http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-philippines-agree-oppose-china-160204828.html (http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-philippines-agree-oppose-china-160204828.html)
still my vote for where crazy gets real
Interesting stuff as sidebar.... Russia and China sign big NG deal with hundreds of billions and also they are key nations in bid to move off the greenback as trade currency
Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/Asias-Cauldron-South-Stable-Pacific/dp/0812994329/ref=sr_1_1_ha?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400712827&sr=1-1&keywords=asia%27s+cauldron
Quote from: Windigo on May 21, 2014, 05:31:34 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-philippines-agree-oppose-china-160204828.html (http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-philippines-agree-oppose-china-160204828.html)
QuoteChinese coast guard ships have thrice attempted to block Filipino vessels delivering new military personnel and food supplies to Philippine marines keeping watch on the disputed area on board a long-grounded ship.
Those Filipino Marines are still hanging in there on that rust bucket after all those storms and whatnot!?! Gods bless 'em!
oh.... so none of you has heard any of the news about Chinese troops moving towards the Vietnam border?
Again?
yup
I'm waiting for the punchline...
there is none.
QuoteTroops, tanks, trucks, artillery, and armored personnel carriers of China's military were seen heading to the Vietnamese border on May 16 and 17, according to photographs taken by by residents near the border.
Chinese netizens have been posting photographs of the large movement of the People's Liberation Army, many of them showing Chinese troops in full combat gear heading to the local train station in Chongzuo, along with military vehicles.
One netizen said the Chinese military was taking the train from the Chongzuo station to Pingxiang City, which shares a 60-mile border with Vietnam. The netizen said that the Huu Nghi Border Gate to Vietnam is also now closed.
One of the photos, taken from inside a passenger train, shows the Chinese military preparing artillery for transport on a train track. Others show Chinese troops and military vehicles traveling along dirt roads.
Another photograph shows troops walking under the red-colored entrance to the Longzhou International Building Materials Market, on Provincial Road in the city of Chongzuo.
A reverse image search of each of the photographs using Google indicated that the photographs had appeared on the Internet only recently. Most were indexed by Google on Saturday.
Collectively, the images and eyewitness reports from the ground show what Taiwanese media are calling an "endless stream" of Chinese troops.
One netizen, with the username Zhiyuan0703, echoed a common sentiment on the Chinese social media site, "Conflict between China and Vietnam is imminent."
Controversial Oil Rig
The troop movement comes amid growing anti-China protests in Vietnam. They began last week after Chinese state-run oil company CNOOC began setting up an oil rig 120 nautical miles from Vietnam in waters near the disputed Paracel islands.
The protests began with close to 100 people in Ho Chi Minh City last Saturday, grew to more than 1,000 people in Hanoi on Sunday, and later grew into riots. The protesters have since burned foreign-owned factories. An estimated 21 people have been killed, including at least one Chinese worker in a Taiwanese steel mill.
China has suspended some plans for a bilateral exchange with Vietnam, details of which were not specified, in response to the riots, according to China's state-run news service Xinhua.
China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its citizens from Vietnam, and announced Sunday it is sending five ships to help with the evacuations. According to Xinhua, China has issued travel warnings to its citizens traveling to Vietnam.
The report added, citing a Foreign Ministry representative, "China will also consider taking further measures according to the situation's development."
China is currently involved in territorial conflicts with nearly all its neighbors. Tensions have been growing particularly intense, however, over China's claims to disputed territory in the East China Sea and South China Sea.
US Response
Fang Fenghui, the Chinese military's chief of the general staff, spoke with reporters at the Pentagon on May 15, alongside U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.
Fang defended China's oil drilling in disputed waters with Vietnam. He also warned the United States on taking sides, saying through a Chinese translator "there is possibility that these issues could affect or disturb the relationship between the two countries and two militaries."
White House press secretary Jay Carney reiterated the U.S. stance on China's oil rig, however, during a May 15 press briefing.
He said China's oil rig, which the Chinese regime has accompanied with "numerous government vessels" is a "provocative act and it raises tensions in the region, and by raising tensions makes it more difficult to resolve claims over disputed territory in a manner that supports peace and stability in the region."
Carney said the United States takes no position on the territorial claims, but, "We do take a position on the conduct of the claimants who must resolve their disputes peacefully, without intimidation, without coercion, and in accordance with international law."
Regarding China's oil rig and the tensions that have formed around it, Carney said, "We consider that act provocative and we consider it one that undermines the goal that we share, which is a peaceful resolution of these disputes and general stability in the region."
