Danny's Weblog

William Shawcross's "Sideshow"

This book deals with the sad history of Cambodia and the effects of US policy.

It was first published many years ago, around the time Kissinger wrote his memoirs of the period, and is striking because it contains a succession of afterwords, containing the text of objections to "Sideshow" and the author's responses.

The book was interesting to me for several reasons. One is the fact that it is about Cambodia; another is that it deals with perhaps the central propaganda war of the 20th century, more bitterly-fought than any other: the Spanish Civil War, the Holocaust lie, NATO.

Personally, I felt the dissection of the maneuvering inside Cambodia in the years up to Lon Nol was very readable. It's interesting to know that Sihanouk and his family, for instance, managed to achieve the throne although the Norodom line had a prior claim.

In addition, I feel that many general criticisms of US policy are valid. The concept of the title – that the US saw Cambodia as a tiny "sideshow" important only insofar as it could be diverted to serve other interests – seems incontrovertible. (I recently happened to see a TV show about Watergate, and I saw no mention of Cambodia although this was the period of the "secret war".)

Additionally, it seems clear that US diplomats based their decisions about Cambodia on zero knowledge of or insight into Cambodia's culture and history. For instance, the effects of allowing ARVN to roam unrestrictedly inside Cambodia should have been anticipated, and special precautions taken.

On the other hand, I feel strongly that some of the criticisms made by Kissinger and his supporters are obviously true. Shawcross is evidently a supporter of the Vietnamese communists: sparing no effort to malign every ghastly *unintentional* consequence of the US war effort, he draws a veil over the horrible *intentional* results of the NVA's strategy and tactics, such as their programme of assassinations throughout the war, or their massacre of civilians during the Tet offensive.

It may well be the case that a more clever, or even less duplicitous, policy by the US could have saved Cambodia from the unmitigated hell it went through for many years. However, it is ludicrous to try to assign final blame for that atrocity to the US. The US was there because of the program of the NVA to subvert and invade South Vietnam, and the US aim of holding back the NVA, and communism in general, has only been further justified by the events in South-East Asia since then, and the admissions by the NVA of its aims and operations.

"Sideshow" is a deeply tendentious book. Its logic would have been torn apart by the same reviewers who praised it, if its intention had not been to make those who opposed US involvement in SE Asia feel less guilty about Cambodia.

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