Thai-US ties hinge on 'return of democracy'

[Lite Beer]

CONCERNED' OVER ELECTION DELAY
Thai-US ties hinge on 'return of democracy'
PRAVIT ROJANAPHRUK
THE SUNDAY NATION

BANGKOK: -- STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL 'CONCERNED' OVER POSSIBLE DELAY IN ELECTIONS

THE UNITED STATES still has some reservations about normalising bilateral ties with Thailand, with US charge d'affaires in Thailand W Patrick Murphy saying yesterday that Thai-US relations will return to "full potential once democracy is restored".

Murphy made the remark in a reply to a question by The Nation on Twitter in relation to a recent comment by senior US State Department official Scot Marciel.

Marciel told a congressional hearing in the United States on Thursday that the Cobra Gold - Asia-Pacific's largest annual multinational military exercise - would take place in Thailand next year, although it would be scaled down.

Marciel added that the time frame for elections in Thailand, once tentatively scheduled for autumn 2015, and then early 2016, "could slip even further".

"We are concerned that without a timely, transparent and inclusive reform process, the Thai government will never enjoy the public buy-in necessary to build lasting institutions," said Marciel in a joint prepared testimony to the House Subcommittee Overseeing US Foreign Policy in the region.

Responding to the question on whether Marciel's remark signified the normalisation of Thai-US relations, Murphy said that Thailand was a long-time friend and ally of the US and the cooperation continued.

There have been no top-level visits between the two nations since the military came to power through a coup in May last year. Coup leader General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who was then the Army commander-in-chief, later became prime minister.

Murphy tweeted yesterday to congratulate Thai Fulbright Scholarship Programme recipients who will pursue studies, teach or conduct research across the United States.

In a related development, a source the from US Embassy in Bangkok said the incoming US Ambassador to Thailand, Glyn Townsend Davies, was studying Thai and was expected to be in Thailand on schedule pending the US Congress approving the appointment.

The government has welcomed the American authorities' decision to hold its annual Cobra Gold military exercise in Thailand next year, as it was a "positive sign" that reflected the two countries' long and close relationship.

In his testimony at Thursday's US congressional hearing, Marciel said the annual Cobra Gold exercise was important to the US and the region. The administration decided this week to go ahead with preparations for the 2016 edition.

The US scaled down the major multilateral training exercise, which has run since 1982, last year following the coup.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Thai-US-ties-hinge-on-return-of-democracy-30262282.html

-- The Nation 2015-06-14

[willyumiii]

I had to check the date on this..

It reads like it was written a year ago.

[noitom]

There are no US reservations on Thailan. The US is firmly committed to not restoring US/Thai relations until they have an elected government by the people for the people. That does not mean some appointed crony pm constitutes a freely elected democracy.

[Bannum opinions]

"We are concerned that without a timely, transparent and inclusive reform process, the Thai government will never enjoy the public buy-in necessary to build lasting institutions," said Marciel

The key phrase here being "Inclusive reform"

Disregarding the code word "reform" and what that means with respect to Democracy is a topic onto itself, when it is a process devoid of including the electoral majority...An unopposed political playpen for the anti-democrats.....A little like political children in a politically elite candy store.

It is this question of inclusiveness.....Where are the pro-democracy people in this.........for starters, when one reads the torrent of anti-Yingluck, Jatuporn stuff, attacks on PTP politicians, plus Politicians as a class, you know it is rooted in fear.......Electoral fear.......Seeing the proliferation of independent Agencies with veto capability over voter decisions, an elitist-stacked Senate, seeing multi-sourced, inclusive political debate as 'conflict'..... you know it is all rooted in...... political fear.....

Electoral fear and political fear drives the anti-democrats.

And why not.......Being in the minority, what else can they do.....The anti-democrats have told the powers that be, don't screw this up......Make our political advantages permanent. Otherwise, that electoral behemoth will get us again.

Political and electoral fear...it is pervasive and driving the political space of Thailand.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Bannum opinions

[bim]

The US are hypocrits. How about appling that same principle to the Saudis and every other non democratic despote they are friends with and have funded down the years and still do today. At least Thailand doesnt publicly behead its own citizens.

[sirineou]

The US are hypocrits. How about appling that same principle to the Saudis and every other non democratic despote they are friends with and have funded down the years and still do today. At least Thailand doesnt publicly behead its own citizens.

The US will support what is in their best interest to support. In fact this is the policy of every reasonable country , Hypocrisy and diplomacy go hand in hand

[bim]

The US are hypocrits. How about appling that same principle to the Saudis and every other non democratic despote they are friends with and have funded down the years and still do today. At least Thailand doesnt publicly behead its own citizens.

