Word: wars
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Wider War...
Perhaps the most bitterly disputed episode of a bitterly disputed war is the decline and fall of Cambodia. In March, with Prince Sihanouk traveling in France, anti-Vietnamese riots began to erupt across Cambodia. Prime Minister Lon Nol and Deputy Prime Minister Sirik Matak ousted Sihanouk, who there upon took refuge in Peking and turned against the U.S. Kissinger 's critics argue that the U.S. engineered Sihanouk's downfall and later, by attacking the North Vietnamese sanctuaries, caused the war to engulf all of Cambodia and to ensure victory for the Communist Khmer Rouge. Kissinger maintains with much...
...become a rout. Hanoi's insatiable quest for hegemony-not America's hesitant and ambivalent response-is the root cause of Cambodia's ordeal. The persistence of the image of American officials plotting the overthrow of neutralist Prince Sihanouk in Cambodia and plunging deeper into war in Laos as well as Cambodia illustrates the prevalence of emotion over reality. By the middle of April, before we had undertaken any significant action, Sihanouk had irrevocably joined forces with the Communists, the North Vietnamese
Revisionist history has painted a picture of a peaceful, neutral Cambodia wantonly assaulted by American forces and plunged into a civil war that could have been avoided but for the American obsession with military solutions. The facts are different. By April 21 we had a stark choice. We could permit North Viet Nam to overrun the whole of Cambodia. Or we could resist Cambodia's absorption, supporting the independence of a government recognized by the United Nations and most other nations, including the Soviet Union...
...area code-named the Fishhook. No one around the table questioned the consequences of a Communist takeover of Cambodia. If Cambodia collapsed, we would be even harder pressed to pull out unilaterally; if we accepted any of the other options, we would be charged with "expanding the war." There was no middle ground...