nexus99

Ok farangs, explain this to me... It seems many members on this forum are bad mouthing the (poorly trained) Thai military for doing a crack down on the Red protesters. Yes, there have been shootings from both sides. The Red protesters have been occupying parts of the capital city since March. They have disrupted local Thais from going to work or even losing their jobs due to businesses having to close. PM Abhisit (in a no win situation) offered new elections on November 14. The Reds would not accept the offer unless more demands were met. Here is my question: Would your country allow this kind of demonstration go on for months, cripling the capital city? All democracies have rules and ordnances for demonstrators to follow and once you go beyond the "guide lines" -watch out. (If you are American, think of Kent State or the Chicago Democratic convention in the 60's; if you are French, think of the Paris riots not too long ago.) -Heaven forbid if this kind of protesting was done in China.

When I see the military facing the angry protesters, I feel sorry for these guys; for, they look scared and in a situation they don't want to be in. I know it is the "Thai way" to not enforce city ordnances and rules (I am assuming there are city ordnances and "rules" when a group congregates to protest) but this is a good example where things get out of hand if you let protesters do what they want in the beginning -- allowing thousands to squat an area in the middle of the city to set up "camp".

Ok non-farang, this situation would never have occurred in England, Germany, US, France etc. At the first signs of violence the protesters would have been cleared out. This is not the way business is done in the West.

The red shirts at this point (for a long while now) are domestic terriorists and should be treated as such. Imagine if you family lived close to where they are building their forts and holding their hate speeches.

Actually I think the thing to do would be to arrest their leader (in Africa or wherever he is) and try him for terriorism. Once he is jailed somewhere this all would come to a swift end.

As long as they aren't Republicans or Red Shirts they can marry whomever they like ;-)

I bet if Thaksin was to "dissapear" this whole mess would be over. If he can pay for citizenship in another country (what a great patriot he is!) I am sure someone can pay the same country more to make him "go away".

Without him manipulating the good people of Thailand to be his dupes everything will quickly return to the nice country Thailand has the possibility of being.

Its pretty clear that the Red Shirts have cross the line from political activists to domestic terrorists. They government should respond with like levels of force (live ammo, explosives, etc) and clean up the mess. Once a couple hundred terrorists are dead and another 1000 are arrested the Red Shirts might get the point. Can you imagine this being allowed in any 1st world country? This would have been shut down at the first glimpse of violence.

I would say that after all of the attacks that the Red Shirts have made against the Thai nation its about time they were classified as domestic terriorists and treated accordingly?

I suspect that if you had armed mobs roaming the streets in any 1st world county the would be taken care of quite quickly. I have no problem with the goverment using lethal force against anyone setting off bombs, throwing grenades, or firing weapons at troops or non combatants.