U.S. WITHDRAWS FROM CAMBODIA BUT NOT FROM WAR America's two-month invasion of Cambodia was a disastrous failure.
Historians may describe it as the beginning of Washington's Dica Bien Phu-the famous battle of S WRC SmOOU rICa0 UCAr BOROM President Nixon has called the U.S.-Saigon invasion a success. mc sald te sarca Amoncan lycs and shortened the war." He insisted it put pressure on the peace-talk delegations of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam to accept U.S.
Fach of these claims is an incredible distortion of reality.
"Success? If destroying a few million bowis of rice and wiping out hundreds of villages is a military triumph, the operation was indeed a success. If the military and political situation in Cambodia as the last U.S. troops pulled back to Vietnam is the criterion however, the invasion was a costly and foolhardly adventure. Troops of the National United Front of Cambodia are circling Phnom Penh. They roam at will over much of the countryside. Supply lines have been reconstituted. Most important, if the Cambodian masses didn't realize it betore the invasion they now realize their salvation lies with the NUF and not with the fraudulent Lon Nol regime, which is presid ing over the destruction of its own country and people.
FABRICATION AND DISASTER
"Saved American lives and shortened the war?? This is the biggest fabrication of all. By engineering the coup against Cambodian head of state Norodom Sihanouk, followed by the invasion, the U.S. welded the liberation forces of Vietnam, Cambodia, and the DRV into one military bloc with China as its back vard. If the U.S. could not win a decade-long war apainst the liberation forces of South Vietnam, how does it expect to win against the NUF in Cambodia and the Laotian Patriotic Front in Laos at the same time How could this possibly save lives and shorten the war for the U.S?
"Increased pressure at the peace talks?" The talks hardly exist any longer due to the invasion since both the DRV and PRG regarded the Cambodian adventure as the manifestation par excellence of Washington s contempt for negotiations.
The sum effect of the invasion is that Nixon dramatically expanded the war, presumably on some extraordinarily bad advice from the Pentagon, which probably assured him the Cambodian liberation forces would crumble, Lon Nol's tottering regime would be saved, that the PRG would evaporate once its "sanctuaries" were uprooted and that it would enhance a military axis of Saigon, Phnom Penh, Vientiane and Bangkok in line with Nixon's policy of subsituting Asian dead for U.S. dead in Indochina.
Domestic pressure at home forced Nixon to observe a two-month deadline for removal of U.S. troops, But the invasion has apparently earned the U.S. government the "right" to subsidize Saigon's continuing invasion, to continue strategic and tactical bombing of Cambodia by U.S. planes and to invest huge sums in money and arms in the Phnom Penh regime.
Nixon may succeed in having Asians fight Asians but it is hardly likely "Washington's Asians" will be able to hold out for long without increased funding, arms, air support and, ultimately, ground troops from the U.S.
The war has been lengthened, not shortened. More, not less. U.S. lives will be lost.
As for the effect on the Paris talks, DRV delegation chief Xuan Thuy has left Paris and returned to Hanoi. The head of the PRG-NLF delegation, Nguyen Thi Binh, has left Paris for her jungle headquarters in South Vietnam where she will exercise her functions as Foreign Minister. Key personel from both delegations have also left Paris. It will be difficult to get them back in a hurry, especially those from the PRG-NLF" Why have the leaders of the PRG and DRV delegations turned their field; Air Force cargo transports were fueled for immediate action and soldiers were processed for rapid deployment.
The situation in Germany unfolded so rapidly few Gls were initially aware of what was happening. Monitoring of international shortwave broadcast and military communications revealed the facts. Ostensibly the U.S. government was concerned about the 36 Americans held hostage by commandoes in an Amman hotel. The superficial excuse for the alert was that U.S. troops might have to rescue the stranded Americans.
Considering the extent of the preparations, however, it is clear massive backs on the Paris talks? Beause for them the Cambodian invasion was the absolute final proof of Nixon's disinterest in a negotiated settlement. It was the confirmation of what they had offically suspected since Nixon took office-to achieve a military victory or at least a situation from which the U.S. delegation could negotiate from a position OL SITCOAEE In fact, the American negotiating position in Paris has never been weaker than at this moment. Even if the Cambodian operation had really been the military success Nixon and his apologists claim, it could only have had a negative effect on the negotiations.
Nixon thinks in terms of improving his position at the mid-term elections and at furthest in terms of the 1972 presidential elections. The Vietnamese are thin king in terms of the life of their nation, not of a temporary election victory. They will never give up fighting or negotiating - or just tighting-as long as there is a single foreign soldier on their soil with hostile intent. They are used to setbacks, to zigs and zags invitable in the struggle between a small, technically backward nation and the world's mightiest imperialist power. They have had similar problems throughout their history. And history justifies them in being content or tae outomo Thousands of persants have been murdered by U.S.-Saigon firepower. Untold individuals have been brutalized and tortured. Hundreds of thousands have been made homeless or will be in a short while. "Sanctuaries"-often Cambodian villages-have been wiped out in frontier areas and poisonous substances have been scattered about to insure they will not be reoccupied. Farms and crops are routinely destroyed. Over 100,000 Vietnamese residents of Cambodia have been rounded up and locked in unsanitary, crowded concentration camps. The politically suspect have been murdered. The country is under absolute dictatorial command. And every day giant B-52 bombers take to the air to further the destruction.
In exchange for that, there is this description of the situation in Cambodia reported in Le Monde of June 30: "Sihanouk's men [NUF otally control the provinces of Ratanäkiri, Mondulkiri, Stung Treng and Kratie [bordering Laos and most of the frontier with South Vietnam and the Mekong valley. They occupy the greater part of the provinces of Siem Reap, Kompong Thom, Kompot and the coast from the Gulf of Siam to Kompong Som, the former SinnoukVlC. And as for the situation in Phnom Penh itself, Le Monde continued: "Phnom Penh is enciroled. There are patrols of "Khmer Serei" mercenaries trained in Thailand and South Vietnam who will obey no one, not even Lon Non, the brother of the general [dicator Lon Noll reputed though he is for his brutality...
The Cambodian countryside is becoming a vast French and Cambodian rubber plantations and their processing installations have been napalmed out of existence by B-52's-reputediy to enhance U.S., Saigon and Malaysian rubber interests. Major provincial capitals have been reduced to rubble and ashes. All communications with Phnom Penh are cut. A vigorous Cambodian resistance movement is gathering strength from day to day, having jumped the classic stages of people's war to reach that of the enciriement of towns, due to the support, experience, arms, cadres and solid bases from their Vietnamese and Laotian a ules These are some of the real results of Nixons Campodin seventure Norto menson toe unstemmer advance of the Pathet Lao forces in Laos, especially in the areas bordering on the old liberated areas in South Vietnam and the newly liberated areas in Cambodia.
Vietnam is no longer alone on the battlefield. The withdrawal of U.S. ground troops from Cambodia does not affect the fact that the overall military strength of the U.S. and its satellites and puppets in Indochina is now dispersed and diluted. Even intensified air activity cannot influence the military situation. U.S. and its allies cannot occupy and hold territory. Neither in Laos, Cambodia nor Vietnam.