wandasloan

I wonder if Ms. Yingluck at her undisclosed location is aware that big brother may have just given the Junta a good reason to keep her a wee bit longer in protective custody?

When did he do that, in the last few minutes? Got a link?

Or are you simply unaware that Thaksin has said no such thing, ever, but you wish so very hard that he did say it that you think it came true?

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If the USA is not a democracy then why do they spout off so much about being the home of democracy and all that propaganda. Total hypocrisy. You know I, as with many folk over the World used to respect and admire the USA but now I think they suck big time by their Corporate run extreme right wing Government run corruption and a total disrespect for true people power democracy and the arrogance and hypocrisy, so very much like the psyche of Thaksin who also puts money and corporate power above people. BTW I am British and used to love my country but I cannot say I do now as it is another corporate run USA puppet nation and sadly almost as corrupt as the USA too.

Thanks for your opinion about current US-Thai relations, at least unlike most posts, it's well-reasoned, if wrong. -)

As for your opinions of the US and UK, aren't you glad you (still) have the right to type that? I bet a few million Thais would be jealous if they knew. Since it's Thai Visa, they never will.

I was unaware that "they" claim the US is home of democracy, which it certainly is not, and I can't come up with an immediate reference at all. The US government "claims" it is a federal republic. I can't find any reference where any reliable or government or similar source says otherwise, and certainly one where it describes the US as "a democracy". Fact is that during the forming of the USA, the "founding fathers" debated what form of government they wanted, and democracy was debated quite heatedly for some time before it was rejected, for the reason that the majority could too easily become a tyranny. The federal republic system that was adopted included some democratic institutions starting with elections, but it was made clear the USA was not to be a democracy. A few minutes with Google can confirm that, and you can spend years researching it, some authors and scholars have.

Personally, repeat personally I kind of like the CIA Factbook's description for the US: "Constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition."

The human rights Americans brag about (rightly so) like speech, and religion and gun ownership - the bill of rights? These are not democratic rights. On the contrary, they are NATURAL rights and cannot be removed by the legislature like some dirty filthy law. The courts have to make this point over and over again to ridiculous legislators, but that's what the courts do.

Where this "home of democracy" stuff you're finding rests, I do not know. Lots of people say "oh, yeah, the US is a democracy" in short form, but darned if I've ever heard anyone claim it is the home of democracy, that's a brand new one on me. These days it seems 99.734 per cent of people are historically challenged but "home of democracy"?

I don't think there even was a USA in 1066 for example, or am I wrong? Anyway, I'm almost positive Athens came before George Washington? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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Thaksin at the Council on Foreign Relations. Birds of a feather, flock together......Tik-Tok Thailand!

Oh my. So near, but yet so far. Yes, definitely CFR. But Thaksin doesn't run the world. Here are the photos that prove who do. Go ahead, deny it but this is photographic proof TWICE as strong as yours:

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I just react to this news ok, and give some light on why this exile gov could not recognize in the world. I know is just speculation from a poor lawyer who search a certain popularity with this..............

I want to answer this because you are the first one today to react this way - properly, in my opinion. And thank YOU for replying at all. I wish a lot more posters felt that way, but unfortunately they believe Mr Amsterdam's tongue is the world gold standard for truth and for dependability.

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It doesn't matter what another country says, it matters what they do. If the right hand is moving, you should watch the left, because that's what's really happening. Furthermore, the Carlyle Group, the Giant Banks and the IMF operate outside of the law and don't recognize international boarders. They make their own rules and they own they politicians in the countries you mentioned. Prepare to be assimilated!

And the Trilateral Commission. You forgot the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group. We won't mention the Knights (shhhhh) Templar, or the Jooooooz right?

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No western country or country in security council will recognize this exile government.

If you read statement form these countries they only condemn coup and not reject junta.......

For remember Taksin is not welcome like leaders in USA, when he come in Europe authorities told him to shut is mouth

What "this" exile government are you talking about? The one that Thaksin and/or Yingluck and/or any Shinawatra haven't set up and haven't threatened to set up and haven't commented on? That exile government?

Can you provide some details about "this exile government"? No, of course not. It's a rumour spread by Thai Visa based on a statement by a person who three days ago and two weeks ago and months ago and years ago was consistently and uniquely trashed by Thai Visa users as a lying, know-nothing mouthpiece with no authority - but who (literally) overnight became a paragon of truth and virtue to Thai Visa users.

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OK, Semantics and/or technicalities.

Yes, the war was publicly declared by Pbun.

No, the Ambassadors to the UK and USA DID NOT deliver the declaration of war.

Duplicitous, isn't it?

Sorry that I cannot take your word for it when one of my ancestor did spend time in Kanchanaburi and nearly died building the railroad to Death built on Thai soil. His accounts first hand are an invaluable source of knowledge I have.

