You may be right Dieter,lets hope so.But it’s quite obvious that some old “war-horses” incl Prem and his CIA friends in the Palace guard and at FCCT are kicking and screaming at the possibility of their cushy existence coming to an end,just like Frank Wisner did in Egypt.
Despite the fact that I flirted with Trotskyism as a youth (giving me some gravitas, I guess), I realize that I am condemned to be incredibly superficial because I am cursed with American citizenship. Anyhow, I will note that in your comment, there is no need to capitalize “journalist.”
“I am not aware that Yingluck, or, FROC, or Sukhumbhand had succeeded at anything with their ‘flood’ control.”
A frank admission – perhaps Vichai’s been away? As I’ve said, there’s much to criticise. The lady from Khon Kaen deserves all our empathy and it’s good to see a reference to an area that has been almost totally overlooked in media coverage since the floods approached Bangkok. The Isaan Record* has managed to maintain some awareness of the situation there, but it’s almost a lone voice.
” . . . but to simply ignore what’s being done and . . .” – SteveCM
I am not aware that Yingluck, or, FROC, or Sukhumbhand had succeeded at anything with their ‘flood’ control. I had just lunch today and the waitress said that she comes from Khon Kaen and she explained that her village is still more than 2 meters under water for more than 2 months now.
Yingluck’s bunch of ineptocratic incompetence are almost criminal, and I can understand why thousands of aggrieved Thais are thinking of suing Yingluck’s government.
It seems to me that the U.S. National Security Council and State Dept. along with Obama and Hilary, have concluded the the era of the King, Prem and the generals is coming to an end in Thailand and that the U.S. “Realpolitik-Strategic” interest lies with the large majority of Thais who have elected the present government and who will in all probability elect many more governments to come.
Vichai N (c13) – you follow your graphic (and, for once, accurate) summary of the flood impact with
“But that is NOT important or urgent. What is important and urgent is to get the amnesty completed for Beloved Leader Thaksin.”
Does it ever occur to you that your total disregard of both the immediate and long-term responses to the floods leaves you looking like just a rhetoric-cranking tub-thumper? There’s much to criticise but to simply ignore what’s being done and planned is, frankly, just absurd.
One needs to consider the concept of faith as a personal belief in a religious doctrine, and then consider the morality that those that don’t share that faith or embrace a variation in a designated religion nation are demonized. And of course what role has government to play in enforcing a belief system on a population, should not the word of God have the power to attract and maintain belief through its obvious enlightenment as opposed to persecution for those that are not convinced. Would God indeed want followers who pretend as they fear the government, is that a system of true belief or of repression generating false numbers?
Seems an oxymoron to me, if you don’t believe the same way as I do about the afterlife then I will persecute you for your beliefs in this life. But that is organized religion, a focus of power into those that have been endorsed by their institution to interpret the mind of God to those that share that belief or reside on same territory. Their interpretation comes not from God but from ancient texts, so the current proselytizers interpret God through the writings of those that have interpreted the God in the distant past.
It would seem to me that any religion that requires belief or rather demonstration of belief be instilled by fear is based on less than a solid foundation. Truth should be evident after weighing available evidence, writings, beliefs etc. If that is not the case then religious leaders should look to themselves rather than unleashing modern day equivalents of the Spanish Inquisition. True belief is unshakeable, belief instilled from above is an illusion.
No one failed to recognize rohingya … as i told again and again there is no rohingya on earth … it is just the hallucination of whoever is involved in making the name an entity! Forget about my position … I love to see Burma as a flourishing peaceful noncommunal country as it has already been. I want to see all people irrespective of race religion or faith undiscriminated. I want to see Burma’s people’s rights are not cut down by such discriminatory laws as Islamic Shahriya.
I also want to see its people live up to the mark … patriotic and peaceful … not religious bigots and striving for a hallucinatory islamic terrorist infested hell!
