Thais Plan Protest Against US Intervention

[Gaybutton]

The following appears in THE NATION:

_____

 

Protest Against US Planned Tuesday

 

A group of university lecturers, government officers, university students will submit an open letter to the US Embassy on Tuesday asking the US government to stop intervening in Thailand's domestic politics.

 

"We thank the US government for its concern over the situation in Thailand. However, we ask the US government to stop voicing its opinions and actions that are intervening to Thailand's internal politics," read the letter.

 

"Please also be respectful to Thai society for we are mature enough to find solutions through the democratic regime under the Monarchy which is different from American Democracy,"

 

The US government has been vocal since the coup took place on September 19. It has suspended the military assistance worth USD 23 million and has pressured the coup makers to remove the emergency decree.

 

The Nation

[TotallyOz]

Perhaps they should have said, "since we did not intervene when your country put into office a President that did not get the majority vote, leave us the fudge alone."

[Gaybutton]

Perhaps they should have said, "since we did not intervene when your country put into office a President that did not get the majority vote, leave us the fudge alone."

 

The USA is trying to impose its version of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. Working great, isn't it?

[Guest thrillbill8]

Too bad the American government (or the puppets at the American Embassy in BKK) don't realize that the Thais (somewhat) have more of a democracy than the Americans. Over a year ago the Thais felt comfortable enough to peacefully voice their opinion and demonstrate against Thaksin. In America. if you tried to voice your opinion against Bush or against the American policy in Iraq, you're labeled "anti-American" and most people don't want to hear another view. I can't picture Americans having the balls to demonstrate against the government-- too afraid of not being in the main stream.

[fedssocr]

That's ridiculous. There are protests against Bush and the government here every day. And even more than that there are tons of alternative media online and elsewhere denouncing Bush and the Republicans in Congress. And polls out today show that most Americans disapprove of the president and the congress and the direction of the country. How free is the media in Thailand today to go against the coup leaders? How free are people there to protest against your government?

 

Of course our government should stay out of Thai internal politics. But I think we also have a right to spend our aid money how we please.

 

I hate Bush and what he has done to the world and our country as much as anyone. And I loved my time in Thailand and the people I met there and think you all have a right to organize your government however you please. But don't delude yourself into thinking that we don't have a right to protest here.

[PattayaMale]

I am very impressed with the wording that was quoted in the first post by Gaybutton. The idea of respect for others, in my opinion, is very lacking in the Bush's administration policies. As I posted before, I am very embarrased as a USA citizen as to what is happening now in the US. And as for protests, yes there are some, but if you read the amendments to the "Patriot Act" it appears that even US citizens can be held for any reason without reason if so deemed. That is not the type of democracy I hope we will find in the new Thailand charter........I wish I could find the spell check. Could someone PM me and let me know, please

[Bob]

if you read the amendments to the "Patriot Act" it appears that even US citizens can be held for any reason without reason if so deemed.

 

In the interests of accuracy only, that is simply not true. Nor has it happened to a single citizen (with the possible exception of a couple of people of dual citizenship engaged in waging war against US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq).

While I do object to some of the surveillance techniques of the Patriot Act that could relate to US citizens (e.g., the possible search of library records), the vast bulk of the act doesn't deal with US citizens at all. And one might be actually surprised by some of the language included in the act such as the following (which is hardly draconian) withing Section 102 of the act:

It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans, including Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and Americans from South Asia, must be protected, and that every effort must be taken to preserve their safety;

(2) any acts of violence or discrimination against any Americans be condemned; and

(3) the Nation is called upon to recognize the patriotism of fellow citizens from all ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds.

 

 

Back to the subject of the original post, the funds under suspension involve voluntary assistance and I personally don't have a problem with the US suspending payment while the events play out; after all, what has happened is that an allegedly democratic government was overthrown by force, martial law is ineffect, and many civil liberties have been indefinitely suspended. While I am very happy that no bloodshed has occurred and the net effect to most Thai citizens has been negligible, I wouldn't expect the US government (or any legitimate democracy) to praise the events. The US ambassador has now met with the new leaders, the relationship is still friendly, and I suspect the suspension will be lifted soon (if it hasn't been already).

