Since basically coups are an alien concept to any normal country, perhaps Thailand could capitalize upon this concept. Market it to adventure tourists !!!

So when a coup looks like it is coming, promote tourism to come here and experience it first hand yourself... :-) What a great conversation starter when you get back home after the coup !!! " There I was sitting on the street corner in Bangkok having fried rice, when tanks started rolling down the street......"

All your friends would be insanely jealous, as you got to experience something that seems like it would come out of 19th century South America !!!1

I've thought for a long time now that Thailand is a sub-Saharan African country grafted into SE Asia.

I'm thinking no coups for a very long time. The Puea Thai party has made peace with the Army by giving them more freedom and a budget increase. PTP has made peace with the Amataya through the Privy Council as a deal has been done preventing Dr. Thaksin's return. There is a big Kabuki Dance within the PTP that pretends to make progress towards giving Dr. Thaksin his wish for a white-washed return to power/Thailand but 'something' always comes up to prevent it (see point 2). It is human nature do disobey when the 'Authority' is not directly present i.e. kids misbehaving behind their parent's backs, criminals doing crime when the police are not around, etc. and so it is with the PTP. Dr. Thaksin is not able to control all of PTP all of the time. Do you think that strong personalities like K. Chalerm and very wealthy like K. Plodprasob enjoy being ordered around? Many in Dr. Thaksin's party can see themselves taking his position for themselves (no honor among thieves). How many times can he scold them on Skype before they 'tune him out'? Many are paying 'lip' service to Dr. Thaksin; notice how many times Parliament has been cancelled due to a lack of a quorum. If this government truly wanted Dr. Thaksin back, he would have been back in time for his daughter's wedding a year ago. The have a large majority in Parliament; they can do most anything they want to. Dr. Thaksin is losing his grip every day. He has used up all his credit with the common Red Shirts; notice how few heeded his call to protest the court. He is a spent force and his party are very careful not to break their deal with the Army and Amataya. His machinations do sell a lot of newspapers which is why we all talk about him every day.

Past performance is not guarantee of future returns.....

Except when it comes to coups in Thailand. Whether its next week, month or year, you just know it is coming sometime. Why? Because they get away with it. Simple really

Maybe the ones in power should TRY to THINK before bludgening their way through in dictatorial fashion.

concentrate on running a non corrupt government. If you don't have the army, OR any other way to halt the slime, what would then happen ????

Maybe after 18 attempts the army would find a way to write a constitution so well written that NO sides of the political agenda can modify it quite so easily.

I.e. super majority.

Maybe some of the top brass like a coup now and then as it gives them something to do other than play golf and politic to get plum posts in the annual reshuffle, they can put tactics into actual operation and really play with all that new equipment ( well the stuff that works anyway ) and it makes them feel needed.

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Past performance is not guarantee of future returns.....

Except when it comes to coups in Thailand. Whether its next week, month or year, you just know it is coming sometime. Why? Because they get away with it. Simple really

Maybe the ones in power should TRY to THINK before bludgening their way through in dictatorial fashion.

concentrate on running a non corrupt government. If you don't have the army, OR any other way to halt the slime, what would then happen ????

Maybe after 18 attempts the army would find a way to write a constitution so well written that NO sides of the political agenda can modify it quite so easily.

I.e. super majority.

Maybe some of the top brass like a coup now and then as it gives them something to do other than play golf and politic to get plum posts in the annual reshuffle, they can put tactics into actual operation and really play with all that new equipment ( well the stuff that works anyway ) and it makes them feel needed.

They like things to play out the way they "think", things should be. There is a huge swathe of media available to them to influence the people and they peddle their ideas against anything they don't like very freely.

It is all a matter of keeping things the way they are to protect themselves and their political cadres. I have never believed that this is an ideological battle but a new money, old business money war, and the army sits on the fence until "they" decide enough is enough, we may lose out here. The army is the old money enforcer, who rides to save the country from the new moneyed upstarts.

Not enough time to discuss who "they" are, but it has been raked over 100 times. But safe to say, the rice exporters are one, but obviously their plight isn't enough to tip the tables yet.

Since basically coups are an alien concept to any normal country, perhaps Thailand could capitalize upon this concept. Market it to adventure tourists !!!

So when a coup looks like it is coming, promote tourism to come here and experience it first hand yourself... :-) What a great conversation starter when you get back home after the coup !!! " There I was sitting on the street corner in Bangkok having fried rice, when tanks started rolling down the street......"

All your friends would be insanely jealous, as you got to experience something that seems like it would come out of 19th century South America !!!1

I knew I was coming back the second time for a six month visit. Just couldn't make up my mind until the coup was back with in the week,. The red terrorist attack was more like a bloody coup falling flat on it's face. that gives Thaksin two reasons to try and come back and save face unfortunately his lying is just loosing him more face with the educated public snf not even his army of soldiers on the ground are starting to show up at his rallies.

Since basically coups are an alien concept to any normal country, perhaps Thailand could capitalize upon this concept. Market it to adventure tourists !!!

So when a coup looks like it is coming, promote tourism to come here and experience it first hand yourself... :-) What a great conversation starter when you get back home after the coup !!! " There I was sitting on the street corner in Bangkok having fried rice, when tanks started rolling down the street......"

All your friends would be insanely jealous, as you got to experience something that seems like it would come out of 19th century South America !!!1

Don't think I've never impressed the folks back home a bit with, "I've been through two coups"...

One thing I must admit is that red shirt has been functioning well to suppress the coup. It is one and only one good for this country I can see from all those foul and faulty actions they have been doing in the past years. Ends do not justify means anyway.