Yes Ricky’s right,thing’s are not all fine as they are trying to be made out.There are a lot of undercurrents at play in the post arab spring US foreign policy.The Frank Wisner incident proved that splits about policy are showing at the very top of the US goverment.(CIA’s Wisner being a paid employee of Eygpt) and when he delivered the Mubarak should stay speech,did the US mean it or not.Who’s side are they on in Thailand ? Usually the Royalist right ? But now a quick change of shirts to democracy,forgetting their strategic interests ? hardly.
Jayzee #14, I agree that we do not know if another lot of authorities would have handled this disaster any differently.
We do know, last year’s much smaller floods were also beset with problems – different government, but the same minister in charge of the water. Apart from that, most of those in charge, have done this before. So you would hope the’d learnt something from the “test runs” of previous years.
I guess the recriminations and already politicized discussions will go on forever and in what is all too common in Thailand, until this is pushed under the carpet, by yet another “scandal”.
It seems this move to get Thaksin back, and for Yingluck to be otherwise conveniently occupied (Hillary Clinton, Ban ki Moon & now ASEAN) are all quite “conveniently timed”, as “diversions” against criticism. Maybe that’s just my suspicious mind, when it comes to Thai politics.
All I know, having been stuck in the middle of a flooded Don Muang house for the last three weeks, is the “official” support and “official” communications have been very poor indeed. No wonder emotions are running high at the sandbags.
We do not need any international meeting. It is our land,
we have been giving favours to those who sneaked into
our country by letting them make a living and living on
our soil.
Those concerned international bodies can bring those
illegal immigrants to their homes and home countries!
Norani,
Having said the truth and revealing the way forward for all , what is it really that holds the Muslims authorities and Muslims as a whole from allowing freedom to follow any faith of their choice?
Is it fear of God and punishment because their faith is so strong, that it is 100% correct to follow Islam? If this is so , how can we transform this or convince the authorities and Muslims that one it is correct to allow freedom of faith and respect the rights of each individual?
“How does anyone know whether the current situation has been handled competently or not?” – Jayzee (#14) asks.
When a super-secret Thai cabinet meeting is held to seek amnesty for one unrepentant Thaksin, while millions of people remain submerged for weeks in filthy flood waters and certainly ready to riot, in the midst of an ongoing ‘biblical’ deluge . . . the current Thai ‘situation’ is certainly being very incompetently handled.
SteveCM & I agree on the bottom line which implies the US does not want to see another coup. As for some change of heart, I see nothing to support that suggestion.
Reading the whole briefing it is interesting how full it is of nice sounding phrases but I would say reading between the lines one can see things are not so fine.
Take these two excerpts for example. The first, to my mind shows woeful ignorance about the parlous state of our wildlife or “natural resources” and our antiquated railway system:
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Some of the biggest challenges: a huge amount of sediment in all areas, on runways, on roads; problems associated with sanitation; huge numbers of animals that have escaped – dogs, cats, zoos, everything driven. Thailand has very rich natural resources in terms of animals. Many of them have vacated their natural habitat. Enormous challenges in that regard. Public distribution systems have broken down in many places. Thailand has a good train system; much of that is unusable.
& this second quote, which appears to me full of code is quite spine chilling and points to the USA’s over riding concern which is certainly not the well being of the inhabitants be they either natural as in wildlife or introduced as in the voters:
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I’ll make two points about that. One, as the Secretary of State indicated in her speech and her important policy article, as well as when Secretary Panetta was traveling in Asia just two weeks back, they both talked about the importance of forward presence. Secretary Panetta said that we will maintain the kind of military presence that we had in the past; in fact, we might even expand that in certain ways.