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/682973-chinese-military-said-to-be-massing-near-the-vietnam-border/?photo=4
QuoteHong Kong (CNN) -- China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its citizens from Vietnam and is sending ships to retrieve more of them after deadly anti-Chinese violence erupted last week over a territorial dispute between the two countries.Five Chinese ships will travel to Vietnam to help with the evacuation, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Sunday, citing the Ministry of Transport. One of the ships has already set off from the southern island province of Hainan, the ministry said.
Sixteen critically injured Chinese citizens were flown out of Vietnam on Sunday morning on a chartered medical plane organized by Chinese authorities, Xinhua said.
Two Chinese citizens were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the violence that hit parts of Vietnam last week, according to the news agency. Some of the worst violence appeared to have taken place in the central coastal province of Ha Tinh.
Foreign factories, particularly those run by companies from China and Taiwan, were burned and looted by rioters outraged over Beijing's decision to send an oil rig into waters of the South China Sea that both countries claim as sovereign territory.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/18/world/asia/vietnam-china-tensions/
http://tuoitrenews.vn/society/19750/china-warplanes-support-illegal-oil-rig-in-vietnams-waters
Quote from: Gusington on May 21, 2014, 05:54:08 PM
Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/Asias-Cauldron-South-Stable-Pacific/dp/0812994329/ref=sr_1_1_ha?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400712827&sr=1-1&keywords=asia%27s+cauldron
Oh yum!! big believer in human/physical geography = sources of conflict
The Chinese have rolled into Vietnam before, with impunity, so they could very well do it again.
Quote from: Centurion40 on May 22, 2014, 09:32:07 AM
The Chinese have rolled into Vietnam before, with impunity, so they could very well do it again.
I thought China regretted their last attempt in the '70's.
But they're no quitters.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs1.ibtimes.com%2Fsites%2Fwww.ibtimes.com%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Fv2_article_large%2Fpublic%2F2012%2F04%2F25%2F267210-chinese-and-russian-special-forces.jpg&hash=9053e05e5fa5cf6a69cf49648bb92ec88403d852)
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(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-kY9NuqbKHWI%2FUNCXMRMGlWI%2FAAAAAAAAC9s%2FmCeItPacHRg%2Fs400%2FChinese%2BSpecial%2BArmed%2BPolice%2BForce%2Bin%2BTraining%2BNew%2BCombat%2BUniforms.%2B%2B%2525283%252529.jpg&hash=3384ed507f6fe85148097e823850e310599062be)
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Maybe they have more confidence that they'll be more effective this time around?
Quote from: Centurion40 on May 22, 2014, 10:58:56 AM
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Didn't we also see a pic of this chunderhead in the Crimea and/or eastern Ukraine? He must be a chaos merc for hire!
All those pix do seem to have a lot of Russian-looking guys in Russian-looking uniforms mixed in with the Far Eastern-looking fellows.
Anything further from this?? This was news to my newshound Mom...
(Also, is there a Thailand coup thread? I didn't find one here or in RPF...)
No Thailand coup thread...are the Russians there too??
Maybe the Russians had it removed... :D
One of our Groggies was in Thailand earlier this week when the coup went up, if I recall correctly. But I can't remember who.
THANK GOD I AM NOT (entirely) INSANE YET!
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=244.msg258860#msg258860
It was SDR who was in Bangkok during the coup last Friday, almost a week ago. I hope he's doing okay.
I think he should be fine, long as he's not doing something crazy. The locals know the tourists are their main income. Was in Vietnam and Thailand around 2011, no coup, but there was a border skirmish with Cambodia (is this region ever totally stable, probably not by our standards).
I'm good. I cut the holiday short and came back to Canada on Monday. Stupid curfew....
I can see the Red Shirts going after tourists. Thaksin wants desperately to destabilize the country and cause an incident that will put the coup makers in a bad light. If he can get news images of the military shooting red shirt protesters or dead and wounded tourists, he'll see it as a win.
Worked for him in 2010 when he unleashed his black shirt snipers.
Good to hear. Not much you can do around if there's a curfew.
Personally I enjoyed Vietnam more (and cost way less), but it helped I went with an ex-pat who knew the place. Although the whole region has heated up a bit more since 2011.
SDR - did you get a face tattoo?
Quote from: endfire79 on May 29, 2014, 04:16:42 PM
Good to hear. Not much you can do around if there's a curfew.
