Vietnam War and Cambodia

I am always amazed at folks who are willing to tell only half a story in order for it to fit their preconceived beliefs. To suggest, as Robert Scheer does, that Cambodia was neutral while the war in Vietnam raged is flat out incorrect (Column Left, July 8). Cambodia hosted thousands of North Vietnamese troops and was a major conduit for supplies. Cambodia was used as a sanctuary by these troops as they battled U.S. and allied troops, and killed civilians in Vietnam.

The errors were in fact first, by President Johnson for allowing this sanctuary to exist without a price and second, by President Nixon for not being up front and public about our efforts to deny the enemy the use of the sanctuary in 1969.

Lastly, the B-52s were not targeting “people still tilling the soil with water buffalo,” but arms depots and troop concentrations.

MIKE WEEKS

Duarte

* We Americans can’t escape our responsibility to Cambodia simply by demonizing Pol Pot, no matter how culpable he was in their “killing fields.” That country’s agony over the past generation is directly traceable to reckless CIA interventions, and by the Nixon/Kissinger carpet bombing, which killed so many of their innocents.

Even if such actions had been effective, they remain unjustifiable by any nation, let alone one that holds up a flag of freedom and justice before the world. Scheer’s column on Cambodia furnished us with a much-needed reminder of the perils of a foreign policy based on expediency rather than principle.

WILLIAM H. NAUMANN

Los Angeles