The three facets of this presence that we keep in mind and both secretaries have emphasized, number one is operational relevance. Forces aren’t there – forces are there for very specific operational reasons, and that’s what we’re considering first and foremost. Secondly is geographic distribution. If you look at the range of scenarios, from hardcore security threats to humanitarian/natural disaster assistance, that kind of response, these happen throughout the Asia Pacific region, so we’re looking for a more geographical balance in our forces going forward. And the third aspect of this is political (inaudible). You have to understand that all of these countries treasure, as they rightly should treasure their independence, their national sovereignty. We certainly support that. We don’t anticipate needing the kind of force presence we had during the Cold War of a containment strategy (inaudible) we need boots on the ground (inaudible). We’re looking at something that’s much more politically sensitive and also operationally relevant (inaudible).
Jayzee you are right…what benchmarks can be used in this instance or perhaps we could look at the floods in Pakistan last year – actually probably quite a lot worse than in Thailand although I stand to be corrected on this – where its Prime Minister was in London inspecting his real estate and hoping to have morning or afternoon tea with the Queen or perhaps he was just offering support or condolences to some of Pakistan’s star cricketers who appear to specalilize in match-fixing. I don’t recall Yingluck leaving Thailand during the floods to visit her brother in Dubai or wherever he is. Perhaps he sneaked back into Cambodia on a Zodiac inflatable boat. That aside I sincerely hope you can sort out the flood damage to your house: 2 meters under water is not good!
A great deal of international legitimacy will be given to Naypyidaw if the US begins to refer to Burma as Myanmar. I wonder if that could be used as a marker to symbolise one of Farrelly’s ‘turning points’ with regards to change.
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Big sister in town
You may be right Dieter,lets hope so.But it’s quite obvious that some old “war-horses” incl Prem and his CIA friends in the Palace guard and at FCCT are kicking and screaming at the possibility of their cushy existence coming to an end,just like Frank Wisner did in Egypt.
Review of Cambodia’s Curse
Mark,
Despite the fact that I flirted with Trotskyism as a youth (giving me some gravitas, I guess), I realize that I am condemned to be incredibly superficial because I am cursed with American citizenship. Anyhow, I will note that in your comment, there is no need to capitalize “journalist.”
The toll of flooding on lives and politics
Vichai N (c19)
“I am not aware that Yingluck, or, FROC, or Sukhumbhand had succeeded at anything with their ‘flood’ control.”
A frank admission – perhaps Vichai’s been away? As I’ve said, there’s much to criticise. The lady from Khon Kaen deserves all our empathy and it’s good to see a reference to an area that has been almost totally overlooked in media coverage since the floods approached Bangkok. The Isaan Record* has managed to maintain some awareness of the situation there, but it’s almost a lone voice.
* http://isaanrecord.com/
The toll of flooding on lives and politics
” . . . but to simply ignore what’s being done and . . .” – SteveCM
I am not aware that Yingluck, or, FROC, or Sukhumbhand had succeeded at anything with their ‘flood’ control. I had just lunch today and the waitress said that she comes from Khon Kaen and she explained that her village is still more than 2 meters under water for more than 2 months now.
Yingluck’s bunch of ineptocratic incompetence are almost criminal, and I can understand why thousands of aggrieved Thais are thinking of suing Yingluck’s government.
Big sister in town
It seems to me that the U.S. National Security Council and State Dept. along with Obama and Hilary, have concluded the the era of the King, Prem and the generals is coming to an end in Thailand and that the U.S. “Realpolitik-Strategic” interest lies with the large majority of Thais who have elected the present government and who will in all probability elect many more governments to come.
The toll of flooding on lives and politics
Vichai N (c13) – you follow your graphic (and, for once, accurate) summary of the flood impact with
“But that is NOT important or urgent. What is important and urgent is to get the amnesty completed for Beloved Leader Thaksin.”
Does it ever occur to you that your total disregard of both the immediate and long-term responses to the floods leaves you looking like just a rhetoric-cranking tub-thumper? There’s much to criticise but to simply ignore what’s being done and planned is, frankly, just absurd.
