Behind the Bastards

Part Three: The Pol Pot Episodes: How A Nice, Quiet Kid Murdered His Country

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May 1, 2025
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INSIGHT

US Bombing Fueled Khmer Rouge Growth

  • The US bombing campaign in Cambodia unintentionally fueled support for the Khmer Rouge insurgency.
  • Violence and devastation led peasants to seek revenge through joining the Khmer Rouge.
INSIGHT

Year Zero Radical Societal Reset

  • Pol Pot's Year Zero aimed for a radical societal reset to fit his agrarian communist vision.
  • This involved abolishing individuality, family, money, and foreign influences to create a pure peasant society.
INSIGHT

Toxification Enables Genocide

  • Toxification propaganda portrayed enemies as poisonous threats, enabling genocidal violence.
  • Such messaging justified mass killings as necessary for the revolution's survival.
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