The UN Has Been Evil For Longer Than You Think
The Gaza war reminds me of the Vietnam war, but not in the way you think.
Israel is not America. It’s Vietnam. Gaza is not America either. It’s Cambodia.
Okay, so my first sentence was a bit misleading. I’m not talking about THE Vietnam war. I’m talking about the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. Arguably, the most justified war of the 20th century.
This little-known war stopped one of the worst genocides in human history and exposed the absolute worst of the UN almost 50 years before October 7.
Don’t worry, we’ll get back to it soon.
Most history books will tell you the war began in 1978 with a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. However, that’s like saying the October 7 war began with an Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2023.
Between 1975 and 1978, Cambodia, led by the deranged Khmer Rouge movement, went on dozens of bloody raids against Vietnamese border villages, massacring thousands of civilians in the most barbaric ways imaginable.
In the Ba Chúc massacre alone, 3,157 civilians were murdered. The Khmer Rouge took the local villagers to temples and schools to torture and kill them with cold weapons. The residents who fled to the mountains were hunted with dogs. Children were flung into the air and then slashed with bayonets. Women were raped and staked in their genitals to death. The Khmer Rouge then went from house to house looting valuables and killing cattle, before burning the houses to the ground.
Now, at this point you may ask yourself, “is it really a good idea to start a war with the Vietnamese after they successfully fought the Japanese, French, and Americans, and told China to take a hike?”
The answer is, “no, it’s a bad idea.” Just as bad as a statelet without an air force invading a state with one of the strongest air forces on the planet.
In response to the massacres, Vietnam decided to remove the Khmer Rouge from Cambodia. 150,000 Vietnamese troops invaded “Democratic Kampuchea” and overran the Revolutionary Army in just two weeks, thereby ending Pol Pot‘s rule, which had been responsible for the deaths of a quarter of all Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.
In just four years, this insane far left government had killed as many 2.8 million of its own people. It was only the Vietnamese military intervention and subsequent facilitation of international food aid that ended the genocide and saved millions of lives.
Now, this might seems like one of the most morally virtuous wars in history. In response to a series of beastly massacres, an nation invades a barbaric neighbor engaged in one of the worst genocides in history, topples its deranged dictator and ends the slaughter.
You’d think the world would celebrate this crusade against evil. Nah, you wouldn’t think that. You’re not an idiot.
You see, international law cares about borders, not motives. Even though the Khmer Rouge was pure evil, even though they started the war through a series of senseless massacres, the West was unhappy Vietnam took the battle to their enemies instead of just pushing the enemy away from the border.
“Okay,” you may ask, this is the First World, “but what about the Second World?”
Well, China and ASEAN saw this as Soviet-aligned invasion because the Soviet Union supported Vietnam. “Sure, Pol Pot made Dracula look like a saint, but we can’t have Soviet allies expanding Soviet influence by killing monsters, can we now?”
As a result, the UN condemned Vietnam for the invasion. Almost the entire world condemned Vietnam for the invasion.
What’s even more disgusting is that it let the Khmer Rouge keep Cambodia’s UN seat for years. Again, we’re talking about a regime which murdered 25% of its own population and then brought the same level of brutality to its neighbors.
Cambodia attacked first. Cambodia committed genocide. Vietnam stopped it. The world condemned Vietnam.
The hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy already stink, but let’s make it worse.
Let’s talk about Gaza and Kosovo.
Just like the Khmer Rouge carried out cross-border massacres, Hamas carried out a massive invasion from Gaza, committing untold atrocities in Israeli border towns.
Just like Vietnam, Israel responded with a large-scale military action to remove this threat to its citizens. Just like Vietnam, most of the world focused on the response instead of the initial attack.
People acknowledged the horror but refused to let the horror shape policy. Pressure, sanctions threats, and legal action focused overwhelmingly on Israel despite the Jewish state being the victim of aggression from an entity which promised endless war and genocide, not just against the Jews but against everyone who didn’t share its Islamist ideology.
Both Vietnam and Israel crossed an ostensible international taboo: they aimed to remove the threat not just deter it. The international system relies on states to stop horrors it does nothing to stop itself… then condemns them for doing exactly that.
Now let’s make it worse.
So far, the world order we’ve painted may be soulless, but at least it’s rules-based right? Enter the Kosovo war.
Kosovo was meant to be the exception that proved the rule. Instead, the only thing it proved is that there were no rules at all, only the whims of the powerful.
In 1999, NATO bombed a sovereign state allegedly to prevent a genocide (though no genocide was taking place). During the war, NATO targeted journalists, civilians, and even refugees. This led to a regime and soverignty-change in Kosovo and one of the largest ethnic cleansings in modern European history carried under the auspices of NATO.
Was NATO condemned the way Vietnam and Israel were?
No. Its war of unprovoked war aggression against a sovereign state, the changing of borders by force, and ethnic cleansing were celebrated as a model humanitarian intervention.
It was “illegal but legitimate.”
It is difficult to swallow this level of hypocrisy.
Kosovo permanently damaged the credibility of the “Rules-based international order” and paved the way to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the same way, the Gaza war proved the UN and “international laws” are a grotesque mockery of justice, a theater of the absurd where we’re the punchline.
Vietnam learned this in 1979.
Serbia learned this in 1999.
Israel learned this in 2023.
Russia and China watched closely and took notes.
And now, the price of immortality is catching up with the West.
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Good job of dealing out a ignored part of modern history. Keep at it
Thank you for the history lesson.