Personally I enjoyed Vietnam more (and cost way less), but it helped I went with an ex-pat who knew the place. Although the whole region has heated up a bit more since 2011.
I went to Vietnam in '98. Didn't care for it. I started off in Hanoi and took the train south to Hue. I was told at the time that the cops were pretty corrupt and one of their favourite scams to pull was to demand to see your passport. Once you'd handed it over they'd inform you that such-and-such a fictitious stamp was missing and that you'd have to pay a $100-$200 fine or they'd confiscate your passport. As such, I made a few photocopies of my passport and carried those around instead. Sure enough, I got hassled in Hue but nothing came of it when I gave them a photocopy. A few days later, I'd made it over to Da Nang to do some diving. There's a big naval base there so there are military cops around. They tried pulling the passport scam on me but when I handed over a photocopy and tried to walk away, they didn't take kindly to it and gave me the good news with their rifle butts. Luckily some regular cops came by and the military ones buggered off. I figured I'd had enough of Vietnam, took the bus to Ho Chi Minh City and caught a flight to Bangkok the next day. Haven't been back since.
Nope, no tats Gus. With the bars closing around 9 or 10 at the latest, I think my wildest night of consumption consisted of two pints with a couple of Scot ex-pats I'd met who dragged me along to a pub quiz night (which ended up being cancelled due to the coup.)
Glad to hear you're okay, SDR!
So... just business as usual for Thai?
And back to my original question, how's the Viet/China border piççing contest going?
Glad you got out of there okay, SDR.
I had a boss a couple of years back who is Vietnamese...he's the one that got me into instructional design and Adobe stuff. He and his wife lived here in Houston until she got her MBA and decided that they should move back to Vietnam, which she was from. He was born in Boston so it was hard for him to move back there. They've only been there a few years and now they're moving back, lol.
He used to regale us with tales of Vietnam...he had family there and they'd visit every so often. The most interesting was how you could be in a modern development with plumbing and electricity and Internet and all the comforts of Westernization, and a mile or two away would be jungle huts with pit latrines and dirt floors.
I do love me some Vietnamese cuisine, though...haven't had a bad experience at a Vietnamese restaurant yet (which he got me started on), but admittedly I've only been to a handful.
So Vietnamese food isn't entirely like the scene in Good Morning Vietnam where Cronauer asks if there's any food on this street that doesn't give you diarrhea?
Quote from: Gusington on May 30, 2014, 10:37:42 AM
So Vietnamese food isn't entirely like the scene in Good Morning Vietnam where Cronauer asks if there's any food on this street that doesn't give you diarrhea?
It's an acquired taste. It only gave me dysentry and cholera. My awesome gub'mint heathcare system took care a' EVERYthang.
the only thing that got me sick was bad ice cream. Ironically it was durian flavored. Great seafood, and was very cheap.
All of that region is corrupt in a way, not surprised SDR. Gotta take the good with the bad.
'murica!
What is durian?
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 30, 2014, 07:42:06 AM
Glad to hear you're okay, SDR!
So... just business as usual for Thai?
No, I wouldn't say it's business as usual but it's not anywhere near as dangerous as the media would like one to believe. Here's my poorly organized, type-things-as-I-think-of-them take on what I saw.
I was supposed to be in Thailand and Indonesia for a 3 week diving holiday but I ended up leaving after only 5 days. I arrived in Bangkok at 3am on the 22nd. I spent the morning carting around, buying and setting up a cheap cell phone, and planning to meet a Chinese friend and former co-worker who still lives and works in Thailand. She called me at about 5pm to cancel our dinner plans because the military had announced a coup and imposed a 10pm-5am curfew. Local TV and radio went off air but the internet and foreign TV stayed on.
I spent a few hours watching coverage of the coup on News Asia out of Singapore and it appeared that the coup caught everyone by surprise. Most of the leaders of the Red Shirts, the Yellow Shirts, and the interim caretaker government cabinet were at a meeting held by General Prayuth aimed at ending the deadlock and stopping the escalation of tensions, rising protests, and street violence. The Reds and Yellows were only given a few hours to hammer out a deal and when they couldn't, the general informed them that he was taking over and then he had them all detained.
Not surprisingly, recently ousted PM Yingluck Shinawatra (sister of the deposed former PM Thaksin Shinawatra), didn't attend the meeting and everyone assumed she'd be fleeing the country to join her billionaire brother in Dubai or Cambodia. The military called for her to turn herself in and everyone was shocked when she did so a day later.