 

Yes, I detest Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield and I abhor some of the policies (ie., the Iraq war) of the Bush administration; yet, the US government has done and continues to do a lot of good things for its own citizens and other nations. And it, like every other nation, has the right and the duty to speak out against any governmental infringement of civil liberties anywhere. In the last 40 years, I think that whenever I've heard comments such as "what we do in our country is none of your business" or "don't comment about what we do internally", such comments usually have come from very represive countries. If anything, most nations didn't scream loudly enough about South Africa, China (the laughably named "cultural revolution"), North Korea, etc.

[PattayaMale]

In Bob's post he quoted part of the Patriot Act. In what I wrote, I was considering the recent changes of what also maybe known as the "Detainees Bill". I used the genaeral conception of what I was disgustingly call the "Patriot Act" because I do not consider it Patriotic when compared with what the US currently promotes as democracy.

 

Let me quote a journalist who ecently wrote "The version of the detainee bill now in the Senate not only undoes much of the McCain-Warner-Graham work, but it is actually much worse than the administration

[dapitt]

And it, like every other nation, has the right and the duty to speak out against any governmental infringement of civil liberties anywhere.

 

The US may feel that it has the right, but it has no such "duty" whatsoever to speak out to Thailand or any other government or its people. The lose of any 'moral authority' that the US has suffered has rendered its views as useless and mostly unwanted. And as for infringement of civil liberties and oppression, those are qualities that I feel daily here in a rapid degeneration of the American society primarily at the hands of our own religious fundamentalists.

 

PattayaMale is right on in his views.... including his plea for a spell checker! Yes GB, I know, I know.... we could write it out in a word processor, run the spell checker then post; or we could download that other web browser; or..., we could be provided a spell checker here on the board.

 

[TotallyOz]

PattayaMale is right on in his views.... including his plea for a spell checker! Yes GB, I know, I know.... we could write it out in a word processor, run the spell checker then post; or we could download that other web browser; or..., we could be provided a spell checker here on the board.

 

LOL Thanks. Is the spell checker kind of like the Welfare system in the US; an entitlement? jk btw

 

this is probalbly too political for this forum and I should beg pardon for going on like this

 

No pardon needed. We actually love political discussions. I am a political junkie going back to my days of protests and rallies. Now, all I rally against is a 20 baht rise in the cost of a drink at a gogo bar. I don't think a protest march town Soi Twilight would cause the bars to lower the prices. Plus, I may abandon ship at the first sight of a sexy doorman.

 

Please post away and always feel free to post your opinion.

 

I am very embarrased as a USA citizen as to what is happening now in the US.

 

I think you are in the majority of travelers here.

[Guest wowpow]

Western leaders seem to rush to condemn the Coup d'Etat in Thailand without any consideration of the Thai political situation.

 

There is an automatic reaction that Democracy is good and Coups are bad. I agree that Democracy is desirable but even though it's the best system that we have it can be very bad even when the rules are not abused. There is no doubt that if the October elections had taken place Taksin would have been re-elected.

 

I think that most of the disapproval statements are for home consumption rather than for any concern to improve Thai goverment.

 

 

 

[Guest dpausten]

Bob wrote: In the interests of accuracy only, that is simply not true. Nor has it happened to a single citizen (with the possible exception of a couple of people of dual citizenship engaged in waging war against US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq).

 

I understood Jose Padilla was a US citizen and that he was neither a dual national nor arrested in Iraq or Afghanistan.

[Guest Hedda]

There is no doubt that if the October elections had taken place Taksin would have been re-elected.

 

Yes, and if we had known that Bush was going to get re-elected, I suppose you think that a coup in America would have been fine too. The guy who posted above that there is more freedom and democracy in Thailand than the USA is delusional.

 

Ends don't justify the means when the means are illegal. Democracy means you make mistakes and elect wrong people sometimes, which you don't undo by calling the Army's coup hotline.

 

There's something inherently unhealthy in a country where generals feel they have a right to take over the government because they don't like who's going to get elected.