Freedom of faith for Malaysian Malays
One needs to consider the concept of faith as a personal belief in a religious doctrine, and then consider the morality that those that don’t share that faith or embrace a variation in a designated religion nation are demonized. And of course what role has government to play in enforcing a belief system on a population, should not the word of God have the power to attract and maintain belief through its obvious enlightenment as opposed to persecution for those that are not convinced. Would God indeed want followers who pretend as they fear the government, is that a system of true belief or of repression generating false numbers?
Seems an oxymoron to me, if you don’t believe the same way as I do about the afterlife then I will persecute you for your beliefs in this life. But that is organized religion, a focus of power into those that have been endorsed by their institution to interpret the mind of God to those that share that belief or reside on same territory. Their interpretation comes not from God but from ancient texts, so the current proselytizers interpret God through the writings of those that have interpreted the God in the distant past.
It would seem to me that any religion that requires belief or rather demonstration of belief be instilled by fear is based on less than a solid foundation. Truth should be evident after weighing available evidence, writings, beliefs etc. If that is not the case then religious leaders should look to themselves rather than unleashing modern day equivalents of the Spanish Inquisition. True belief is unshakeable, belief instilled from above is an illusion.
BBC under fire on Rohingyas
“Burma government failed to recognized …. ”
No one failed to recognize rohingya … as i told again and again there is no rohingya on earth … it is just the hallucination of whoever is involved in making the name an entity! Forget about my position … I love to see Burma as a flourishing peaceful noncommunal country as it has already been. I want to see all people irrespective of race religion or faith undiscriminated. I want to see Burma’s people’s rights are not cut down by such discriminatory laws as Islamic Shahriya.
I also want to see its people live up to the mark … patriotic and peaceful … not religious bigots and striving for a hallucinatory islamic terrorist infested hell!
thanks …
Big sister in town
Yes Ricky’s right,thing’s are not all fine as they are trying to be made out.There are a lot of undercurrents at play in the post arab spring US foreign policy.The Frank Wisner incident proved that splits about policy are showing at the very top of the US goverment.(CIA’s Wisner being a paid employee of Eygpt) and when he delivered the Mubarak should stay speech,did the US mean it or not.Who’s side are they on in Thailand ? Usually the Royalist right ? But now a quick change of shirts to democracy,forgetting their strategic interests ? hardly.
Media, politics, Burma
Speaking of which, Clinton is set to visit Naypyidaw
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203611404577045102193363634.html#articleTabs=article
Media, politics, Burma
Speaking of which, Obama is set to visit Naypyidaw
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203611404577045102193363634.html#articleTabs=article
The toll of flooding on lives and politics
Jayzee #14, I agree that we do not know if another lot of authorities would have handled this disaster any differently.
We do know, last year’s much smaller floods were also beset with problems – different government, but the same minister in charge of the water. Apart from that, most of those in charge, have done this before. So you would hope the’d learnt something from the “test runs” of previous years.
I guess the recriminations and already politicized discussions will go on forever and in what is all too common in Thailand, until this is pushed under the carpet, by yet another “scandal”.
It seems this move to get Thaksin back, and for Yingluck to be otherwise conveniently occupied (Hillary Clinton, Ban ki Moon & now ASEAN) are all quite “conveniently timed”, as “diversions” against criticism. Maybe that’s just my suspicious mind, when it comes to Thai politics.
All I know, having been stuck in the middle of a flooded Don Muang house for the last three weeks, is the “official” support and “official” communications have been very poor indeed. No wonder emotions are running high at the sandbags.
BBC under fire on Rohingyas
We do not need any international meeting. It is our land,
we have been giving favours to those who sneaked into
our country by letting them make a living and living on
our soil.
Those concerned international bodies can bring those
illegal immigrants to their homes and home countries!
Freedom of faith for Malaysian Malays
Norani,
Having said the truth and revealing the way forward for all , what is it really that holds the Muslims authorities and Muslims as a whole from allowing freedom to follow any faith of their choice?
Is it fear of God and punishment because their faith is so strong, that it is 100% correct to follow Islam? If this is so , how can we transform this or convince the authorities and Muslims that one it is correct to allow freedom of faith and respect the rights of each individual?