Some background based on my limited understanding. Thailand's very polarized right now divided into two main camps.
The Yellow Shirts are mainly made up of the Bangkok elite, monarchists, the military officers, and much of the newly wealthy middle class. They've traditionally held power and have always been quite a corrupt lot. They tended to funnel money from the provinces into Bangkok and siphoned a fair amount off and into their pockets.
The Red Shirts are comprised mainly of the poor and working classes, chiefly from the farming areas of the northeastern provinces.
The Yellow Shirt group had traditionally held power until Thaksin came along. He made himself rich while running one of the country's first mobile phone providers. He then got into politics by forming the
Thai Rak Thai (Thai's love Thailand) party in the late 90's. As he was a former cop from one of the rural provinces, Chang Mai, the Bangkok elite snubbed him even though he was from a very wealthy family. He took a page out of Julius Caesar's playbook and decided to get the poor on his side and use their numbers to crush the Yellows in an election.
He brought in universal healthcare, micro-credit loans, agricultural loans, rural infrastructure improvements, and tried to curb the drug trade. The poor loved him for it and voted for him in droves.
He won a landslide in 2001. Thing is though, even though he was helping the poor in the short term, he was gutting Thailand in the long-term by signing on to "free" trade deals that heavily favoured private equity groups such as the Carlyle Group, who view Thaksin as their boy. The way in which the energy sector was privatized and sold off and how the rice market was opened to outside competition did a lot of damage to the economy as oil prices skyrocketed as did the price of foodstuffs. His government was also seen as being very corrupt with a lot of sweetheart deals going to Thaksin owned companies and many of Thaksin's family members and friends getting cushy appointments and land deals.
The Yellows had enough and when the TRT won a landslide election in 2005, they staged a coup while Thaksin was out of the country, made the TRT party illegal, and charged Thaksin with various crimes from corruption to
lese mageste. He was found guilty
in absentia in 2008 and has been exile ever since. The Yellows took back power and began trying to rescind some of Thaksin's reforms.
Thaksin wasn't taking this lying down though. He started using his vast wealth and connections with the Carlyle Group and the IMF to stir up trouble from his bases in Dubai and Cambodia. His cronies formed a new party, The Peoples' Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and they began protesting and staging demonstrations in 2008 or so. From 2008-2010, things got pretty ugly with agitators taking over media centres, government buildings, and blockading airports. The government security forces were pretty heavy handed and there were quite a few deaths and disappearances. It all culminated in a big shoot out in Bangkok in 2010 when something like 90 Red Shirt protesters were gunned down. (Thaksin may have precipitated this as a false flag with his black shirt snipers. See Michael Yon's facebook page for info on this.) An Italian reporter was also killed.
The leader of the security forces who lead the crack down was a Mr. Suthep Thaugsuban. He was an especially corrupt politician in the Yellow Shirt camp who had been accused of engaging in a lot of shady land deals. Between the land deals, the deaths of the Red Shirts, and the Italian, even the Yellows felt they had to act and Suthep was ousted from office and indicted on murder charges. Never went to prison though due to his connections.
Anyway, after the bloodbath, the Reds swept to power again and Thaksin's sister Yingluck took the reigns. This really pissed off the Yellows and they immediately started screaming about rigged elections (some of which appears to be true), and anti-democratic processes (bit of a hypocritical stance based on the 2006 coup). One of the new champions of democracy was none other than Mr. Suthep who began staging protests and demanding that the PAD government under Yingluck leave office.
Yingluck was as corrupt as her brother and was soon caught in shady land deals, misappropriated flood prevention funds, and nepotism. The courts forced her out and installed a caretaker government. This pleased nobody and both the Red and Yellows were out in the street protesting, blockading, and occasionally grenading things.
Things were reaching a boiling point with mass Red Shirt protesters camped 40 km out of Bangkok threatening to march in if the PAD caretaker parliament was dissolved. The Yellows were camped out in parks and squares within Bangkok demanding that the parliament be dissolved and new elections held. A fair number of people were getting bumped off and things really got ugly a few days before martial law was declared when someone fired an M79 grenade into a crowd of protesters at Victory Monument in Bangkok. I think 3 were killed and 30 maimed or wounded.
The military had had enough and imposed martial law. This was the day before I arrived. Two days later, after saying this wasn't a coup, the general came out and said, "you know what? It is a coup after all."
