re: #22 goddamnedfrank
re: #23 Dark_Falcon
re: #24 EPR-radar
The Khmer Rouge were for a time supported by the USA because they were anti-Vietnamese and the Khmer were allied with China and Vietnam had just defeated a Red Chinese invasion and the Vietnamese were allied with the USSR which had fallen out with China and China was now allied with the USA.
When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and destroyed the Khmer Rouge the USA condemned the Vietnamese.
The Khmer Rouge would likely not have survived without the support of its old patron China and a surprising new ally: the United States. Norodom Sihanouk, now in exile after briefly serving as head of state under the Khmer Rouge, formed a loose coalition with the guerillas to expel the Vietnamese from Cambodia. The United States gave the Sihanouk-Khmer Rouge coalition millions of dollars in aid while enforcing an economic embargo against the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government. The Carter administration helped the Khmer Rouge keep its seat at the United Nations, tacitly implying that they were still the country’s legitimate rulers.
The U.S. government’s refusal to recognize the new Cambodian government and its unwillingness to distance itself from the Khmer Rouge was motivated by several factors, primarily animosity toward its former foe, Vietnam, and Vietnam’s Soviet backers. Additionally, the United States did not want to sour its improving relations with the Khmer Rouge’s longtime patron, China. What started as a diplomatic decision to manipulate the Sino-Soviet split and isolate and punish Vietnam became a moral blunder that ensured the survival of the genocidal Khmer Rouge.
The USA was not the good guy in Indochina.