"To Destroy You Is No Loss"

To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family

by JoAn D. Ciddle

The Story of Teeda Butt Mam

"To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss." The taunting slogan used by the Cambodian Communists to intimidate millions of Cambodians in 1975"

I found this book by accident and story grabbed me immediately. It may be that I've become so terribly attuned to the outrages of government and the indifference to the individual that it creates.

Here was Cambodia, by fate geography and time, that had survived with "When Elephants Fight the Ant moves out of the way philosophy," the French, Japanese, French again, North Vietnamese, Americans, Chinese and Vietnamese Communists to be nearly self obliterated by its own Angkar (organization) Communism.

In a sad ironic twist, the Khmer Rouge, mirrored the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution.