How can Abphisit claim to have any notion of the rule of law or democracy, when the deaths of 91 demonstrators and the injury of 1,000, over which he apparently shed tears, has not been met with the convening of an independent public enquiry?
What greater proof can there be that he is kept in power by the very visible brownshirt hands?
@Portman said: “CT an interesting theory re the King’s motivation for wishing the CP to succeed him but rather torturous logic, if I may say so. If this were his intention, wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler for him to “force the elites to revolutionize the system” during his own lifetime, rather than leaving the job to the next generation with a plan that perversely relies on that generation’s lack of popularity to ensure the survival of the monarchy?”
—
This is why I still only “start to consider” this theory, and still don’t believe what my professor’s assumption wholeheartedly 🙂
My fear is that Vichai is on to something – the fearfulness of the Thai people. Just look at the disgraceful sadism being doled out to university students at Maha Sarakham and elsewhere and later to be passed on to students below them and after graduation.
The schools are in a disgraceful state with unteachable class sizes and the teachers are too gutless to go on strike, unlike in say USA or Australia, in the interests of their students. And one could go on..
As for W’s comments about shame. This is not Japan and the only person I can recall coming near to admitting he acted shamefully was Dr Taksin when he said he was acting too much like a policeman in dealing out harsh treatment in the drug war.
Also it is a pity or a shame that not 30 readers post a comment on Quality. How small is the readership of this excellent blog?
Well I said it back in December and it was just a matter of waiting. The red faces should really start replacing the red shirts soon. Let’s start with this one – with thanks to Andrew Marshall.
Jaruwan said candidly that the Prime Minister is very aware of the corruption that takes place within his government, and that his administration would fall apart if she were allowed to fully pursue these numerous incidents of graft and bring them to light. Jaruwan noted that Thaksin allies (and in one instance, Thaksin’s sister) repeatedly tried to bribe her. Her continued refusals to be suborned amid her deeper probes into the CTX GEInVision equipment graft, however, was the issue that led to the effort to remove her from office…
Jaruwan is no stranger to Bangkok’s nearly complete Suvarnabhumi airport, as she has been auditing its USD $3.7 billion expenditures since she went to work for the Office of the Auditor General in 1997. The CTX scandal, she claims, has been heavily publicized due to the amount of money involved and because it involves a US company. It is, however, just one of many cases of corruption at the airport. Jaruwan mentioned a one billion baht ($25 million USD) loan involving the Siemens company of Germany, and numerous buildings in and around the airport where the government had been overcharged. Jaruwan was prepared to hold Thaksin directly accountable for these grafts, as she showed Poloff a copy of a document where he gave significant powers to one of the airport committees by allowing them to appoint contracts without bidding.
Myself – 31
I can lay back and enjoy the Wikileaks but Thaksin’s supporters must be dreading each cable from the Bangkok embassy coming out. What happens when they get to things like the CTX scandal? The only answers they can have now will be that the US diplomats were lying in their internal communications.
Jim Taylor – 34
In regard to CTX and other matters at Suvarnabhumi Airport- it was all cleared by several investigations – so no issue for Abbey and his falangistas to rant about here…Even that intractable pro Democrat Party reactionary English-language newspaper The Nation had to retract unfounded allegations back in 2008. Abbey’s hysterics show how allegations can so easily be made against those who we want to target and without any hard evidence, and in an inversion of legal standards where people are proclaimed guilty before they can establish innocence…
As for Leah’s definitive statement “Thaksin was not good” (!): so who said? He was (in terms of criminality) probably the least corrupt and most certainly the most efficient if idiosyncratic of all PMs Thailand has ever has.
Least corrupt? Again just read the cables. I think you will need a bit of damage limitation here.
Tarrin do you remember this?
Myself – 46
Tarrin you are possibly correct and I will have to retract the CTX bit. I was suspicious that the Nation’s retraction was to stop Thaksin suing them. Still let’s see what comes out of the US Embassy cables shall we?
Well we are getting the cables now, again thanks to Andrew Marshall. I suspect some of the pro-Thaksin supporters will have to change some of their arguments otherwise they will begin to look rather silly.
I’m about half-way through Part 1 and just a touch underwhelmed. So far, Andrew has provided an excellent, well written and constructed overview of the main issues – recommended reading for those new to the plot. But he hasn’t broken news or provided groundbreaking insights, which is surprising considering his former position at Reuters where he must surely have picked up an enticing nugget or two. I hope I’m speaking too soon (indeed, I assume it) because so far he’s done little to justify leaving his day job. Perhaps I’m being harsh; this is the first of a four-part series and he may well be setting the scene ahead of the real beans to follow. I read on…
CT an interesting theory re the King’s motivation for wishing the CP to succeed him but rather torturous logic, if I may say so. If this were his intention, wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler for him to “force the elites to revolutionize the system” during his own lifetime, rather than leaving the job to the next generation with a plan that perversely relies on that generation’s lack of popularity to ensure the survival of the monarchy?
I’ve just completed Part II. A very fascinating engrossing read definitely. Andrew McGregor Marshall’s Thai Story mainly confirms what I’ve known and/or suspected about what goes on behind Thailand’s opaque politics, but, yes too added new revelations.
People of course will have to make up their own minds about Andrew’s interpretation of Thailand’s turbulent political past and prospects (including the cables ‘legitimacy’). But if anything else, Andrew’s Thai Story had increased my already ingrained suspicions about almost every Thai political player of note. That’s a depressing thought: Not having a leader to attach to, draw inspiration from, and build my hopes from.
At first I’ll vote for Abhisit, then Yingluck, and at this moment back to Abhisit. I am just voting on pure ‘guts’ for the lesser evil.
This is kind of like a re-run of all the comments that were made about Handley’s book, often by people who have taken the trouble to read the accounts.
It is interesting to read what various higher ups are said to have told diplomats from Thailand’s most trusted ally over a long period. These statements have to be given some credence as they are attributable to named persons. What then has to be done is ask about the motivations of those who talk to the embassy. One might also like to weigh the positions of those doing the reporting (e.g. Boyce was very close to a lot of yellow shirts and went to school with one in particular; and John was said to be closer to “the dark side”).
It is interesting for me to see the Thai Embassy in London refute the cables in the same way that Thaksin does.
The more that comes out the better. Keep ’em coming!
@Jimmy asked:
“Where is a single shred of evidence to back up anything John or the people say or “know?”
How about these events?
1) the Queen attended the PAD funeral, signifying that she sides with them.
2) the Queen attended Colonel’s Romklao’s funeral (a Queen’s guard who died on his ‘duty’ when the Queen’s Guard went to shoot the red shirts on the street on 10 April 2010), signifying that she supports the massacre.
3) the Royal Family’s open support for the 1976 massacre, which are aplenty.
Are these evidences not enough, to make any reasonable person stop and think whether the Royals are really above politics like they claim?
Like most brainwashed royalists, you attack the story as unreliable, yet you failed to point out “where” and explain “why” it is unreliable, not to mention that you have not brought any evidence to the contrary to rebut what the author has said. If you want to accuse the author as unreliable, then prove your allegation by providing evidences to the contrary to disprove him. First, find the sentence which you think unreliable, point it out, and explain why that sentence is unreliable, then bring up evidences to the contrary to disprove it.
Until you can do that, no one will take your allegation seriously.
@Tarrin,
One of the academics who is quite an expert about Thai politics whom I know quite well have told me (I was his student in university, and we still keep in touch until today, for an obvious reason that we are both interested in Thai politics) that he believes that the King is somewhat ‘quite red’. Of course I did not believe it when he told me this, but he said he believes that the King wants Prince V to be the King, because he realises the Monarchy cannot fool Thai people forever. Having Prince V becoming the King will force the elites to ‘revolutionize’ the system, and by doing that the Monarchy will survive. Of course the Queen does not like that idea.
I never believed his assumption. But from reading some cables of wikileaks where it is clear that the King had acted implied that he prefers Prince V to become the next King (despite the fact that he does not like him, and they hardly talk to each other), caused me to consider his assumption more seriously.
ThanongK on Twitter is still good fun to read. Where did this guy double and cross-check all his fabricated stories about Thaksin serious ill and close to death ?
Was he paid by getting his share of Thaksin’s confiscated billions by UK Authorities? Waiting for some answers from “Nationleaks” !
It was a pretty good read, even though much of the analysis was of a derivative nature in the form of excerpts from other works. However, I wouldn’t have given up my day job to publish this in Andrew’s position. I am not sure it will lead to new career opportunities and any follow up commentary on Thailand will have to be done from afar.
I liked the description of Prem as Thailand’s “director of human resources” from 1988 to 2001 and some of the cables relating to HMQ are, if true, revealing to say the least.
And one final frustration I would like to share… I am truly of an objective mind and I am certain that Thailand’s establishment is far from perfect. However the opposition is so childish, so devoid of a legitimate argument, let alone legitimacy themselves, that the have failed completely in objectively holding the establishment accountable.
Accountability is not their objective, for they are corrupt and power-crazed as well. Thus real issues, real corruption, real exploitation is going entirely unnoticed while these two groups play their games of political power grabbing – using only their own losses as evidence of the other’s transgressions against the nation.
My frustration comes with supposed journalists like Marshall who must, in 17 years, have garnered a tremendous amount of resources to commit to researching these issues, when he simply regurgitates PTP talking-points, and those of the red’s academics like the ignoble Giles Ungpakorn. It is frustrating and entirely disappointing.
And unfortunately, as I say this, and search for real credible evidence against the very enemies of the government’s opposition, I am berated by them simply because I don’t fall into the cult of nihilism and hate, and refuse to just fawn over Marshall’s sophomoric work. Yes it is sophomoric. You don’t promise to “revolutionize” someone’s understanding and then just post a US diplomat’s commentary on a particular nation with your own biased opinions, all completely devoid of any sort of documentation. That is indeed childish, no matter how you package and deliver it.
So how exactly does John Eric’s two cents “confirm” what people already “know?” Where is a single shred of evidence to back up anything John or the people say or “know?” I have to agree with John Smith that all this is obvious pandering to a select group of individuals who have already made up their mind and just enjoy extra fuel in the fire to warm their own hands.
Please find me some evidence of anything Marshall postulates or anything Eric John or the other inept, dubious clowns that constitute America’s self-serving diplomatic corps have said within this lengthy work. Marshall claims to be a journalist yet seems to have no qualms whatsoever about publishing book-length pieces of complete factual desolation. I read the first part with absolute disappointment, finding Eric John’s commentary – which I have read already by the way – to be far from something that would “revolutionize” my understanding of Thailand as Marshall has promised. In fact, besides the same rumors I’ve heard while in Thailand for years, I found nothing exceptional in Marshall’s part 1.
The more I read it the more clear it is that what Marshall has produced is a one-sided rant directed with a political, manipulative agenda in mind. Please don’t tell me it is “objective” it clearly isn’t. The fact that so many Thaksinphiles are “crowing” over this as John Smith aptly puts it, proves what purpose it serves. No matter what the political battle may be, there is ALWAYS dirt on both sides. Marshall’s myopic obsession with a particular side and the whitewashing he lends to the other (as he has done throughout his time at Reuters) is in poor taste and divorced from the best traditions of western journalism he claims to have been a part of for 17 years.
Like I said previously, there is confirmed documentation held in the US Senate’s database available publicly confirming Thaksin Shinawatra has enlisted foreigners to assist him politically in his bid to return to Thailand and to power – treason, as one article puts it. How is that not part of the “Thai Story,” but unconfirmed rumors floating around in Thailand’s gossip prone society retold by Eric John in an “alleged” cable are?
Marshall, here’s hoping you do some soul searching, or at least Google the meaning of “journalistic integrity.”
I was going to response to peter but you beat me to it. However, I view this a bit different from you. Although the cable seems to suggest that Queen and the privy councilors are behind all the palace politic, but if we look on nature of the cable itself, it would be illogical for the establishment to even mention the king’s name. After all, the king has been painted as above politic so whatever the information that the ambassader been given must not contain any relation to the king. With that in mind, if they were to mention the king’s name then the whole show will be ruined, therefore, I still firmly believe that the king has been playing the main role in Thailand politic with the Queen and the privy councilors as his fall-man in case something went wrong.
No, its not as simple as bad Thaksin, bad queen, and succession but rather a much more complex confrontation between the progressive vs conservative; the new and old money; the confrontation between social classes; the breakdown of the hold system. There are so many players and factors.
They were just repeating what they have been saying for the last 14 months, I don’t a single different in the tone and content. Those who already make their decision wouldn’t change their mind, the undecided will not be effect by this either if they have been following news.
I have really enjoyed reading part 1 and 2, and look forward to the rest. I appreciate all the work that has gone into it and the fact it’s downloadable for free is amazing! For the first time in years it’s got me digging out all my old Thailand and journalism textbooks (e.g. McCargo, quoted in 9, above) and having a good read.
I guess the sad thing is that #Thaistory shows how completely irrelevant the Nation and the Bangkok Post are for English-speaking news in Thailand. Some might say they’ve known that for years, but for me it’s a real eye opener as to the level of interference in Thai political life, such as the recent struggle over appointing a new police chief, where neither paper could say why the PM’s choice kept getting rejected and an unsuitable alternative continually nominated. If this is the continued future of Thailand things could keep getting messier and messier…
The uselessness of both papers in telling us what actually is happening is only amplified by Thanong’s ever more ridiculous stream of tweets. Jealousy? Denial? Who can tell? For me, his attitude as a senior Thai journalist mirrors that of the army and the malfunctioning bomb detection units. Sad…
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Abhisit’s blunder
How can Abphisit claim to have any notion of the rule of law or democracy, when the deaths of 91 demonstrators and the injury of 1,000, over which he apparently shed tears, has not been met with the convening of an independent public enquiry?
What greater proof can there be that he is kept in power by the very visible brownshirt hands?
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
@Portman said: “CT an interesting theory re the King’s motivation for wishing the CP to succeed him but rather torturous logic, if I may say so. If this were his intention, wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler for him to “force the elites to revolutionize the system” during his own lifetime, rather than leaving the job to the next generation with a plan that perversely relies on that generation’s lack of popularity to ensure the survival of the monarchy?”
—
This is why I still only “start to consider” this theory, and still don’t believe what my professor’s assumption wholeheartedly 🙂
Abhisit’s blunder
My fear is that Vichai is on to something – the fearfulness of the Thai people. Just look at the disgraceful sadism being doled out to university students at Maha Sarakham and elsewhere and later to be passed on to students below them and after graduation.
The schools are in a disgraceful state with unteachable class sizes and the teachers are too gutless to go on strike, unlike in say USA or Australia, in the interests of their students. And one could go on..
As for W’s comments about shame. This is not Japan and the only person I can recall coming near to admitting he acted shamefully was Dr Taksin when he said he was acting too much like a policeman in dealing out harsh treatment in the drug war.
Also it is a pity or a shame that not 30 readers post a comment on Quality. How small is the readership of this excellent blog?
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
@Demon:
Try here:
Part 1 and Part 2
Wikileaks and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn
Well I said it back in December and it was just a matter of waiting. The red faces should really start replacing the red shirts soon. Let’s start with this one – with thanks to Andrew Marshall.
http://thaicables.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/05bangkok7305-besieged-auditor-general-talks-to-embassy-about-corruption-and-airport-procurement-scandal-ge-invision/
Jaruwan said candidly that the Prime Minister is very aware of the corruption that takes place within his government, and that his administration would fall apart if she were allowed to fully pursue these numerous incidents of graft and bring them to light. Jaruwan noted that Thaksin allies (and in one instance, Thaksin’s sister) repeatedly tried to bribe her. Her continued refusals to be suborned amid her deeper probes into the CTX GEInVision equipment graft, however, was the issue that led to the effort to remove her from office…
Jaruwan is no stranger to Bangkok’s nearly complete Suvarnabhumi airport, as she has been auditing its USD $3.7 billion expenditures since she went to work for the Office of the Auditor General in 1997. The CTX scandal, she claims, has been heavily publicized due to the amount of money involved and because it involves a US company. It is, however, just one of many cases of corruption at the airport. Jaruwan mentioned a one billion baht ($25 million USD) loan involving the Siemens company of Germany, and numerous buildings in and around the airport where the government had been overcharged. Jaruwan was prepared to hold Thaksin directly accountable for these grafts, as she showed Poloff a copy of a document where he gave significant powers to one of the airport committees by allowing them to appoint contracts without bidding.
Myself – 31
I can lay back and enjoy the Wikileaks but Thaksin’s supporters must be dreading each cable from the Bangkok embassy coming out. What happens when they get to things like the CTX scandal? The only answers they can have now will be that the US diplomats were lying in their internal communications.
Jim Taylor – 34
In regard to CTX and other matters at Suvarnabhumi Airport- it was all cleared by several investigations – so no issue for Abbey and his falangistas to rant about here…Even that intractable pro Democrat Party reactionary English-language newspaper The Nation had to retract unfounded allegations back in 2008. Abbey’s hysterics show how allegations can so easily be made against those who we want to target and without any hard evidence, and in an inversion of legal standards where people are proclaimed guilty before they can establish innocence…
Jim just open any of the cables at http://thaicables.wordpress.com which mention Thaksin and see who you are supporting.
And as for this:
Jim Taylor – 39
As for Leah’s definitive statement “Thaksin was not good” (!): so who said? He was (in terms of criminality) probably the least corrupt and most certainly the most efficient if idiosyncratic of all PMs Thailand has ever has.
Least corrupt? Again just read the cables. I think you will need a bit of damage limitation here.
Tarrin do you remember this?
Myself – 46
Tarrin you are possibly correct and I will have to retract the CTX bit. I was suspicious that the Nation’s retraction was to stop Thaksin suing them. Still let’s see what comes out of the US Embassy cables shall we?
Well we are getting the cables now, again thanks to Andrew Marshall. I suspect some of the pro-Thaksin supporters will have to change some of their arguments otherwise they will begin to look rather silly.
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
I’m about half-way through Part 1 and just a touch underwhelmed. So far, Andrew has provided an excellent, well written and constructed overview of the main issues – recommended reading for those new to the plot. But he hasn’t broken news or provided groundbreaking insights, which is surprising considering his former position at Reuters where he must surely have picked up an enticing nugget or two. I hope I’m speaking too soon (indeed, I assume it) because so far he’s done little to justify leaving his day job. Perhaps I’m being harsh; this is the first of a four-part series and he may well be setting the scene ahead of the real beans to follow. I read on…
Abhisit’s blunder
@W 38
After they blamed Jutaporn for killing Seh Dang, I found myself thinking………..
“Have you no sense of decency?”
“Have you no shame?”
Me Sir!, me Sir! I can answer that Sir!
No they don’t.
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
CT an interesting theory re the King’s motivation for wishing the CP to succeed him but rather torturous logic, if I may say so. If this were his intention, wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler for him to “force the elites to revolutionize the system” during his own lifetime, rather than leaving the job to the next generation with a plan that perversely relies on that generation’s lack of popularity to ensure the survival of the monarchy?
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
I’ve just completed Part II. A very fascinating engrossing read definitely. Andrew McGregor Marshall’s Thai Story mainly confirms what I’ve known and/or suspected about what goes on behind Thailand’s opaque politics, but, yes too added new revelations.
People of course will have to make up their own minds about Andrew’s interpretation of Thailand’s turbulent political past and prospects (including the cables ‘legitimacy’). But if anything else, Andrew’s Thai Story had increased my already ingrained suspicions about almost every Thai political player of note. That’s a depressing thought: Not having a leader to attach to, draw inspiration from, and build my hopes from.
At first I’ll vote for Abhisit, then Yingluck, and at this moment back to Abhisit. I am just voting on pure ‘guts’ for the lesser evil.
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
This is kind of like a re-run of all the comments that were made about Handley’s book, often by people who have taken the trouble to read the accounts.
It is interesting to read what various higher ups are said to have told diplomats from Thailand’s most trusted ally over a long period. These statements have to be given some credence as they are attributable to named persons. What then has to be done is ask about the motivations of those who talk to the embassy. One might also like to weigh the positions of those doing the reporting (e.g. Boyce was very close to a lot of yellow shirts and went to school with one in particular; and John was said to be closer to “the dark side”).
It is interesting for me to see the Thai Embassy in London refute the cables in the same way that Thaksin does.
The more that comes out the better. Keep ’em coming!
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
@Jimmy asked:
“Where is a single shred of evidence to back up anything John or the people say or “know?”
How about these events?
1) the Queen attended the PAD funeral, signifying that she sides with them.
2) the Queen attended Colonel’s Romklao’s funeral (a Queen’s guard who died on his ‘duty’ when the Queen’s Guard went to shoot the red shirts on the street on 10 April 2010), signifying that she supports the massacre.
3) the Royal Family’s open support for the 1976 massacre, which are aplenty.
Are these evidences not enough, to make any reasonable person stop and think whether the Royals are really above politics like they claim?
Like most brainwashed royalists, you attack the story as unreliable, yet you failed to point out “where” and explain “why” it is unreliable, not to mention that you have not brought any evidence to the contrary to rebut what the author has said. If you want to accuse the author as unreliable, then prove your allegation by providing evidences to the contrary to disprove him. First, find the sentence which you think unreliable, point it out, and explain why that sentence is unreliable, then bring up evidences to the contrary to disprove it.
Until you can do that, no one will take your allegation seriously.
@Tarrin,
One of the academics who is quite an expert about Thai politics whom I know quite well have told me (I was his student in university, and we still keep in touch until today, for an obvious reason that we are both interested in Thai politics) that he believes that the King is somewhat ‘quite red’. Of course I did not believe it when he told me this, but he said he believes that the King wants Prince V to be the King, because he realises the Monarchy cannot fool Thai people forever. Having Prince V becoming the King will force the elites to ‘revolutionize’ the system, and by doing that the Monarchy will survive. Of course the Queen does not like that idea.
I never believed his assumption. But from reading some cables of wikileaks where it is clear that the King had acted implied that he prefers Prince V to become the next King (despite the fact that he does not like him, and they hardly talk to each other), caused me to consider his assumption more seriously.
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
Part 2 is available. http://www.scribd.com/amarshall_13 Best wishes.
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
ThanongK on Twitter is still good fun to read. Where did this guy double and cross-check all his fabricated stories about Thaksin serious ill and close to death ?
Was he paid by getting his share of Thaksin’s confiscated billions by UK Authorities? Waiting for some answers from “Nationleaks” !
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
It was a pretty good read, even though much of the analysis was of a derivative nature in the form of excerpts from other works. However, I wouldn’t have given up my day job to publish this in Andrew’s position. I am not sure it will lead to new career opportunities and any follow up commentary on Thailand will have to be done from afar.
I liked the description of Prem as Thailand’s “director of human resources” from 1988 to 2001 and some of the cables relating to HMQ are, if true, revealing to say the least.
I look forward to the following parts.
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
And one final frustration I would like to share… I am truly of an objective mind and I am certain that Thailand’s establishment is far from perfect. However the opposition is so childish, so devoid of a legitimate argument, let alone legitimacy themselves, that the have failed completely in objectively holding the establishment accountable.
Accountability is not their objective, for they are corrupt and power-crazed as well. Thus real issues, real corruption, real exploitation is going entirely unnoticed while these two groups play their games of political power grabbing – using only their own losses as evidence of the other’s transgressions against the nation.
My frustration comes with supposed journalists like Marshall who must, in 17 years, have garnered a tremendous amount of resources to commit to researching these issues, when he simply regurgitates PTP talking-points, and those of the red’s academics like the ignoble Giles Ungpakorn. It is frustrating and entirely disappointing.
And unfortunately, as I say this, and search for real credible evidence against the very enemies of the government’s opposition, I am berated by them simply because I don’t fall into the cult of nihilism and hate, and refuse to just fawn over Marshall’s sophomoric work. Yes it is sophomoric. You don’t promise to “revolutionize” someone’s understanding and then just post a US diplomat’s commentary on a particular nation with your own biased opinions, all completely devoid of any sort of documentation. That is indeed childish, no matter how you package and deliver it.
Abhisit’s blunder
After they blamed Jutaporn for killing Seh Dang, I found myself thinking………..
“Have you no sense of decency?”
“Have you no shame?”
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
So how exactly does John Eric’s two cents “confirm” what people already “know?” Where is a single shred of evidence to back up anything John or the people say or “know?” I have to agree with John Smith that all this is obvious pandering to a select group of individuals who have already made up their mind and just enjoy extra fuel in the fire to warm their own hands.
Please find me some evidence of anything Marshall postulates or anything Eric John or the other inept, dubious clowns that constitute America’s self-serving diplomatic corps have said within this lengthy work. Marshall claims to be a journalist yet seems to have no qualms whatsoever about publishing book-length pieces of complete factual desolation. I read the first part with absolute disappointment, finding Eric John’s commentary – which I have read already by the way – to be far from something that would “revolutionize” my understanding of Thailand as Marshall has promised. In fact, besides the same rumors I’ve heard while in Thailand for years, I found nothing exceptional in Marshall’s part 1.
The more I read it the more clear it is that what Marshall has produced is a one-sided rant directed with a political, manipulative agenda in mind. Please don’t tell me it is “objective” it clearly isn’t. The fact that so many Thaksinphiles are “crowing” over this as John Smith aptly puts it, proves what purpose it serves. No matter what the political battle may be, there is ALWAYS dirt on both sides. Marshall’s myopic obsession with a particular side and the whitewashing he lends to the other (as he has done throughout his time at Reuters) is in poor taste and divorced from the best traditions of western journalism he claims to have been a part of for 17 years.
Like I said previously, there is confirmed documentation held in the US Senate’s database available publicly confirming Thaksin Shinawatra has enlisted foreigners to assist him politically in his bid to return to Thailand and to power – treason, as one article puts it. How is that not part of the “Thai Story,” but unconfirmed rumors floating around in Thailand’s gossip prone society retold by Eric John in an “alleged” cable are?
Marshall, here’s hoping you do some soul searching, or at least Google the meaning of “journalistic integrity.”
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
CT – 29
I was going to response to peter but you beat me to it. However, I view this a bit different from you. Although the cable seems to suggest that Queen and the privy councilors are behind all the palace politic, but if we look on nature of the cable itself, it would be illogical for the establishment to even mention the king’s name. After all, the king has been painted as above politic so whatever the information that the ambassader been given must not contain any relation to the king. With that in mind, if they were to mention the king’s name then the whole show will be ruined, therefore, I still firmly believe that the king has been playing the main role in Thailand politic with the Queen and the privy councilors as his fall-man in case something went wrong.
No, its not as simple as bad Thaksin, bad queen, and succession but rather a much more complex confrontation between the progressive vs conservative; the new and old money; the confrontation between social classes; the breakdown of the hold system. There are so many players and factors.
Abhisit’s blunder
They were just repeating what they have been saying for the last 14 months, I don’t a single different in the tone and content. Those who already make their decision wouldn’t change their mind, the undecided will not be effect by this either if they have been following news.
Andrew Marshall’s Thai Story
I have really enjoyed reading part 1 and 2, and look forward to the rest. I appreciate all the work that has gone into it and the fact it’s downloadable for free is amazing! For the first time in years it’s got me digging out all my old Thailand and journalism textbooks (e.g. McCargo, quoted in 9, above) and having a good read.
I guess the sad thing is that #Thaistory shows how completely irrelevant the Nation and the Bangkok Post are for English-speaking news in Thailand. Some might say they’ve known that for years, but for me it’s a real eye opener as to the level of interference in Thai political life, such as the recent struggle over appointing a new police chief, where neither paper could say why the PM’s choice kept getting rejected and an unsuitable alternative continually nominated. If this is the continued future of Thailand things could keep getting messier and messier…
The uselessness of both papers in telling us what actually is happening is only amplified by Thanong’s ever more ridiculous stream of tweets. Jealousy? Denial? Who can tell? For me, his attitude as a senior Thai journalist mirrors that of the army and the malfunctioning bomb detection units. Sad…
Keep up the good work!