No More Killing Fields!
I am one of very few Americans who witnessed the destruction of a country via communism; pre and post revolution. I realize there are millions of Vietnam era vets but I was in a unique place and time. I was in Laos from 1968-1971. I was not a soldier; I was a contract employee of the US Embassy in Laos. I spent my first year as a volunteer in a rural province living at the local level, counter-parted to a provincial agriculture director, I learned the language and the culture. I lived in a simple house with no electricity, water, or bathroom. My first job was to facilitate the forming of agricultural cooperatives for the purpose of raising a second crop of rice each year, and secondly, I was southern regional manager of this work on the Lao/Cambodian border. Nearly 30 years later, I would return to Southeast Asia for a third position as a missionary to help Cambodia recover from the aftermath of one of the most deadly civil wars in history.
During my time in Laos, I watched as it went from a constitutional monarchy in 1968 to a communist state by 1975. The last 4 of these years from back in the USA. I witnessed the major destruction of this country. Public property was destroyed, bridges, irrigation systems and anything associated with their colonial past. The USA thought Laotian unrest was due to economic injustice and that, through development of their country, they would love and support it. We built hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, irrigation systems, even cared for refugees and helped them fight their war. That was never the issue. They believed the system was rotten from the foundation up and wanted it ripped down. Clever operators, posing as sympathetic friends gained political power, and community activists came through infiltration securing jobs in government; some even worked on my staff, unbeknownst to me. They used similar tactics to what we are seeing today in the USA; dissemination of propaganda, via rumor and print, pointing out grievances and enflaming them; recruitment of followers, developing of slogans like, "jackapot", which is hard to translate, but construed the meaning of "colonialist slave master". There were demonstrations against the government, village leaders, police, priests, and aid workers were routinely assaulted and assassinated, eventually leading to open civil war. I lost close friends and co-workers.
I not only lived through this in Laos but I observed Cambodia, as I changed jobs in 1970 and was stationed on the border of Laos and Cambodia as the regional director of Agricultural Development Organization. I was part of the leadership team and met daily for USAID/CIA briefings which consisted of the department heads (about 8 of us) of all US agencies working in the southern five provincial regions of Laos. Information from every agency was shared daily. And, a close eye was kept on Cambodia.
Cambodia was the envy of SE Asia in the 1960's. Lee Kaun Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore, came to see Phnom Penh and gasped out, "I hope someday my country can look this good!" Cambodia maintained neutrality until the overthrow of Prime Minister Sihanouk in 1970 by a pro-American general named Lon Nol. I had thought Sihanouk was the wisest leader in the world as he'd kept his country out of war. Unfortunately, then came the coup. Lon Nol came into power and President Nixon ordered 30,000 soldiers across the Cambodian/Vietnam border to destroy NVA munitions supplies for the Viet Kong, and poof, we had ‘Kent State.’
There was such political pressure that Nixon pulled the troops back and replaced them with B-52 carpet bombing. That gave the struggling Khmer Rouge a propaganda foothold and was the beginning of the end for Cambodia. They were atheistic believers in the communist philosophy of Pol Pot. They believed in the "Angkaw" or "Organization" and it became their God. They destroyed everything and every person that remained from the old civilization. By the end of 1975, Phnom Penh was a burned out cinder. During the next four years, one-third of the population died of murder, disease and starvation (3,300,000 people). Not at the hands of a foreign enemy but, at the hands of their own countrymen; they were the same race, same background, same country. Do you think that can't happen in America? All it takes is a Satanic possession of evil persuasion to believe that godless communism/socialism will work. It has never worked anywhere!
The good news is we are not helpless. We have a remnant church that knows how to war in the Spirit. God spared Nineveh after He decreed their destruction. Yes, the USA has had a faulted past, but as Spirit empowered churches, we need to pray; fight a good warfare! Just look at Seattle, Minneapolis, New York, and the destruction and hatred exhibited by the zealots of BLM, which morphed from a protest against racism into an openly communist insurgency. Look at where we are now verses New Year! Our great advantage is the power of the Holy Spirt through our Lord Jesus Christ. I have seen this power in evidence over the past 21 years in helping this country, Cambodia, recover from the largest genocide in recorded history (in terms of percentage of population killed). I believe our loving God may say this about America: Jonah 3:10 "Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it." We have the power to stop the 'Destroyer' and that's not our God.
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