The US will support what is in their best interest to support. In fact this is the policy of every reasonable country , Hypocrisy and diplomacy go hand in hand

Hardly reasonable if they state its about democracy when in fact its not.

[halloween]

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

[sirineou]

The US are hypocrits. How about appling that same principle to the Saudis and every other non democratic despote they are friends with and have funded down the years and still do today. At least Thailand doesnt publicly behead its own citizens.

The US will support what is in their best interest to support. In fact this is the policy of every reasonable country , Hypocrisy and diplomacy go hand in hand

Hardly reasonable if they state its about democracy when in fact its not.

It is reasonable to state it is about democracy, when it is not, if it is in their interest to do so.

it is called diplomacy

in Thailand given all the variables it is in their interest to support democracy, in Saudi Arabia it is not,

to do otherwise would be unreasonable

[willyumiii]

The US are hypocrits. How about appling that same principle to the Saudis and every other non democratic despote they are friends with and have funded down the years and still do today. At least Thailand doesnt publicly behead its own citizens.

The US will support what is in their best interest to support. In fact this is the policy of every reasonable country , Hypocrisy and diplomacy go hand in hand

Hardly reasonable if they state its about democracy when in fact its not.

The U.S. is a republic, who falsely claims to be a democracy...and wants to force democracy on the world.

Now, please define hypocrite?

[spidermike007]

The US is so quick to lecture other nations about democracy. As an American this tendency makes me cringe. How about a quick status report on the latest adventures in forced democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya and Algeria? Here is the American version of democracy. Sounds a bit closer to fascism to me, but what do I know? And this was five years ago. Obama has been accelerating this dramatically.

The Washington Post reported in 2010 that there were 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies in 10,000 locations in the United States that are working on counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence, and that the intelligence community as a whole includes 854,000 people holding top-secret positions.

[sweatalot]

... once democracy is restored....

when will they stop using the word "democracy" for the political system that has been in place in Thailand in the past"

[spidermike007]

The US are hypocrits. How about appling that same principle to the Saudis and every other non democratic despote they are friends with and have funded down the years and still do today. At least Thailand doesnt publicly behead its own citizens.

The US will support what is in their best interest to support. In fact this is the policy of every reasonable country , Hypocrisy and diplomacy go hand in hand

Hardly reasonable if they state its about democracy when in fact its not.

The U.S. is a republic, who falsely claims to be a democracy...and wants to force democracy on the world.

Now, please define hypocrite?

Hypocrisy is defined as a nation that claims to be pure, and moral, yet likes as much sex as possible, and tries to do everything it can to hide it, as considers it to be immoral. Yet, on a per capita basis, the US has as many sex workers as any nation on the earth.

It is also defined as allowing powerful partners to do as they please, such as the Saudis and China, and lecturing smaller, less powerful nations on the virtues of democracy, non-stop.

Also, it is defined as sponsoring the primary corruption indexes, and yet maintaining the most corrupt political system on the planet, with institutionalized lobbying allowed by law, and politicians who accept massive amounts of money from interests that corrupt the nation, and are contrary to the platform they stood for during their elections, on a daily basis.

Lastly, it is defined as a nation that does everything in its power to pursue sex offenders, and blacken their names for life, and yet promotes an advertising industry that uses very attractive 14 year old girls, scantily clad, as cover models daily. I am not saying I support any of the above. Just strikes me as pretty contradictory.

Here is hypocrisy, American style, defined in a nutshell:

PREVALENCE

• There are more women are employed by the sex industry than any other time in history.
• There are more strip clubs in the United States than any other nation in the world[ii].
• Hollywood releases 11,000 adult movies per year – more than 20 times the mainstream movie production[iii].
• At 13.3 billion, the 2006 revenues of the sex and porn industry in the U.S. are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined[iv].
• Worldwide sex industry sales for 2006 are reported to be $97 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software) reported sales of 44.8 billion in 2006 [iv].
• Every second – $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography [iv].
• “The porn industry employs an excess of 12,000 people in California. In California alone the porn industry pays over $36 million in taxes every year[v].”
• Human trafficking is the second largest global organized crime today, generating approximately 31.6 billion USD each year. Specifically, trafficking for sexual exploitation generates 27.8 billion USD per year[vi].
• There 1.39 million victims of commercial sexual servitude worldwide [vi].