Next Thai apologist!

I'm sorry about your ancestor, I truly am. I have empathy since three of my ancestors didn't "nearly" die in that war, if you catch my drift, and I have no access to their accounts apart from far too few of those "don't worry about me" letters, which still distress me too often, I suppose.

I don't understand your personal attack at all, or the "apologist" statement, either one. It's not semantical that Thailand declared war on the UK (yes it did!) and did not declare war on the US, it's an important development of that terrible time. If you don't believe me it's an interesting story, don't, and I will simply have to try to console myself.

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[snip] [snip] . Pity the arrogant Americans and the other Western puppet nations and Singapore and Malaysia and the Philippines and Vietnam and China and Hong Kong and Japan and India and the United Nations and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Brunei and Taiwan and South Korea and the Asian Human Rights Commission cannot see the truth and sense in that instead of their coup must inly be bad blinkered narrow minded vision. Like democracies there are good and true ones and bad ones that do not carry out the majority wishes (like USA and UK as two shining examples of corporate money led power raping true democracy). Likewise there are also good and bad coups and this one IMHO is a good one with honourable intentions, unlike many of the simply stealing power permanently ones we have seen elsewhere in the world. So USA bloody well <deleted>, stop interfering and open your eyes and minds before your big mouth and see the sense in what is happening here in the circumstances this country is going through right now.

I think we should have a more complete list, do you not? It needn't be fully complete but more representative, don't you think?

I'm also a little unclear on how following the specific US law of policy towards countries switching to a military junta is "interfering". Are you suggesting the US should have no foreign policy? If not, what? Note the US never gave orders or instructions to Thailand, only stated what it hopes will happen. And don't we all hope for what the US hopes? I sure do:

John Kerry (with a long face):

I urge the restoration of civilian government immediately, a return to democracy, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as press freedoms. The path forward for Thailand must include early elections that reflect the will of the people.

What in there do you not hope for, and why?

Also, the USA is not, and never has been a democracy. On purpose. It was debated at length and (irony alert!) the majority decided against it, so case settled long before you and I had any say.

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In the US diplomat positions are given as 'freebies' to people who supported the administration and are frankly not qualified to do anything else. They are told not to make press releaases without permission and sent on their way, like bathtub ducks. There are lots of these 'posts' in America. During Hurricane Katrina and the Bush the Lesser administration, a Mr. Brown was head of FEMA. The only qualification Mr. Brown has was that he had....run horse shows.

No kidding.

I can't let this go because it is way, way wrong, fantastically wrong. Yet another urban legend courtesy of the incredible Thai Visa Rumour Machine.

Fact: Almost all US ambassadors are career diplomats who worked as coffee-getters at the State Department and worked their way up to be ambassadors through a very rigorous, difficult, career-long selection process. They are CAREER diplomats. The US ambassador to Thailand did not and does not "support the administration". Period. She is a career diplomat who has had many, many postings.

None of the above has anything to do with whether she is a good ambassador but she has spent her whole working life getting here. Brilliant, incompetent or in-between, she is massively trained and does not work for the administration, but for the government of the United States. During her working career, many presidents and bosses of both parties have come and gone and she has continued.

There are some US diplomatic posts headed by political appointees as you say. They are few in number, and they tend to be in places where there's not much for a "real" ambassador to do, apart from party-attending and schmoozing and having a July 4 party. These ambassadors have bought the post through political donations as you say. Since World War II, no US ambassador has been such a person, up to and including Ambassador Kenney.

US cabinet positions are always filled by people who support the administration, but some don't have to buy the post.

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Thailand not only allowed the Japanese army to occupy Thailand for 2 years.

Check this out: Comfort zones with Thai comfort ladies for the R&R of Japanese soldiers, a hard labor camp, Japanese army barracks in several parts of the country, etc. But those are little details that Mr. Yon overlooks to substantiate his dim witted view.

To top off the list of deeds that brand Thailand as a traditional USA "ally": Thailand also declared war to UK and the USA.

Whoever agrees with that fellow is in the netherland of supine ignorance?

Kindly check your history books again on an important fact. Thailand did not declare war on the USA. It's quite a story what happened after Thailand did not declare war on the US, worth reading up on. Take my word on it. You won't be sorry.

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Please excuse my English, i am only a simple Thai lady - can you tell me what is the term "complite hox"

Simple, that i don't think you are thai, a lady and that you are only an eglish gentalmen, troll, registered here on the day of bangkok shotdown 13.1.14

A straight line masquerading as an outraged post. You don't see that every day.

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Has anybody seen any comment attributing that yingluck has made any such statement, or whether she has after the event, agreed to this arrangement.

Somehow I doubt that she would want any further involvement unless pushed (ordered) to by bb. Maybe wrong.

Of course not. Also, no one has seen any comment attributed to Thaksin.

This is 100% Thai Visa-approved rumour-spreading. There is no sign that this Amsterdam person even knows what he is talking about. No Shinawatra has said a thing. No "government in exile" exists. No Thaksin aide, assistant, mouthpiece, spokesman, family member, distant aunt or Skype supplier has commented.

Yet Thai Visa not only approves spreading this hooey on and on and over and over, but actually originated the post! The reason? It was on Robert Amsterdam's website and he read part of it to the ABC. I'm tempted to post some other things on Amsterdam's website just to get up the forum's nose, but I can't be bothered, since the "moderator" would probably follow the rules for once.

I know for a fact that if I made some posts claiming I had the right because "it was on the ABC" I would not just be censored but banned and possibly turned in for lese majeste, if not by Thai Visa then by readers who read the posts before they were erased.

Remember that the next time a "moderator" claims someone is being censored for posting one of those illegal rumours that can put people in jail (theoretically) these days. This whole thread from Post 1 to this one is shameful. It has as much to do with truth and fact as the story about how Thaksin paid Pakistanis to stage the Mumbai massacre to get the hotel reconstruction contracts.

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I think you may not be too far off the mark. The protests against the coup already seem to be gaining momentum. Provided the protesters remain peaceful, the military will be boxed into a corner and the more likely scenario will be the removal of General P by the so called "watermelon" generals.

I would go further than that. If the protesters do not remain peaceful, the military will be MORE boxed in, unable to make any arrests and make examples of the bad eggs, but forced to either retreat or take no prisoners, as the cameras roll. It wouldn't be the first time, heh.

No army can cover itself with glory shooting its own citizens in the streets, including the inevitable reporters and innocent bystanders. Even if the citizens are (supposedly) armed. Oh I know the ThaiVisa Committee On Protecting Elite Views would be quite voluble, but for them I have two western words:

Kent State.

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Ah,hubris...thy name is Thaksin!

I've been coming to/living in Thailand ever since the campaign that led to Thaksin's election.

I saw him as a Thai Carnegie or Gates.....a man who made his billions and decided enough was enough, and would devote the rest of his life to improving his country (especially the many have-nots).

The first term, he had a coalition government, and pushed through many sensible and much-delayed reforms (30 baht health insurance, OTOP). There was an air of excitement and the country was developing rapidly. I had many long discussions with other farang who didn't care for him. I would answer their objections with "he is not responsible to us...but to his electorate." The second term he won an absolute majority, and the mask began to drop. The abuses came more often, and I stopped defending him, and began apologizing for my own stupidity. He was arrogant, possessed of overweaning pride, and (as we later found out) greed and corruption. If he had only ended that TV appearance in which he bragged about selling his family's telecommunications interests to Temasek (the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore) and not paying taxes, with something along the following lines..."despite that, I will put one-third of my profits in a fund to improve education, health and conservation in this country." No demonstrations, derogatory songs about the square-faced man, nor any coup would have succeeded. Finally, the 80% getting milked by the elite would use their minds and breathe free.

But Thaksin had two tragic flaws - avarice and hubris. So sad...The people needed (and still need) a good, creative leader who would make Thailand a more egalitarian, educated country, full of opportunity for all. A leader who would have clean hands and speak truth to power. In short, Thaksin could have ascended the heights, but instead, he's still playing in the muck. The results...eight wasted years and more to come. With Asean integration on the doorstep, this could not have come at a worse moment.

Excellent point.

The thing *I* have learned in a misspent life is that the rich people are exactly the ones who never, ever have enough. And yes Bill Gates, I'm looking at you. Yeah, you're a good guy this week, inoculating kids, but you will NEVER stop taking money for your semi-broken operating system and you will NEVER give any of it back, even in free support, say.

People like Thaksin who got to the top of the money through... er, even-more-questionable means that the completely amoral and unethical Gates will use those same tactics and invent others, because they want more, more, more and there is not such a thing as "enough". The "self-made" rich man is a lifetime addict to accumulation, and he will never stop. Like Gates, Thaksin has given away lots of money and set up foundations and education and all. He set up Otop and a terrific medical programme, and village funds that mean Isan people don't spend the winter in Bangkok any more.

I'm not blind to his achievements. But he can't stop accumulating, and therefore he never will, and if it's a fight between accumulating more or doing some good.... well, it's no fight at all, not at the time.

Right, Bill? Right, Warren?

Plus, as a bonus, you are right about Thaksin's personality and his need, his total need, to dominate and get his way. Kind of like an army general, actually. It destroyed him just as it has destroyed all the generals who made coups in the past 30 years and this one is absolutely toast.

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Go read his Facebook and page and try to.challenge a word he says. You will be dumped on by teenage insults from his yellow shirt groupies and he will block u preventing debate.

He is not a news source. He has been part of the machinery to drag the US embassy into this story. I hope there aren't any serious repercussion.