A democracy is "majority rules", a republic is "rule of law", and while not always true, these are the definitions I'm going to use here for my commentary on this subject. Democracies never work because of this reason. Add corruption to the mix, and it's problematic, with no one winning, and the masses losing the most.If Thailand is to become a truly prosperous nation for all, the corruption en masse must be eliminated, and a republican form of government instituted instead of democracy, which is, in this case, the winner is who can buy the most votes. Just my opinion.

Where is "Philippians" ? Suspect Philippines, but newspaper should proofread better.

They were probably referring to the book in the Bible...

Call me Old Mr Cynic, but the author of the report has a "suspect" name: Aurel Croissant!!!

If I had two wishes they would be:

That the US government stopped invading countries and that Thailand stopped having coups.

Those are pretty crappy wishes...

Maybe, maybe not.

Past Performance is not an Indicator of Future Results

+1

High Risk Of More Coups In Thailand, Study Says

Still Coup Coup Land then.

If this present government tries to control the judiciary and whitewash the [snip] from Dubai, not to mention become a dictatorship, you're damn right there's a high risk of another coup!

But does that make it right? Where is the democracy in coup-making?

A democracy is "majority rules", a republic is "rule of law", and while not always true, these are the definitions I'm going to use here for my commentary on this subject. Democracies never work because of this reason. Add corruption to the mix, and it's problematic, with no one winning, and the masses losing the most.If Thailand is to become a truly prosperous nation for all, the corruption en masse must be eliminated, and a republican form of government instituted instead of democracy, which is, in this case, the winner is who can buy the most votes. Just my opinion.

You know that advocating a republic is illegal in Thailand, right? Even if it is "an opinion"

If this present government tries to control the judiciary and whitewash the [snip] from Dubai, not to mention become a dictatorship, you're damn right there's a high risk of another coup!

But does that make it right? Where is the democracy in coup-making?

And since when does the military understand anything about democracy? They only understand taking the law into their own hands.

Call me Old Mr Cynic, but the author of the report has a "suspect" name: Aurel Croissant!!!

Dear old mr cynic,

Why is having a bakers product for a surname suspect ? its a very popular word in France especially in the morning.

If the author of the report name was Shinawatra, that would be suspect

If this present government tries to control the judiciary and whitewash the [snip] from Dubai, not to mention become a dictatorship, you're damn right there's a high risk of another coup!

But does that make it right? Where is the democracy in coup-making?

It's not right but than, personally, I'd sooner have another coup than have a corrupt government control the judiciary and bringing that scum from Dubai back.

You think things are bad now having that POS give orders via Skype? Wait till he's back for real.

If this present government tries to control the judiciary and whitewash the [snip] from Dubai, not to mention become a dictatorship, you're damn right there's a high risk of another coup!

But does that make it right? Where is the democracy in coup-making?

Some times you just can't do any thing about it. You are left with two non Democratic ideas and you know for a 100% guaranteed money refundable fact that one of those is going to be the answer even though it is not Democratic.

In this case we are looking at one.

My money says the corruption in the government stays in the same hands.

One problem for a future coup is that most soldiers come from Esaan and they are red shirts. During the recent BMA election the polloing stations close to the army camps reported a 70% vote for PT. In 2006 there was no red shirts. Maybe this time the soldiers will not do what the generals order. Another difference is that PT have appointed their own people into the MoD and RTA.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Thailand will always be at a high risk of coups. Since 1932 Thailand has had 17 coups or attempted coups on average about every 5 years. It's a pretty good bet they will have one again.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/archives/history-of-military-coups-in-thailand_324005.html

If the judiciary can stay in tact until the next election then I do not think there will be another coup for some time. Thats watching the pressure come on Thaksin now as he is 2 years into this term and still no closer to being back in Thailand, and while he has possibly already creamed enough from the thai coffers and accordingly the Isaan poor to cover all his thieving gains and losses bugger all else is going as he would have foreseen. What is obvious over the last few weeks is the average thai is slowly starting to wake up to the garbage that is the Shinawatra's. Yingluck's days are numbered as she is starting to get crucified on thai sites by normal every day Thai's as the cute brainless puppet she is. Trick for Khun Abhisit and the judiciary is to keep the ball in play and keep amnesty and constitutional change minimised for as long as they can and out of the Dubai fugitive convicted criminal's hands and let this latest mafia amart bunch of thieves further self implode.

Bring it on!

Another coup, the country goes to hell in a hand basket,

internal wars,

civil wars,

economy takes a major blow,

imports/exports come to screeching halt.

the baht devalues and drops to 35-40 to the dollar. Heyyyyy, not everything is bad news.

The wild card in the whole mix is the situation with Preah Vihean. How the case is adjudicated and how the gov't reacts to the adjudication could be a big factor.

Not exactly a Ground-Breaking book!!!

any kid could talk about Thailands extremely high amount of coups in the past, and perhaps to expect more coups in the future.

but I like the Authors name... sounds tasty

20 coups from 1920. Average every 4.95 years. Last coup 2006. We are over due.

If I had two wishes they would be:

That the US government stopped invading countries and that Thailand stopped having coups.

Hey, how about if the US invaded Thailand to stop them having coups?!

Never mind...

They could do it successfully with their Coast Guard.

I suspect that the situation here hasn't reached the coup boiling point yet. The PTP were (Thaksin was) clever enough to get the red shirt mob to lay off the CC. That's reduced the temperature a few degrees.

As Scott says, the temple issue is a wild card but the joker still remains Mr T.

I hope there is no reason for another coup. The only reason for me is when the government becomes dictatorial (as per Thaksin before the last coup) then it is time for it to be reigned in.

As for a poster likening the next (possible) coup outcome to Syria - absolute rubbish. A civil war - maybe, but outside involvement coupled with a sectarian factor - farfetched.