Prevalence in the Church

• Promise Keeper men who viewed pornography in last week-53%
• 33% of clergy admitted to having visited a sexually explicit Web site. Of those who had visited a porn site, 53% had visited such sites “a few times” in the past year, and 18% visit sexually explicit sites between a couple of times a month and more than once a week[vii].
• Out of 81 pastors surveyed (74 males 7 female), 98% had been exposed to porn; 43% intentionally accessed a sexually explicit website[viii].
• In March of 2002 Rick Warren’s (author of the Purpose Driven life) Pastors.com website conducted a survey on porn use of 1351 pastors: 54% of the pastors had viewed Internet pornography within the last year, and 30% of these had visited within the last 30 days.

- See more at: http://iamatreasure.com/about-us/statistics/#sthash.McY8vnlv.dpuf

[dageurreotype]

I had to check the date on this..

It reads like it was written a year ago.

Yet another old news article pulled out by TV on a slow news day

[halloween]

... once democracy is restored....

when will they stop using the word "democracy" for the political system that has been in place in Thailand in the past"

Well if they called it an elected criminal conspiracy, people might start to look harder at their own government.

[Bakseeda]

"We are concerned that without a timely, transparent and inclusive reform process, the Thai government will never enjoy the public buy-in necessary to build lasting institutions," said Marciel

The key phrase here being "Inclusive reform"

Disregarding the code word "reform" and what that means with respect to Democracy is a topic onto itself, when it is a process devoid of including the electoral majority...An unopposed political playpen for the anti-democrats.....A little like political children in a politically elite candy store.

It is this question of inclusiveness.....Where are the pro-democracy people in this.........for starters, when one reads the torrent of anti-Yingluck, Jatuporn stuff, attacks on PTP politicians, plus Politicians as a class, you know it is rooted in fear.......Electoral fear.......Seeing the proliferation of independent Agencies with veto capability over voter decisions, an elitist-stacked Senate, seeing multi-sourced, inclusive political debate as 'conflict'..... you know it is all rooted in...... political fear.....

Electoral fear and political fear drives the anti-democrats.

And why not.......Being in the minority, what else can they do.....The anti-democrats have told the powers that be, don't screw this up......Make our political advantages permanent. Otherwise, that electoral behemoth will get us again.

Political and electoral fear...it is pervasive and driving the political space of Thailand.

Haha.... I love it..... what a load or rubbish..... where did you get your facts from.... Hans Christian Anderson ?..

or maybe Scot Marciel.. Have you ever met Scot... what a plonker.. What gives him the right to ask for anything.. This is Thailand and he is Stupid.... and Behemoth, that's some kind of buffalo ain't it ? Well you did mention Jutaporn.. Just the Job..

And the main article was taken from Patrick Murphy.... better known as Paddy... Did you hear the one...where Mick tells Paddy, Paddy, when you make love to your wife in your sitting-room, in the afternoons, better shut your curtains, because on Wednesday afternoon, all your neighbours were watching you and having a right laugh.... Well Paddy says, the laugh is on them, I was not home on Wednesday..!!!

[halloween]

"We are concerned that without a timely, transparent and inclusive reform process, the Thai government will never enjoy the public buy-in necessary to build lasting institutions," said Marciel

The key phrase here being "Inclusive reform"

Disregarding the code word "reform" and what that means with respect to Democracy is a topic onto itself, when it is a process devoid of including the electoral majority...An unopposed political playpen for the anti-democrats.....A little like political children in a politically elite candy store.

It is this question of inclusiveness.....Where are the pro-democracy people in this.........for starters, when one reads the torrent of anti-Yingluck, Jatuporn stuff, attacks on PTP politicians, plus Politicians as a class, you know it is rooted in fear.......Electoral fear.......Seeing the proliferation of independent Agencies with veto capability over voter decisions, an elitist-stacked Senate, seeing multi-sourced, inclusive political debate as 'conflict'..... you know it is all rooted in...... political fear.....

Electoral fear and political fear drives the anti-democrats.

And why not.......Being in the minority, what else can they do.....The anti-democrats have told the powers that be, don't screw this up......Make our political advantages permanent. Otherwise, that electoral behemoth will get us again.

Political and electoral fear...it is pervasive and driving the political space of Thailand.

The majority of Thai politicians in the last parliament were accepting payment from a fugitive criminal to vote to his orders. The FM illegally issued him 2 passports and delivered them. The PM allowed him access to cabinet meetings and to dictate policy. Policies with at best no benefit and usually detrimental to the nation were imposed despite massive conflicts of interest. Cabinet members conspired to deceive, defraud and steal from the nation. The governing party conspired to illegally carry out a change of policy and vote absolving them of all crimes.

Do you think attacks on PTP politicians and politicians as a class is unjustified? Is this behaviour acceptable to you?