I'm trying to dig up in my memory, sans Google, the name of the ... I want to say "troubled" Australian who got involved on the stage and the press just as the 2010 events were coming to an end. A completely unhinged, self-appointed messenger for the red shirts as Mr Yon is for the yellows today (except without the stage of course). Well, I'll have to look it up.

Conor Purcell. "I was in the Australian army for seven years and...."

I really thought he was ill, but in any case, the red shirts used him just as the yellows are using this poor fellow, who really seems to have no clue despite his total commitment to the causes of Mr Suthep and Mr Sondhi and his very professional hatred for his own country - where by "professional" I mean paid for.

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I can believe that Thaksin is trying to set this up

Why? Since he has said absolutely nothing about it up to the time of your post, why can you believe it?

Reminder. Alice in Wonderland. Remember how she couldn't have more tea since she'd had none?

What moves has Thaksin already made that he can make more? He made a couple of tweets, the first in 250 days, after martial law was declared and has not even said anything since then, and specifically has said to this moment nothing about the coup and certainly not a word about a government in exile.

If Thaksin is going to set up a government in exile, do you not think Thaksin might make a mention of it at some point? After which THEN you can believe it? Or is the collective wisdom of the ThaiVisa Rumour Editor plus the ThaiVisa Panel Of International Foreign Affairs Experts enough for you to go on?

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Google any combo of words. It was no secret that Thaksin was a consultant for the group even if he 'resigned' back in 2001. You never really resign from the mafia.

His attempts to give Chevron the exploration contract off of Cambodia was no secret either. Or making PTT public years ago.

Good stuff, useful for sure. But the test will come when we learn if you have the guts to post the lowdown on how it was Thaksin, and not Bush as widely believed, who planted the explosives in Building 7.

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I don't know why somebody with excellent marksman skills isn't sent to Dubai and with 1 short sharp pop all this problem would be over and Thailand would be able to get back to a normal country again.

I have two words for this remarkable post.

Benigno Aquino.

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The view of 1 American in Thailand is so important?

For every person critical of the US action, I can find another who support it.

And vice versa - for every person supportive of the US action, I can find another who criticize it.

So I don't think Her Excellency will lose any sleep.

Yes. Amazing what happens when newspapers feel so intimidated that they can't print news. The headline, to reflect the past three years on ThaiVisa, should be, "US ambassador praised" as she was tens of thousands of times. But yes, for sure, US ambassador Kenney was criticised. Wow. Impressive. And she was praised as well. Wow. Impressive. That's why she gets the big salary and chauffeur, I guess, because she doesn't have hysterics either time. What a woman, able to take praise and criticism like that.

The "letter" from an unidentified, anonymous alleged American via Michael Yon who had absolutely no part in writing it, is interesting, though. It sounds EXACTLY like similar letters printed in the slavish Burmese media during the Slorc days.

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this man doesnt like his country at all , he wants to disturb more and more until he can get a civil war.

Robert Amsterdam is a Canadian, and I doubt you have any evidence he hates his country, although you can find lots that he does want to disturb more and more; he seems to thrive and puff up when he causes disturbances. However, you have more ability to start a civil war than he does.

The ONLY person in the entire world talking about a government in exile is Robert Amsterdam. No one else. (I exclude, out of pity, the dupes on ThaiVisa's Board of International Analytical Excellence, apparently suffering alcohol-withdrawal syndrome symptoms of rage.)

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Prayuth's promise to pay the farmers in full within 20 days is a remarkable " coup " in and of itself. In one stroke he manages to alleviate the plight of the farmers, as well as strongly undercut Thaksin's core constituency. By this first legislative act, Prayuth takes the wind out of the sails of much of Pheu Thai and the UDD. It also is but the latest indication that things are going to be moving very swiftly.

That rice scheme is just a fabulous idea, I agree. Excellent {cough}idea{cough} of the army to keep it going. I'm sure now that a nice decent honest general is doing it, there will be no problems from the National Anti-Corruption Commission about all that plundering of the treasury, and the rice scheme will be enshrined as permanent national policy in the next constitution.

It's a hoot watching the yellow people "all change" like a Saturday night square dance, without a shred of irony let alone shame. Good grief!

Of course it's true. The army can dip into the national treasury any time it darn pleases for any reason it pleases. Who would stop them? Voters? Pshaw. Laws are for the little people, and only if you anger General Failure and he needs one.

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A post complaining about moderation and several replies to it have been removed. If you want to help, then use the Report function as we are swamped trying to keep ahead of these topics in these complex times. Thanks.

There was a news story about this, a little old but certainly not dated:

http://goo.gl/pnOUim

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Where were the creeps previously hiding, and why doesn't the military take them away again?

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How will the bars survive the curfew?

How did this 1976 thread get suddenly reconstituted here?