 18 citizens’ uprising.”

William Gleysteen, who Carter had personally appointed ambassador to South Korea, told Chun the U.S. would not object if he were to use the military to quell large-scale student protests.

Shorrock notes that declassified documents show that “U.S. officials in Seoul and Washington knew Mr. Chun’s contingency plans included deployment of Korean Special Warfare Command troops, trained to fight behind the lines in a war against North Korea. The ‘Black Beret’ Special Forces, who were not under U.S. command, were modeled after the U.S. Green Berets and had a history dating back to their participation alongside American troops in the Vietnam War.”

On May 22, Shorrock writes, “the Carter administration approved further use of force to retake the city and agreed to provide short-term support to Mr. Chun if he agreed to long-term political change.”

The Special Warfare troops carried out a massacre in which officially 200 people were killed, but estimates place the likely number of victims 10 times higher. Chun continued ruling as a dictator until 1988.The George H. W. Bush administration would whitewash American involvement during the 1980 uprising by claiming the U.S. government had no knowledge of the use of the Korean special forces and did not approve of any such actions. Chun’s dictatorship in South Korea would continue until popular protests were able to force democratic elections in 1988.

Philippines 

In September 1972, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in Proclamation No. 1081. It would not be lifted until three days before the end of Jimmy Carter’s tenure as President in 1981.

This would not prevent the Carter administration from continuing the billions of dollars provided by the U.S. government to the Marcos dictatorship in military aid. As he had with Indonesian Major General and President Suharto, Carter kept the spigot flowing to a dictator who demonstrated not just lack of respect, but outright hostility to the human rights of his subjects.

The quid pro quo in the Philippines was a Military Bases Agreement agreed to in December 1978. The Filipino-American socialist newspaper the Katipunan said that after signing the agreement, the Carter administration ignored Marcos’s many human rights violations.

“Especially now, in light of renewed threats to its imperialist hegemony of the world, the Carter administration has made it very clear that such considerations as human rights, democracy, etc., take a back seat, to the protection of American global interests, insofar as U.S.-R.P. relations are concerned,” the paper wrote in April 1980.

The Katipunan said that political considerations led Carter’s State Department to reverse their previous condemnation to claim the Marcos regime was improving its record. “The State Department might as well have congratulated Marcos for torture, salvaging, mass arrests, indefinite detention, etc.,” they wrote.

The Middle East

No one is more responsible for the vast proliferation of foreign U.S. military bases – now about 800, compared to about 30 for the rest of the world combined – than Jimmy Carter.

Any rational geopolitical analysis of the post-war period until Carter’s presidency would have concluded the Soviet Union had absolutely no intention of military expansion beyond their immediate satellite states. But Carter – like each of his predecessors since World War II – was delusional in his imagination of a Soviet threat behind every corner. His anti-communist, Cold-War strategy called for a military presence everywhere American economic interests existed. Using the phantom “Soviet threat,” Carter laid out what became known as the Carter Doctrine.

“In his January 1980 State of the Union address, President Jimmy Carter announced a policy change that rivaled Roosevelt’s destroyers for bases deal in its significance for the nation and the world,” writes anthropologist David Vine in Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World. “Carter soon launched what became one of the greatest base construction efforts in history. The Middle East buildup soon approached the size and scope of the Cold War garrisoning of Western Europe and the profusion of bases built to wage wars in Korea and Vietnam. U.S. bases sprang up in Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the region to host a ‘Rapid Deployment Force,’ which was to stand permanent guard over Middle Eastern petroleum supplies.”

Post-Presidency 

In my first article on Carter’s legacy, I wrote that he has – by far – the most impressive record of any American President after leaving office. I cited the examples of his condemnations of Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories and his Carter Center’s work independently verifying voting systems and electoral processes – specifically their endorsement of Venezuela’s 2013 election – as invaluable accomplishments for social justice.

Since then, Carter has bolstered his already impressive post-Presidency record even more. First, Carter told Oprah Winfrey in a September interview that “We’ve become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.”

His summation of the state of the American sociopolitical system is both precise and brutally honest. While academic studies have already reached the same conclusion, Carter putting the issue in simple terms for a mainstream audience demonstrates his willingness to take on matters that would be considered taboo for the rest of the elite class. We can hope that the impact of his statement will be similar to his calling Israeli rule over Palestinians apartheid, something also taboo among elites at the time but increasingly gaining currency in mainstream discourse.

In October, Carter wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times calling for “A Five-Nation Plan to End the Syrian Crisis.” Carter writes that since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, the Carter Center had explained to Washington that the Obama administration’s demand for Bashar al-Assad’s removal would preclude the achievement of a political solution.

Meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin led Carter to believe that a peace proposal endorsed by the United States, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia would gain enough support among the Syrian parties to end the fighting.

“The involvement of Russia and Iran is essential. Mr. Assad’s only concession in four years of war was giving up chemical weapons, and he did so only under pressure from Russia and Iran. Similarly, he will not end the war by accepting concessions imposed by the West, but is likely to do so if urged by his allies,” Carter writes.

The peace plan that Secretary of State John Kerry essentially copied from Russia – and has now endorsed as his own at the United Nations – looks very much like that laid out by Carter. There is good reason to think that if the Obama administration had not stubbornly ignored Carter’s advice four years ago – when they still believed, before Russia’s military intervention on Assad’s behalf, that they could overthrow the regime by force through proxy groups like the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army – the unimaginable violence and devastation could have been largely been avoided.

While in power, Carter and the officials he hand-picked to serve in his administration acted with the same Cold War zeal as their predecessors to relentlessly combat – with overwhelming force and the power of the U.S. government’s diplomatic muscle – threats to global corporate capitalist dominance, both real and imagined.

What accounts for the discrepancy between Carter’s actions in and out of office is a matter of speculation. Was it merely a change of heart? A reflection of the nature of authority? Or of the limits of the office of President and its subordination to the power of unelected, entrenched bureaucracy?

The bottom line is that, unfortunately, when Carter was afforded the opportunity to change the direction of U.S. foreign policy after receiving a mandate from the American voters, he was unable or unwilling to do so. We can only hope this missed opportunity will not be the last.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/11/jimmy-carters-blood-drenched-legacy-2/

Warisan Jimmy Carter yang Basah Kuyup Darah

Matt Peppe

Lima bulan lalu, saya menulis sebuah artikel berjudul "Jimmy Carter's Blood-Drenched Legacy" tentang bagaimana catatan mantan Presiden di kantor bertentangan dengan kepeduliannya terhadap hak asasi manusia. Meskipun berkampanye dengan janji untuk menjadikan penghormatan terhadap hak asasi manusia sebagai prinsip utama dari perilaku kebijakan luar negeri Amerika, tindakan Carter secara konsisten memprioritaskan kepentingan ekonomi dan keamanan daripada masalah kemanusiaan.

Saya mengutip contoh pemerintahan Carter yang memberikan bantuan kepada diktator Zairian Mobutu untuk menghancurkan gerakan pembebasan Afrika selatan; secara finansial mendukung junta militer Guatemala, dan melihat ke arah lain saat Israel memberi mereka senjata dan pelatihan; mengabaikan seruan dari aktivis hak asasi manusia untuk menarik dukungan dari kediktatoran Soeharto di Indonesia saat mereka melakukan genosida di Timor Timur; Uni Soviet untuk menginvasi negara itu; dan memberikan bantuan kepada kediktatoran militer di El Salvador, meskipun ada surat dari Uskup Agung Oscar Romero – yang dibunuh oleh anggota regu kematian pemerintah beberapa minggu kemudian – secara eksplisit menyerukan Carter untuk tidak melakukannya.

Daftar ini tidak dimaksudkan untuk menjadi lengkap, tetapi hanya untuk menyoroti beberapa kontradiksi paling menonjol antara cita-cita Carter dan tindakannya. Setelah penelitian dan umpan balik pembaca berikutnya, saya menyadari ada banyak contoh yang belum saya sebutkan. Signifikansi mereka terhadap sejarah kebijakan luar negeri Amerika, dan dampak yang mereka hasilkan, patut dieksplorasi dalam analisis selanjutnya.

Carter mengumumkan pada awal Desember bahwa dia bebas kanker. Sayangnya, berita itu diikuti tak lama kemudian oleh kematian tragis dan prematur cucunya yang berusia 28 tahun. Tapi Carter sepertinya sudah mempertahankan kepositifannya. Dia telah menjaga jadwal publiknya dan mengatakan bahwa dari segi kesehatan dia masih merasa baik.

Catatan dan warisan seseorang harus diperdebatkan saat mereka masih hidup – daripada setelah mereka pergi, ketika nostalgia atau keengganan untuk berbicara buruk tentang orang mati dapat dengan mudah mengarah pada hiasan dan revisionisme sejarah. Dan seseorang harus bisa membela diri dan tindakannya. Jika tidak, itu hanyalah latihan akademis alih-alih permintaan untuk akuntabilitas. Dalam semangat ini, saya menyajikan enam posisi kebijakan luar negeri lagi yang menunjukkan prioritas Carter terhadap hegemoni politik dan ekonomi Amerika daripada dukungan aktual untuk hak asasi manusia sementara dia memegang jabatan tertinggi di Amerika Serikat.

