Memories of Angkor Wat – 1995

In March 1995, I spent two weeks in Cambodia and was able to make a visit to Angkor Wat. At that time, the Khmer Rouge were still active. As part of the peace process following the civil war of the 1980s, the UN-sponsored elections in 1993. The Khmer Rouge excluded itself from the peace process and maintained control of areas in northwestern Cambodia, in the provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap (where Angkor Wat was located), and neighbouring Thailand. Its forces numbered around 10,000 fighters and were able to extend Khmer Rouge control to more than half a million Cambodians, four times as many as before the peace accords. During the dry season in late 1994 and early 1995, the Khmer Rouge adopted new tactics, including the murder of civilians, the systematic destruction of civilian homes and rice fields, looting, rape and the kidnapping and murder of Westerners.

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The 2025 US coup and the triumph of pre-modern values

The world is witnessing a coup taking place in the USA as Trump and Musk set about dismantling the US government, ignoring all congressional legislation and fiscal authority. The Constitution has effectively been suspended. Trump and Musk are leading extra-governmental operatives (young white male engineers employed by Musk) who have seized control of the Treasury payment system, and IT systems in other agencies such as USAID. They are starting to eliminate agencies created by Congress, the first being USAID. They are suspending payments authorized by law, re-interpreting the Constitution, and ignoring the judiciary. Already, several judges have made orders suspending various of their activities. They are being ignored. Ultimately, much later, such orders may end up in the Supreme Court who have already ruled that Trump has immunity for official actions.

What has led to this? How did the world’s richest man and a deeply ignorant psychopathic criminal get to seize control of government in the USA?

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