Behind the Bastards
Part Three: The Pol Pot Episodes: How A Nice, Quiet Kid Murdered His Country
Thu, 01 May 2025
Pol Pot and his friends are now in charge of Cambodia and in a remarkably short period of time they manage to kill two million people. Including a leftist academic from the UK who thought the Khmer Rouge was rad. Here's how!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who is Robert Evans and what is the focus of this Pol Pot episode?
Holy crap, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a rare three-part episode. You motherfuckers, you lucky sons of bitches and rat bastards are getting three episodes this week. I am now legally your father, you're welcome. Hi, Sophie. Hi, Andrew T. How are you guys doing? Did that intro work? Are we good?
You don't need to be responsible for people.
I like that. That's like Leprechaun rules. Like, episode three, I'm your father for me.
I don't think you're... I'm going to say something really... I don't think you're their father. I think you're their daddy.
No, no. That feels a lot worse for me, actually.
Yeah, but I think that's what that legally means is you're not father, you're daddy.
I'm like one of those dads that should pay child support, but instead I live on a boat in the harbor of fucking New Orleans.
Are you a libertarian in this scenario?
No, no, no, but I definitely don't believe in the moon landing. This is Behind the Bastards. Again, a podcast. You're enjoying part three of our Pol Pot episodes. And basically the way it goes here, folks, we have a massive audience and I'm always trying to do the most I can to please the most people, which you can't do with every episode.
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Chapter 2: What was the political and military situation in Cambodia before Pol Pot's rise?
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you know, the other side is, like, we're also living through a moment where, like, everyone will cozy up to the dictator who demonstrably will stab you in the back at any given opportunity, and they still line up.
Yeah. So... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, people are really... Like, Coldwell, above all else, is a reminder of how easy it is to blind yourself to obvious reality, even at your own peril, because... Because seeing the reality is not even that you don't want to see it. It's seeing the reality would mean taking a hit to your ego. It's the same thing why you've got.
There's a lot of people being like, oh, well, once these tariffs start to hit, once the economy collapses, all of these Trump supporters will realize. Yeah, they'll see the light. And like a significant chunk of Trump's voters who are not hardcore supporters, who are the people who voted for Biden and, you know, who go back. and forth or who like made their decision day of.
Sure, they'll change their mind. They'll get angry. But the heart and core of his supporters, recognizing that they've been fucked means recognizing they're not as smart as they think they are. And again, Caldwell, that's a big part of it for him. He's a scholar. He's a smart man. He couldn't be this wrong.
Yeah. I mean, you know, and those people are also the ones doing the worst stuff when the time comes to do the worst stuff, unfortunately.
Yes, because again, they've bought in. Now, while all this is going on, The end of the regime is getting nearer and nearer because Pol Pot's also not as smart as he thinks he is. He had directed his forces in what began as a series of border skirmishes against the newly unified Vietnamese state. This was a sensible decision based on their obsessive hatred and paranoia of Vietnam.
But given the comparative state of the militaries of the two countries, it was basically suicidal. And in short order, this is what brings an end to democratic Kampuchea. Vietnam invades Cambodia in December of 1978, and what follows was not close to a fair fight. By January, they had taken the capital and put an end to Pol Pot's reign. Sort of. He has to flee, right?
He has to like leave Phnom Penh and Vietnam takes over and administers, you know, for a while Cambodia and eventually Cambodia becomes independent again under a government that is not the Khmer Rouge. But the Khmer Rouge doesn't go away and Pol Pot remains the head of the Khmer Rouge as they like go and hide in the jungle.
They've got like some villages and stuff, this like little weird fortified section of the country, tiny section of the country that they're able to like manage along. I think it's like the Thai border there.
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