Somyot’s trial
I think they should’t concentrated on just Somyod but everyone that face lese majeste accusation and the law as a whole.
BBC under fire on Rohingyas
First they came for “Bu Thi Taung” and “Maung Daw”,
and I didn’t speak out because I don’t live there.
Then they came for the Northern Arakan,
and I didn’t speak out because I am not a YaKhine.
Then they came for the whole Arakan,
and I didn’t speak out because my home is in Rangoon.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
The toll of flooding on lives and politics
“How does anyone know whether the current situation has been handled competently or not?” – Jayzee (#14) asks.
When a super-secret Thai cabinet meeting is held to seek amnesty for one unrepentant Thaksin, while millions of people remain submerged for weeks in filthy flood waters and certainly ready to riot, in the midst of an ongoing ‘biblical’ deluge . . . the current Thai ‘situation’ is certainly being very incompetently handled.
Big sister in town
SteveCM & I agree on the bottom line which implies the US does not want to see another coup. As for some change of heart, I see nothing to support that suggestion.
Reading the whole briefing it is interesting how full it is of nice sounding phrases but I would say reading between the lines one can see things are not so fine.
Take these two excerpts for example. The first, to my mind shows woeful ignorance about the parlous state of our wildlife or “natural resources” and our antiquated railway system:
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Some of the biggest challenges: a huge amount of sediment in all areas, on runways, on roads; problems associated with sanitation; huge numbers of animals that have escaped – dogs, cats, zoos, everything driven. Thailand has very rich natural resources in terms of animals. Many of them have vacated their natural habitat. Enormous challenges in that regard. Public distribution systems have broken down in many places. Thailand has a good train system; much of that is unusable.
& this second quote, which appears to me full of code is quite spine chilling and points to the USA’s over riding concern which is certainly not the well being of the inhabitants be they either natural as in wildlife or introduced as in the voters:
SENIOR DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I’ll make two points about that. One, as the Secretary of State indicated in her speech and her important policy article, as well as when Secretary Panetta was traveling in Asia just two weeks back, they both talked about the importance of forward presence. Secretary Panetta said that we will maintain the kind of military presence that we had in the past; in fact, we might even expand that in certain ways.
The three facets of this presence that we keep in mind and both secretaries have emphasized, number one is operational relevance. Forces aren’t there – forces are there for very specific operational reasons, and that’s what we’re considering first and foremost. Secondly is geographic distribution. If you look at the range of scenarios, from hardcore security threats to humanitarian/natural disaster assistance, that kind of response, these happen throughout the Asia Pacific region, so we’re looking for a more geographical balance in our forces going forward. And the third aspect of this is political (inaudible). You have to understand that all of these countries treasure, as they rightly should treasure their independence, their national sovereignty. We certainly support that. We don’t anticipate needing the kind of force presence we had during the Cold War of a containment strategy (inaudible) we need boots on the ground (inaudible). We’re looking at something that’s much more politically sensitive and also operationally relevant (inaudible).
The toll of flooding on lives and politics
Jayzee you are right…what benchmarks can be used in this instance or perhaps we could look at the floods in Pakistan last year – actually probably quite a lot worse than in Thailand although I stand to be corrected on this – where its Prime Minister was in London inspecting his real estate and hoping to have morning or afternoon tea with the Queen or perhaps he was just offering support or condolences to some of Pakistan’s star cricketers who appear to specalilize in match-fixing. I don’t recall Yingluck leaving Thailand during the floods to visit her brother in Dubai or wherever he is. Perhaps he sneaked back into Cambodia on a Zodiac inflatable boat. That aside I sincerely hope you can sort out the flood damage to your house: 2 meters under water is not good!
Media, politics, Burma
A great deal of international legitimacy will be given to Naypyidaw if the US begins to refer to Burma as Myanmar. I wonder if that could be used as a marker to symbolise one of Farrelly’s ‘turning points’ with regards to change.