Originally posted by sunnydays on March 09, 2026 15:17
I'm really torn on the matter of what the international community could or should have done to stop the Khmer Rouge. I feel like they should have done something, especially knowing how much they ignored as an excuse to do nothing. In the third excerpt we read from 'A Problem from Hell', Twining, who was stationed at the Cambodian border, mentions that someone told him that the Cambodian refugees practiced their stories before sharing them to make them sound as tragic as possible. This is appalling, as is the international community's inaction in the face of obvious genocide. It's also mentioned that "with the country sealed tight, statesmen and citizens could take shelter in the fog of plausible deniability," so it's obvious the US and other governments didn't do anything because it was inconvenient to use resources and interfere when they don't have any self-serving reason to do so.
However, I'm torn because US intervention rarely works. I feel like this was mentioned in one of the excerpts, too. The war in Vietnam was a glaring recent reminder of how ineffective US intervention can be and how much worse it can make the situation. If the US had sent troops into Cambodia, what would have happened? Would it have been another brutal war? I think this is a fair concern, but I do know that the US government had the wrong reasons for its inaction.
This shows another core problem with humanity and the systems we have established. Similar to how communism makes sense in theory but is ineffective in practice due to human greed, US intervention makes sense in theory but most likely would not have worked in practice due to human aggression. The first - and, honestly, only - form of intervention the US government considered was sending troops to fight the Khmer Rouge. In terms of humanitarian aid, they passed the task to Amnesty International, not even considering using US resources on helping refugees. I think that if the strongest countries in the world had better aid programs set up, and that they focused on helping refugees and providing enough food instead of just shooting the enemies, intervention could have worked.
However, if US troops had tried to get into Cambodia, likely the Khmer Rouge would have shot first, and force would have been needed to take the country back. So that begs the question, what could the international community have done? Obviously, Vietnam's invasion successfully deposed the KR, but many people died in the process and Cambodia ended up under foreign rule for a while.
I think the main thing the international community should have done was acted earlier. The Cambodian people deserved the chance to figure out their own way of life after colonialism, even if they chose communism. But once the country closed its borders off, that should have been a sign that they had something to hide, and investigations should have been done (and refugees should have been trusted) to confirm the mass murder and atrocities that were being committed and do something to prevent them.
I do think national sovereignty should be overridden if it is causing the mass suffering (and especially mass death) of citizens. However, as I previously mentioned, I'm not sure what the best way to do that is without resulting in more death and completely destabilizing the country's economy. I think the UN should work on putting a system in place specifically for scenarios in which a regime should be overthrown: one that will take care of the citizens and not start an all-out war.
The most compelling idea in the post of “sunnydays” was the lack of intervention from the international community on the part of the Cambodian genocide. “Sunnydays” uses Powers’s book A Problem From Hell to illustrate how Twining’s knowledge of the Khmer Rouge is appalling. I agree with this idea because much of the UN and the United States knew of the events in Cambodia and chose not to televise it nationally or acknowledge it as an urgent matter. The UN passed the problem onto Amnesty International without considering the use of global superpowers and their resources. Similar to my post, I illustrated the fundamental problem with the Khmer Rouge’s implementation of communism. In a way this contrasts this fundamental problem by also illustrating the problem with the environment around the genocide. Hypothetically, if such a heinous crime like genocide was committed but there is not an adequate source of help to prevent that genocide then there is no structure to stop such events. National sovereignty being overridden is another key topic in my peer’s post and I also agree. I think there needs to be an ethical line where national sovereignty should have a right to intervene. Genocides are wrong in any environment and the lack of use to stop such events needs to be addressed more in the international committee.