John Kerry: “Mr. President, each of us invested a portion of our youth in Southeast Asia, and each of us are now investing a…”

“Mr. President, each of us invested a portion of our youth in Southeast Asia, and each of us are now investing a considerable amount of our concern as U.S. Senators of both parties with events as they continue in Southeast Asia. All of us remain convinced that this is a region that is vital to our international security interests. It is an area where we have a great deal at stake, and nowhere more so, really, than in Cambodia. As everybody knows, as a matter of history, the United States played a critical role in the 1970's in events in Cambodia. And ever since then, the Cambodian people have been reaping the harvest of much of what has gone on in the region as a whole--the invasion by Vietnam, the influence of China and, most important, the terrible, terrible acts of the Khmer Rouge, the 'killing fields' as we came to know them in this country. It is ironic that at the very moment when the Khmer Rouge is at its weakest in recent years, when Pol Pot appears to be a prisoner and when the leadership has defected, when the army, as a whole, has decided to come into the system, that the system is now itself in convulsions and rejecting the process that so many people in the international community have invested so much in over the last years.”