It is about time the electorate had both electoral and political fear. Last time they elected a pack of criminals that not only robbed them blind, they almost got away with a clean slate. It's about time they stopped looking at the carrot on the stick and took a closer look at the a-holes waving it.

[jdinasia]

There are no US reservations on Thailan. The US is firmly committed to not restoring US/Thai relations until they have an elected government by the people for the people. That does not mean some appointed crony pm constitutes a freely elected democracy.

Really?

From where I sit, I see Cobra Gold happenings. I see the CULP program continuing. I see JUSMAG Thai, I see almost not change between the day before the coup until now.

[lostoday]

The US are hypocrits. How about appling that same principle to the Saudis and every other non democratic despote they are friends with and have funded down the years and still do today. At least Thailand doesnt publicly behead its own citizens.

The US will support what is in their best interest to support. In fact this is the policy of every reasonable country , Hypocrisy and diplomacy go hand in hand

Hardly reasonable if they state its about democracy when in fact its not.

The U.S. is a republic, who falsely claims to be a democracy...and wants to force democracy on the world.

Now, please define hypocrite?

A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it."

Now are you saying Ben Franklin was lying or that his quotation is not well known in US political circles?

It is well known and stated over an over again in any authoritative texts on the subject that the USA is a republic.

There is a very good reason that our Pledge of Allegiance refers to the USA as a Republic and there is a very good reason that our Declaration of Independence and the constitution do not even mentioned the word "democracy".

A Constitutional Republic has some similarities to democracy in that it uses democratic processes to elect representatives and pass new laws, etc. The critical difference lies in the fact that a Constitutional Republic has a Constitution that limits the powers of the government. It also spells out how the government is structured, creating checks on its power and balancing power between the different branches.

The above from common sources on the internet.

I think Willie you are the only one who does not know that the USA is a constitutional republic.

[lostoday]

... once democracy is restored....

when will they stop using the word "democracy" for the political system that has been in place in Thailand in the past"

Well if they called it an elected criminal conspiracy, people might start to look harder at their own government.

No has been elected for the past few years that I know of in Thailand.

[Praematura]

Meh. As an Obama supporter I'm dismayed. This regime needs a kick in the nuts not a hand job.

[halloween]

... once democracy is restored....

when will they stop using the word "democracy" for the political system that has been in place in Thailand in the past"

Well if they called it an elected criminal conspiracy, people might start to look harder at their own government.

No has been elected for the past few years that I know of in Thailand.

What does that mean?

[halloween]

Meh. As an Obama supporter I'm dismayed. This regime needs a kick in the nuts not a hand job.

Surprising isn't it. Obama seemed quite taken with Yingluk's impression of an aging bar-girl.

[sanuk711]

Thai-US ties hinge on 'return of democracy

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert McNamara's 11 lessons from why we shouldn't have interfered in Vietnam

8--We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.

[eggers]

Agree all comments, that US meddles in every other country affairs; hasn't matured past it's Western hero style of riding "rough-shod" over countries it has dangled carrots to in past.

Yet, has many of it's own problems, i.e. racial issues, illegal immigrants, sluggish economy, etc, that it fails to remedy, perhaps other countries should be more critical of US!!

[h90]

There are no US reservations on Thailan. The US is firmly committed to not restoring US/Thai relations until they have an elected government by the people for the people. That does not mean some appointed crony pm constitutes a freely elected democracy.

An government by the people for the people: US doesn't really have experience on that, themself.

[h90]

Meh. As an Obama supporter I'm dismayed. This regime needs a kick in the nuts not a hand job.

Surprising isn't it. Obama seemed quite taken with Yingluk's impression of an aging bar-girl.

But Michelle wasn't that much happy as rumors said

[Pimay1]

Meh. As an Obama supporter I'm dismayed. This regime needs a kick in the nuts not a hand job.

A rare breed nowadays. An Obama supporter who actually admits it publicly.

[lostoday]

... once democracy is restored....

when will they stop using the word "democracy" for the political system that has been in place in Thailand in the past"

Well if they called it an elected criminal conspiracy, people might start to look harder at their own government.

No has been elected for the past few years that I know of in Thailand.

What does that mean?

You wrote, "Well if they called it an elected criminal conspiracy, people might start to look harder at their own government." I wrote, "No has been elected for the past few years that I know of in Thailand."

Get it. No one has been elected in a while here so why would they call it an elected criminal conspiracy?

[50baht]

Russia and USA love to play mini-war games here

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-viktor-bout-extradition

THE USA PUSHED THAILAND HARD

Russia pushed back

below

http://abcnews.go.com/US/nicole-john-ambassadors-daughter-dies-highrise-plunge/story?id=11505483

Just a big Chess Match