As the death marches out of Phnom Penh proceeded, Lewis went on making excuses for the Khmer Rouge. He mused that it was ``the only way to start on their vision of a new society.'' Americans who objected were guilty of ``cultural arrogance, an imperial assumption, that . . . our way of life'' would be better.<
The American Left, and interestingly, Putin, say the same thing today.
Americans who objected were guilty of ``cultural arrogance, an imperial assumption, that . . . our way of life'' would be better. The truth is that it was the KR who imposed an alien way of life on the Cambodians -- one learned on the left bank in Paris by Pol Pot. In the process of imposing a Marxist "utopia" on the Cambodians, the Khmer Civilization was largely destroyed and the damage lingers today.