Well, well, well… if it isn’t Tricky Dick, making his third appearance in our parade of presidential screwups. At this rate, Nixon’s turning our May calendar into a greatest hits album of executive blunders. And guess what? He’s not even done yet. This time, he’s back with a bang — literally — for secretly bombing a neutral country without telling Congress, the American public, or anyone who didn’t happen to be on the receiving end of high explosives.

Let’s rewind to the Vietnam War. America was already waist-deep in a bloody, confusing conflict that no one knew how to win, but Nixon figured he had a trick up his sleeve: expand the war… secretly.

So, from 1969 to 1973, Nixon authorized a covert bombing campaign in Cambodia. You know, the neutral country next door. No declaration of war. No congressional approval. Just tens of thousands of bombing raids under the radar — literally and politically.

The official explanation? To destroy North Vietnamese supply lines. The real result? Radicalizing Cambodia, decimating villages, and destabilizing the entire region. This set the table for the rise of the Khmer Rouge, whose genocide would claim nearly two million lives.

When the secret finally got out, Nixon looked America in the eye and told us to trust him — because clearly, nothing screams “trustworthy” like illegally bombing a country and then lying about it for four years.

Nixon’s defenders like to say he ended the war. Sure — the same way a person ends a bar fight by throwing a grenade into the crowd. He may have reduced American troop levels, but he did it while lighting the rest of the neighborhood on fire.

What makes this a top-tier screwup isn’t just the betrayal of democratic process — though that’s plenty bad. It’s the long-term damage: the ripple effects that led to genocide, shattered credibility abroad, and a legacy of imperial presidency that still haunts us.

And for what? For buying time. For trying to bomb his way to the negotiating table. For believing that secrecy is smarter than strategy.

📝 Editor’s Note:

When presidents talk about “protecting American interests,” it often means someone else’s country gets flattened. Nixon didn’t invent that kind of thinking — but he sure gave it a masterclass. And the bill came due in skulls, not dollars.