STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

King Norodom Sihanouk: Butcher of Cambodia Dies; NY Times Obituary Fanciful Distortion of His ’Killing Machine’.

Today on October 15, 2012 -I read in the NY Times Obituary that King Sihanouk died.  I had known him both personally and professionally.  In 1991,   I was brought back from my private professional world to work specifically on developing  a peace treaty for a war-torn  country ravaged by the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese, France, China, and the US.  My expertise was in strategy, tactics, intelligence and development of the foundation for an international treaty.  The other successful treaty that I had worked on was the 1979 Israel-Egypt Camp David Peace Treaty which President Jimmy Carter had personally managed.

I was specifically brought in by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, Dr Richard Solomon.  For two years, I worked on disarming the Khmer Rouge, and trying to create a viable government with King Sihanouk.  I helped develop the UN mechanism by which the final treaty was created under UN auspices.  HOWEVER,  it was not the UN that created the Treaty- it was Dr Richard Solomon and the U.S. State Department with a little help from me and from a formidable Foreign Service Officer named Charles H. Twining, a proficient French and Khmer speaker.  Together, we spent endless hours flying between Thailand, Cambodia,  and Paris. More often than not, our CIA and intelligence communities were at best faulty and as usual totally ineffective.  At the time, I dismissed both the Station Chief in Paris and Thailand as  ‘incompetent’ and ‘ignorant’.  Why do I say this? 

It is important to understand how poorly our country has been served by our C IA and other intel agencies.  My good fortune was in going into the Jungles of both Thailand and Cambodia , I was able to talk in my native dialect of (Toulouse) French to several of the Anti Communist troop leaders and find out the truth of the situation on the ground and that it had been completely distorted and falsely reported by our CIA.

  In turn,  I created by own intelligence organization  consisting primarily of field military intel officers from the US , Australia, France, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, and Cambodia as well other countries.

As a result,   I was able to utilize the Perm Five Council of the UN –consisting of France, England, China, Russia, Britain, and the US to accomplish what needed to get done.  The psychological techniques I used are outlined in my novel “Active Pursuit”.  What I had to do was quite drastic but necessary.  Suffice to say, that my ‘skills’ as ‘professional regime changer’ were well applied. 

Why do I tell you all this right now? Because I just read the most ludicrous obituary about any ‘killer’ with whom I had to work for two unbearable years.  Sihanouk was not ‘cunning’ nor ‘charming’ nor ‘mercurial’,  he was a Sick Killer.  Sick—in the sense that he had bipolar illness that no one, especially the French who had supported him,  ever recognized nor treated.  Sihanouk died a ‘killer’ and ‘abettor’ of Pol Pot and his ruthless Khmer Rouge-assisting them in the first auto-genocide [killing of your own people] in the 2Oth century.  Not only did both NYT’s writers incorrectly describe this ‘monster’ who was pathetic and dysfunctional in all manners both personal and professional but they spun a fairytale that made it sound as if this ‘killer’ was simply a ‘manipulator’ of superpowers and had a ‘talent to align himself’ accordingly. 

They don’t describe Sihanouk’s   three hour tirade at the Kleber Center in Paris,  where he gave an incredible rant to twenty two nations about the importance of “Genocide” and how every country in the room had committed ‘necessary genocide’. 

  These two NYT  journalists,  Elizabeth Becker and Seth Mydans,  both self-proclaimed ‘asia experts’ had no knowledge how Sec State Baker and I agreed to put HunSen—Ex Khmer Rouge , proVietnamese Leader into power in Cambodia - meanwhile , we would place King Sihanouks’ obnoxious, arrogant , incompetent , Francophile son, into a transitional power base.

So once again, a major murderer of the 20^th century, easily equivalent in my experience to Mao [millions killed in the Cultural Revolution],  Stalin [ forty million killed ], etc. gets away with a ‘fluff piece from the NY Times’. 

  Most of you are probably are not surprised that the NY Times has once again failed as they did under the ersatz leadership of the wanting writer Bill Keller, to report on the 9/11 truthfully. 

  Sadly,  I have met and talked to Elizabeth Becker. And I can honestly say that I had never met a more ignorant, disingenuous, manipulative reporter who had been easily ‘worked’ by me and my operatives (about whom she had complained).  Becker has no credence by historical or journalistic standards.   She is a ‘lackey- ingratiating herself with historical figures’.  She has no capability, no understanding ,  nor motivation to probe for the truth. 

As for Seth Mydans, his name appeared to me on several different occasions.  One, he attended Andover Prep School,  a year behind my brother, a famous biochemistry professor,  and in the same class with George Bush Jr.  He has a checkered career in both Vietnam and around the world.  In my role as Counter Intelligence Operative,  I would bet my career that he was and is CIA or some close affiliation to that group.  All you have to, my dear reader, is to look his name up in Wikipedia and you will find nothing about him. Ergo—Bad Cover, Poor reporting.

  Anyway,  another tyrant has died and those who brought him to power are still free of blame.  Let me be more specific. …the French created this imbecile,  a playboy  with no capacity to do anything other than procreate and at that,  given the nature of his consort  “Queen Monique”, une putan, was singularly unimpressive.  The French allowed King Sihanouk and his henchmen to run a bordello in France which he could not even run effectively with his ‘Queen’.  Then we have President Nixon and my former boss, Henry Kissinger, [whom I personally and professionally detested but that’s another blog for another time] to illegally bomb a ‘neutral’Cambodia.  Then we have People’s Republic of China which consistently encouraged him and Pol Pot to engage in their mass murder machine.  Of course, China will soon find it’s own retribution when the PLA  attempts another military coup against the Central Committee.  Then we have Thailand which in their inevitable disgusting  way , protected Pol Pot and his mercenaries, all the  time denying that he was protected on their soil. 

  History has no memory or desire for accuracy.  It’s merely a narrative concocted by (in this case) two inadequate writers,  perhaps manque novelists,  but it is NOT the experience of this American who soon left State Department  after the1991 Peace Conference On Cambodia Treaty was signed. 

This treaty owes more not to the fanciful tales of  faux journalism but to the incredible professionalism of the Charles H. Twinings of this world.  The last time I saw him was in a bookstore. 

  It’s to him that the honesty of this blog is dedicated and to those other FSO’s and US diplomats who for once and for all have to be recognized for their ‘silent miracles’. 

 Le roi est mort!  Grace a dieux!