Vietnam

Pasal 21 dari Perjanjian Paris pada tahun 1973 menetapkan bahwa "Amerika Serikat akan berkontribusi untuk menyembuhkan luka perang dan rekonstruksi pascaperang Republik Demokratik Vietnam dan seluruh Indocina."

Ketika ditanya pada tahun 1977 apakah Amerika Serikat memiliki kewajiban moral untuk membantu membangun kembali Vietnam, Carter menjawab bahwa "penghancuran itu saling menguntungkan. Anda tahu, kami pergi ke Vietnam tanpa keinginan untuk merebut wilayah atau memaksakan kehendak Amerika pada orang lain. Kami pergi ke sana untuk membela kebebasan Vietnam Selatan. Dan saya tidak merasa bahwa kita harus meminta maaf atau menghukum diri kita sendiri atau menganggap status kesalahan."

Amerika Serikat pergi ke Vietnam setelah mereka tidak dapat meyakinkan Prancis untuk melanjutkan perang untuk menjelonisasikan kembali Vietnam. Kesepakatan Jenewa yang dicapai antara Prancis dan Republik Demokratik Vietnam pada tahun 1954 menyerukan pembagian sementara Vietnam sambil menunggu penyatuan, yang akan berlangsung setelah pemilihan nasional dua tahun kemudian.

Pada tahun 1955, pemerintahan Eisenhower mulai memberikan bantuan langsung dan memberikan penasihat militer Amerika kepada monarki Bao Dai. Ngo Dinh Diem mengambil alih kendali akhir tahun itu melalui pemilihan palsu. Mengetahui dia akan dikutuk oleh partai Komunis, dia menolak untuk berpartisipasi dalam pemilihan reunifikasi yang diminta oleh perjanjian damai..

Pemerintah Amerika Serikat sangat diperlukan untuk kelangsungan hidup rezim Diem – dan setelah keterlibatan dalam pembunuhan Diem, rezim Theiu. Mereka mendanai dan mengorganisir polisi, militer dan dinas intelijen dan terlibat dalam masa pemerintahan teror yang mereka lepaskan ke Vietnam Selatan. Sepanjang kediktatoran militer, puluhan ribu orang dipenjara tanpa tuduhan atau pengadilan; disiksa dan ditahan di Kandang Harimau yang terkenal; dibunuh di luar hukum; dan dipindahkan secara paksa dari rumah mereka dan dipindahkan ke kamp konsentrasi saat pasukan Amerika "membantu membela kebebasan Vietnam Selatan."

Orang-orang Vietnam Selatan masih menderita penolakan untuk memberikan reparasi atas kehancuran yang ditimbulkan oleh militer AS. Lebih dari 100.000 orang Vietnam telah tewas atau terluka (rata-rata 2.500 per tahun) karena ranjau darat dan persenjataan lain dijatuhkan di Vietnam yang tidak meledak karena benturan.

Warga juga masih menderita efek senjata kimia yang mengerikan. Militer AS menyemprot jutaan galon defolian kimia, termasuk Agen Oranye, di seluruh Vietnam Selatan. Panel Kanker Presiden pada tahun 2010 menentukan bahwa "(a)psekitar 4,8 juta orang Vietnam terpapar Agen Oranye, mengakibatkan 400.000 kematian dan cacat dan setengah juta anak yang lahir dengan cacat lahir."

Seandainya Carter tidak begitu sembrono menolak peran AS dalam penghancuran Vietnam dan mengakui tanggung jawabnya untuk menegakkan kewajiban mereka untuk membayar reparasi, kemungkinan puluhan ribu nyawa mungkin telah diselamatkan dengan dana yang dapat digunakan untuk ranjau, dan pembersihan dan perawatan agen kimia yang telah menyebarkan kengerian perang selama beberapa dekade setelah pertempuran berakhir.

Nikaragua

"Carter Harus Mengakhiri Bantuan Ke Somoza," memproklamasikan sebuah editorial di The Harvard Crimson pada September 1978. Surat kabar itu menuntut agar pemerintah AS memotong semua bentuk bantuan untuk kediktatoran Presiden Nikaragua Anastasio Somoza, yang menggunakan kekuatan sembarangan untuk mencoba menghancurkan gerakan revolusioner populer untuk menggulingkannya, sehingga rakyat Nikaragua dapat memilih cara pemerintahan mereka sendiri.

