Tell us something we all know but don't talk about much

This has always been the dark truth about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the underlying cause of the Killing Fields, as demonstrated at the trial of Duch, the Chief Torturer:

He took the stand last week to deliver a personal statement of remorse, but Monday began his actual testimony, in which he demonstrated a phenomenal memory for detail, reciting without notes people's names and exact dates of activities from four decades ago.

Asked by a judge to put his story in a historical context, he said, — without any apparent intention to justify his actions — that he believed the Khmer Rouge would have died out by 1970 if the United States had not supported Cambodia's military-led government following the 1970 coup d'etat that removed Prince Norodom Sihanouk from power.

He attempted to describe the confusing politics of Cambodia in the late 1960s and early 70s, as the Vietnam War raged on Cambodia' eastern border and the Khmer Rouge tried to recruit peasants and intellectuals angry with Sihanouk's autocratic regime.

"I think the Khmer Rouge would already have been demolished," he said of their status by 1970. "But Mr. Kissinger (the U.S. secretary of state) and Richard Nixon were quick (to back coup leader Gen. Lon Nol), and then the Khmer Rouge noted the golden opportunity."

Plus, to support that regime Nixon and Kissinger unleashed the B-52s to bomb the fuck out of the Cambodian countryside. Which didn't exactly endear us or their toadies to the Cambodian people, instead they turned to the only other viable group, the Khmer Rouge. Who naturally we initially supported when they came to power, because after all they weren't the Vietnamese.

When we dispair of the Bush Administration getting away with war crimes, remember they aren't the first.