 

Bullets not ballots have turned Burma into a 40 year nightmare. Go back to 1976 here and you'll get a glimpse at what could go wrong, if the people lose faith in developing a truly democratic process.

 

Everyone dies, even the greatest hero; it's the respect for the rule of law, not men, that keeps things together in the long term and makes countries truly democratic.

[Guest A Rose By Any Other Name]

Ends don't justify the means when the means are illegal.

 

Oh Hedda, you do love your blanket statements. Too bad they just don't hold water. Let's look at world history for example. The Nazis and Hitler. By your blanket reasoning, we should have just let Hitler do whatever he pleased. Remember, murder is illegal. War is murder. Sometimes the ends do indeed justify the means.

 

TR The Rose

 

[Guest BKKvisitor]

A democratically-elected government is a wonderful ideal. It's what comes after that the election that proves to be the problem. The US is still learning about democracy several hundred years after accepting it. As I write, Americans are coming to grips with the nation's worst political corruption on record (the Delay-Abramoff affair). The problem is not democracy but greed: greed for power and greed for money. That's what happened in Thailand and the Thais employed the method that have always used: the military coup. It's swift, sure and can frequently be bloodless.

 

As Americans are learning in Iraq, as they did in the Balkans, democracy is not always the best way to run a nation. It seems that attempts to unify Iraq will prove useless and the nation will be partitioned.

 

In the end, it's the freedom of the press that preserves any democracy. Without it, Americans would not have known about the corruption that Delay and Abramoff (and a host of others) had made so commonplace in Washington. And we wouldn't have known how foolhardy Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld acted in the pursuit of "democracy."

 

What the leaders of he Thai coup can take from the American experience is this: regardless of how good your intentions, the longer you attempt to control the press the more likely it is that your new government will become corrupt.

 

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[TotallyOz]

As Americans are learning in Iraq, as they did in the Balkans, democracy is not always the best way to run a nation.

 

I have always been a firm believer that Communism is a perfect solution to society ills. In pure form it is great. It is only when actual men get involved that the doctrine fails.

[Gaybutton]

Yes GB, I know, I know.... we could write it out in a word processor, run the spell checker then post; or we could download that other web browser; or..., we could be provided a spell checker here on the board.

 

I don't know what we can do about it. This web site program does not have a spell checker, so unless some sort of modification can be made to the basic program I don't see how one can be added. Until and unless the programmers can come up with something, then the solutions I outlined are the alternatives. I'm sorry, but for the moment that's the best we can do.

[Guest pete1969]

Thais have shown in the past that they have the ability to massively protest against any coup that they deem as bad for the country. I think the fact that this coup has been so peaceful and so uneventful speaks volumes in regards to the mindset of the people.

 

I agree that the US has an obligation to involve itself in internal matters of countries where atrocities are being promulgated against the people (Dafur). However, if the Thai people themselves accept the coup and the new government, and it is backed by the country's monarchy, then I think the US or any country has little business trying to intefere in such internal matters.

 

However, any lender/giver is within their rights to stop lending or giving money to any entity to whom they no longer feel comfortable loaning or giving money. The same is true of the US in regards to LOS. I think it perfectly reasonable for the US to no longer want to fund a nation's military if they feel such funds are used to upset the rule of law and the order of democracy.

 

So, IMO, certainly the US should allow Thailand to take care of its own internal governance, and certainly the US is free to stop giving money to anyone at anytime for whatever reasons they want. Like most things involving politics, it is never black and white.

 

Pete

 

Pete

 

[Guest wowpow]

The trail was about Thailand and the effect of her old friend and ally turning very nasty during a hiatus in the political scene.

 

Now it's turned, as happens so often, into Americans discussing their political situation - yawn!

 

When a friendly nation is going through difficulties, the sensible thing to do is to try to help and speed things in the best direction. Historically the US has been very kind and friendly to Thailand. I'm thinking about the refusal to accept the declaration of war during WWII, stopping the British making Thailand pay punitive damages for the war (1 million bushels of rice?). Huge amounts of money during the Vietnam conflict ( some years the US gave the Thai army more than the Thai Government's budget) plus building a fine infrastructure, airports such as U Tapao and unique holiday resorts uch as Pattaya. Favourable trading between the two countries has developed well over recent years.