William Blum menulis dalam Killing Hope bahwa dengan rezim Somoza di ambang kehancuran, "Carter mengesahkan dukungan rahasia CIA untuk pers dan serikat pekerja di Nikaragua dalam upaya untuk menciptakan alternatif 'moderat' untuk Sandinista." Rencana pemerintahan Carter, menurut Blum, adalah mengizinkan rezim Somoza untuk mengambil bagian dalam pemerintahan baru, sambil meninggalkan lembaga militer dan keamanan negara bagian sebagian besar bijaksana.

Sandinista menang pada Juli 1981, karena Somoza terpaksa melarikan diri dari negara itu dengan memalukan. Mereka mampu membongkar kediktatoran dan menciptakan pemerintahan revolusioner baru.

Campur tangan dan pendanaan untuk organisasi oposisi oleh pemerintahan Carter, bagaimanapun, akan pucat dibandingkan dengan terorisme dan agresi skala penuh yang akan mengikuti di bawah Ronald Reagan, yang saat itu telah mengambil alih sebagai Presiden.

Kamboja

Mulai Maret 1969, Presiden Richard Nixon dan Sekretaris Negerinya Henry Kissinger melancarkan kampanye pengeboman rahasia besar-besaran (Menu Operasi) di Kamboja di mana militer AS diinstruksikan "apa pun yang terbang pada apa pun yang bergerak."

Agresi Amerika kemungkinan menyebabkan lebih tinggi dari perkiraan resmi 150.000 kematian warga sipil Kamboja. Ketika operasi itu ditemukan oleh Komite Kongres, itu bahkan tidak termasuk dalam artikel pemakzulan terhadap Nixon, apalagi digunakan sebagai dasar untuk merujuk Nixon dan Kissinger untuk penuntutan atas kejahatan perang.

Radikalisasi, melarat, dan terguncang oleh kehancuran yang ditimbulkan oleh pemboman Amerika, Pol Pot dan Khmer Merahnya yang sebelumnya marjinal mampu mengumpulkan cukup banyak rekrutan untuk menguasai pemerintah pada tahun 1975.

Secara umum diterima bahwa pembantaian Khmer Merah di Ladang Pembunuhan dan langkah-langkah drastis untuk menciptakan masyarakat agraria primitif sama dengan genosida. Di ujung atas, dua juta kematian adalah angka yang umum – meskipun jumlah itu kemungkinan telah sangat meningkat untuk tujuan propaganda anti-Komunis. Pendirian dan media Amerika dengan keras blak-blakan menentang kekejaman Khmer Merah, terutama mengingat keheningan hampir bulat mengenai genosida yang hampir bersamaan oleh militer Indonesia yang terjadi di Timor Timur.

Tapi, anehnya, setelah invasi Vietnam pada tahun 1978 menggulingkan mereka, Khmer Merah kehilangan status mereka sebagai Komunis jahat, karena narasi kebijakan luar negeri resmi Amerika menyusun ulang mereka sebagai korban agresi Vietnam.

Pemerintahan Carter mulai mendukung Khmer Merah, yang telah terdegradasi ke bagian pedesaan terpencil di negara itu, dengan cara keuangan dan diplomatik. Penasihat keamanan nasional Carter Zbigniew Brzezinskiraporkan mengatakan kepada seorang jurnalis Amerika bahwa dia "mendorong orang Cina untuk mendukung Pol Pot... Pol Pot adalah kekejian. Kami tidak akan pernah bisa mendukungnya, tetapi China bisa.”

Menurut kolumnis William Pfaff, dukungan keuangan yang dimulai oleh pemerintahan Carter dan dilanjutkan oleh pemerintahan Reagan ke Khmer Merah berjumlah lebih dari $15 juta per tahun.

Terlepas dari kenyataan bahwa mereka telah diusir dari kekuasaan, dengan dukungan Amerika, Khmer Merah berhasil mempertahankan kursi PBB mereka - karena pemerintahan Carter telah menolak untuk mengakui pemerintah yang dipasang setelah invasi Vietnam.

Sisa-sisa Khmer Merah berperang gerilya sampai kematian Pot pada tahun 1998. Tidak ada jumlah pasti dari orang mati dan terluka yang diakibatkan oleh pertempuran begitu lama setelah rezim digulingkan, tetapi diketahui bahwa ratusan ribu orang mengungsi dari rumah mereka dan menjadi pengungsi.

Keputusan pemerintahan Carter untuk mengobarkan api kekerasan karena alasan sembrono - terutama untuk menghukum Vietnam atas kekalahan mereka atas pasukan Amerika lima tahun earl…