Word: pol
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Biden had a point. What exactly did he do wrong? Withhold the truth? Come on, that's part of a politician's job description. Use words that weren't his own? Well, behind every pol lies a speechwriter. And I never heard President Reagan begin a speech, "As Peggy Noonan has written...
...Pol Pot, head of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal regime during the 1970s, has not been seen in public for about 10 years. Last week, however, the Asian Wall Street Journal reported that he was lurking in the background when Cambodian peace talks were held in Thailand in June. While negotiations with the Vietnam-backed government of Hun Sen were under way, the ex-dictator reportedly instructed the guerrillas from a secret location nearby. He is said to have acceded to government demands to designate Phnom Penh as the seat of the four-party Supreme National Council, consisting...
Only a few months ago, Pol Pot's presence anywhere near such a conference might have set back the peace process by provoking objections from Hun Sen, whose government has condemned him and seven others to death. The subdued reaction to the news seemed to confirm that with warming relations between Vietnam and China, there is real momentum in the drive to settle the 12-year- old conflict...
...Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge sent to the killing fields all who spoke French or wore glasses or had soft hands. The Khmer Rouge aimed to cancel all previous history and begin at Year Zero. Utopia, this century has learned the hard way, usually bears a resemblance to hell. An evil chemistry turns the dream of salvation into damnation...
There is reason for doubt. In the 1970s Pol Pot slaughtered as many as 2 million Cambodians. But he was a stay-at-home Hitler, so the world merely tut- tutted. When Vietnam finally invaded Cambodia in 1978 and evicted the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, the United Nations in effect judged intervention to be an evil greater than genocide. During the cold war, geopolitics often overrode morality and common sense alike. Vietnam was a Soviet ally; therefore its thrust into Cambodia was perceived, and condemned, as part of the Kremlin's global offensive...