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I wonder why are you interested in only Thai flood, when many countries in Asian have flood together. More industrialization make more loss than agriculterization. Fillipine have more flood than Thailand.No body is interested because of no profit involve that country.

Why is it that an unelected coup government can apply any laws they want, but a democratically elected government can’t nullify those laws?

Some people supporting the redshirt cause are astonishingly consistent in a number of issues: pro-modern, anti-NGO and distrust against environmentalism.

These issues are interconnected of course: the redshirts are seen as pro-modern themselves, whereas NGOs support traditional ways arguing that these are more sustainable (organic agriculture, community forestry). If the floods were due to “environmental degradation; forest clearing; filled-in water ways; dam management; the revenge of Mother Nature for the excesses of modernity”, then it would give the traditional/moral peasant arguments some credit.

Hence the ironic title of the post.

@John Smith
“There was no “democratically elected government ” at that time. That very inconvenient fact always seems to be left out.”

—-

What do you mean by there is no democratically elected government at the time of the coup? True, the government in office on the day of the coup is an interim one. But they did win the election. Unfortunately, the Court deemed the election to be invalid, as the Democrat Party refused to participate BY THEIR OWN WILL (<—and this very inconvenient fact always seemed to be left out as well).

The corrupted Thai Court nullified the election because there was only "one party"; therefore this is not democracy. This reasoning is one which I believe no Court in any developed countries would accept. There was no one holding Democrat Party to participate in the election; they chose not to participate in the election by their own will. So how could Thai Rak Thai be in the wrong?

You can argue until your face turns blue, but a coup can hardly be justified in modern world, let alone in a democratic society. Those senior law academics who want to undermine the argument of the Nitirad argue in a typical irrational Thai manner: the Nitirad people are young and inexperienced. Instead of tackling the academic issues in front of them, they just ignored all the academic issues the Nitirad people brought up and resort to character attack that they are young and inexperienced'. The fact that it was the senior law academics who had sunken so low to resort to character attack is shocking. Law academics are supposed to be the most rational and the most capable group of people who can argue WITH REASONS. It seems that being a royalist in Thailand can reduce one's IQ, and makes one become incapable to argue with logic and principle, even if that person is of a profession where "ability to reason" is so fundamental, such as a legal academic.

Rainfall, or the amount of water, is certainly one of the most significant variables for floods. However that a flood turns into a disaster is connected to the preparedness of how to cope with it. Here we have a situation in which it seems that no such general emergency preparations existed. Thus, coping with the flood was incremental with little coordination etc. Especially because floods of this scope are not unique or singular events in Thailand, even though they don’t happen every year (may be only once or twice in a decade) why the level of preparedness has been so low? One reason might be that the losses are rather irrelevant for those who would have to make the decisions (and spend money on it).

Cumulative discharge data from major dams can be viewed here;
http://www.thaiwater.net/DATA/REPORT/php/rid_lgraph.php.

Wonderful to see the rainfall graphs (Andrew at his very best). To make more sense of what is and also with informative graphs, I highly recommend reading Bangkok Pundit’s post:

http://asiancorrespondent.com/67306/thailand-why-was-so-much-water-kept-in-the-dams-part-ii/

From this post I suggest we can identify the present WHO to blame for the current disaster.

BP’s first mention is of Dr Smith Dharmasaroja, head of the Natural Disaster Warning Foundation.
Dr Smith, former head of the Meteorology Department, was appointed to report on the previous great disaster to hit Thailand, the Andaman sea Tsunami. Readers may recall the Meteorology Department failed to issue warnings of the tsunami despite advice it had from the US Geological Survey station in Hawaii. Dr Smith refused to make public his findings saying their release would be harmful to Thailand. I can only surmise that the truth would lead to massive damages claims from foreign people who lost their loved ones.
Dr Smith’s organization should be in the business of modeling possible disaster situations, including flood modeling, and advising the public and government of mitigation measures, for example early release of dam water in what appeared from March to be a particularly wet year.

Secondly, there is a little sting in the tail of BP’s blog where he says:
“Chart Thai Pattana controlled the Agriculture Ministry, who the Irrigation Department is under, in both the Abhisit and Yingluck governments.”
He does not name who controls Chart Thai Pattana. But is that not Banharn Silipa-Archa the construction magnate from flood free Supanburi, who when not actually holding the title of Prime Minister has been the effective PM apart from short lived military governments? One might say the permanent PM of Thailand?
Last year nature conservationists were horrified at government plans to systematically destroy Thailand’s rivers. Despite public pleas, the plans proceeded and riparian vegetation which protected farmland from erosion was destroyed and rivers dredged to speed waters on their way to quickly flood downstream, and in doing so causing erosion of banks and damage to structures. One wonders if this was part of a plan to divert more funds to construction and private benefit? We notice that even with the floods far from over plans for more dams and drains are miraculously appearing.

I agree that this disaster will be a real test of PM Yingluck’s leadership. If she does not heed calls for an independent inquiry run by a panel of experts from out of Thailand, the truth will not come out and Banharn will be continue to benefit from the nation’s suffering.
I suggest a panel of inquiry with powers to subpoena witnesses should include among others, experts from Pakistan, China and Vietnam, countries which also have endured great losses from flooding and seen the dubious benefits from damming rivers. China and Vietnam were also named by the UN this year as having increased the areas of land under forest.

We have also to ask WHAT is to blame for the extraordinary rains of this year?
Climatologists have been saying for a long time now that as the temperature of the World rises, the extra energy in the atmosphere will lead to more and more violent storms and periods of increased rainfall and more severe drought.
To combat this effect drastic reductions in fossil fuel use are an urgent necessity, not only for the First World but also for Thailand.

This reality shows the rosy picture painted by the three panelists in New Mandala’s recent “Nation (Chart)” discussion to be na├пve and requires, just as the Occupy protesters are insisting, a re-evaluation of economic, social and ethical systems.

I don’t think anyone would deny that rain this year was higher than last year or than the average, which certainly contributed to floods.

But the key question still is: did the rain was so heavy, that it caused this level of floods? Is such a disaster really a normal or understandable, or to be expected, consequence of this level of rain?

The issue of dams is indeed quite complex. But, I should remind readers that before a few people, Khun BP for one, started to raise it, most people (I would say) really had no idea that it could be a major cause, or even the cause, of this level of floods. Even now, while there have indeed been discussion of the issue, I would argue that mainstream media in Thailand (and people in the authorities both government and opposition) have not really discussed the issue that much. In this sense, I believe that raising and discussing the issue is really a very positive thing.

Of course, this post of Aj. Andrew is very useful, but I don’t think that the ironic title of the post is quite warrant.

Marteau: “he has spent a lot time studying water management and is vastly more knowledgeable about it than the average farang Thai studies academic”

I agree, and that’s why it is so surprising that the country still suffers yearly flooding.

But then one has to find the causes for this excessive rain. So one is back to these superstitious explanations. If one is intent to find reasons for damaging someone’s reputation for political gains, nothing can stop them.