 

Verbal threats and sanctions just don't work. The US and other nations have had sanctions in force against North Korea and Myanmar for many decades and no visible effect on the rulers is yet evident.

 

 

 

[Guest dpausten]

Hedda wrote that "Ends don't justify the means when the means are illegal." By this logic, the American Revolution should be undone.

[Guest Cedrick]

I had to comment on this thread in order to present a proper British point of view. The Americans our our staunch allies and I support whatever position they take on this matter. Maggie Thatcher wouldn't pussy foot about no more than Bush does when it comes to defending democracy. Thank the Lord we have leaders willing to stand up to tyranny. Wherever I travel, I always seek out the comfort and counsel of Americans. I usually don't leave the confines of my home board but this issue has prompted me to make a guest appearance.

[dapitt]

Verbal threats and sanctions just don't work. The US and other nations have had sanctions in force against North Korea and Myanmar for many decades and no visible effect on the rulers is yet evident.

 

I think this is an excellent point about sanctions, TeePee. And, have sanctions ever worked? There must be other paths.

 

[Bob]

Sanctions don't work? Well, depends on what you are asking the "work" to be. If you mean that it brings a country to its knees, changes its attitudes, and makes all nice, then you're right in some cases (North Korea being the prime example). But to suggest that the correct path is no sanctions and just talking and hugging, I'd suggest a Disney movie versus the real world.

The sanctions against North Korea imposed by many countries have in fact contained that country for years; unfortunately, those same sanctions have likely disproportinately harmed the poor of North Korea. The depth of misery and supression in North Korea is so bad that the world, together, should put that regime out of its misery.

 

I would suggest that the relationship between Thailand and the US is still very good and I also would suggest that the Thai leadership cares about the concerns expressed recently (and rather mildly) by the US government (which, as noted by others, has been almost identical to what many other countries have said).

 

By the way, sometimes the attitudes get in the way of the true facts. The suspension only involves 24 million in military aid. The suspension does not affect other funds the US provides (including funds for health programs, funds to help prevent the spread of AID, and funds provided to prepare for a possible bird flu outbreak).

 

[Guest YardenUK]

I had to comment on this thread in order to present a proper British point of view. The Americans our our staunch allies and I support whatever position they take on this matter. Maggie Thatcher wouldn't pussy foot about no more than Bush does when it comes to defending democracy. Thank the Lord we have leaders willing to stand up to tyranny. Wherever I travel, I always seek out the comfort and counsel of Americans. I usually don't leave the confines of my home board but this issue has prompted me to make a guest appearance.

 

 

As another Brit, I really have to enter the thread after reading the bizarre logic above! Good allies don't support "whatever position" an administration takes - good allies consider and advise as friends should. Blindly following is simply dumb. We must all observe and question - no one or no country is right every time. I guess that's the nature of beng human!

 

And where is the tyrant in the coup leadership? I think most people, especially Thais, would argue that this coup was about defending democracy (however, perverse that may sound tio western ears), after a cunning leader like Thaksin found ways of circumventing the letter and spirit of the 1997 constitution.

 

Every country has clearly failed to understand the Thai mindset, especially the Bush-Blair axis - 2 regimes who have done more harm to their respective country's reputation overseas than even Reagan and Thatcher. I think history will look back and recgnise the great human qualities of Presidents like Jimmy Carter (before my time almost, but I do like History!!! lol) who has done more for humanity since leaving office than any other American I can think of. Men like him make the world see the true values America should hold dear.

[Guest Cedrick]

Gads, Yarden, I thought that you of all people would understand where I'm coming from here. You just must understand that the Americans know what's best for GB. The hell with the EU. I say. What do we get for it? Cheap, leftover red wine from the French? Immigration run amok? The Euro? And that ridiculous tube to "their" shore.

 

Alas, I don't seem to be having any more luck convincing people of my obviously correct positions than I do on my home board. Nevertheless, I will venture forth in the face of adversity and ignorance in an attempt to educate and enlighten the masses.

 

You'll eventually come around, Yarden. You'll see.