That first night was fairly chaotic as it seemed many people weren't aware that a coup had taken place or a curfew been imposed fro 10pm-5am.. Mass traffic jams on the streets, lots of cops barking orders at every street corner, and lots of worried looking faces on the western tourists. Local TV went off air around 5:30pm but I was able to watch live feed from Bangkok on News Asia out of Singapore. It appeared that the army had things well in hand and no violence was being reported, so I ventured out to have a gander. Didn't see much apart from a few 2.5 tonne trucks driving by with some troops in the back.
The next morning, I called the airline to see about getting a flight to Indonesia as was my original plan. I was told flights were booked solid for the next 10 days. I asked about other destinations such as the Philippines, Cambodia, Singapore, and Malaysia. All flights were booked and the land crossings to Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia were closed. I spent a few hours cruising around Bangkok and saw a lot of Western, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese tourists piling into cabs, luggage in tow as they were bugging out. By contrast, the Russians and Middle Easterners didn't seem fussed at all. I guess growing up in non-democratic regimes inures one to things like martial law and coups. Most Thais I talked to didn't seem too concerned about the bigger picture. They were just annoyed at the curfew cutting into business. (and a lot of Thai women were really pissed that the TV was off and that they were missing their night time soap operas. Good thing the army put local TV back on or they would've faced worse riots than the Red Shirts)
I looked at going to a beach resort area in Thailand but due to the night time curfew and the roadblocks, the day busses were packed and what was normally a 2 -2.5 hour trip was taking 5-6 hours. I thought that the curfew would be relaxed in the tourist meccas but after reading some forums and emailing some friends, it appeared that the curfew was being very stringently enforced in these areas.
Most of the Thais I spoke with in Bangkok were cautiously optimistic about the coup taking place. Granted Bangkok is mostly Yellow territory but the prevailing thought seemed to be that something needed to be done to clean up the corruption. People were pretty happy when most senior police chiefs around the country were shown the door and even happier when the farmers were repaid money long owed to them in a failed rice farming scheme.
The main concerns are that the Army might not relinquish power anytime soon and that Thaksin and his followers might start launching terrorist attacks to destabilize the region and force the military to start gunning down Red Shirts which would score Thaksin a win in the world press.
Most Thais are baffled as to why the US was so quick to condemn the coup and impose sanctions when they bent over backward to avoid calling what happened in Egypt a coup. I don't think they know about Thaksin's ties to the Carlyle Group and his support from Wall Street. The US Ambassador in Bangkok is a blithering idiot who is more interested in posting daily selfies of herself and twittering inane #IheartObama tweets than responding to the crisis.
The US seems to have shot themselves in the foot with this one. By condemning the coup, they've pissed off one of the few remaining allies in the region and pushed Thailand closer to the China-Russia block.
If you're interested in some first hand reporting on what's going on, these are good:
Michael Yon is an American freelance photo journalist living in Thailand. He's quite biassed in favour of the Yellows and the coup but he's got some good contacts on both sides and seems to be able to get access to people that others can't.
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage (https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage)
Tony Cartalucci is another reporter on the ground in Bangkok. He has some great info on the geopolitics going on around the coup and explains why the West is acting the way they are.
http://altthainews.blogspot.ca/ (http://altthainews.blogspot.ca/)
Finally, the news forum on Thaivisa.com is a good source of breaking news and it's interesting to read the comments of the expats still in Thailand to get their views on each article.
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/forum/18-thailand-news/ (http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/forum/18-thailand-news/)
Anti-US sentiment seems to be growing.
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t1.0-9/10358738_782374685129386_2226713628459912049_n.jpg)
Here's Michael Yon's latest editorial.
QuoteThailand: anti-American sentiment growing
This is remarkable because Thailand and the US have been natural friends for a very long time. About 180 years of relations, arguably with a short bad stretch during World War II. A King of Thailand even offered a US President war elephants during the Civil War. Our cooperation has been tight for many years.
What went wrong? In a nutshell, a tyrannical government under Thaksin Shinawatra began to pillage the country and murder thousands of people. Eventually he was ousted in a military coup and has been operating a government in exile for some of the years since that time. His supporters have orchestrated a serious terror campaign leaving thousands of casualties. (Killed and wounded.) The US has openly sided with Thaksin, even granting him a visa to enter the USA after he became a convicted criminal on the run.
Today, our Ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney, is a lunatic. This word is not used lightly. Check her Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube videos, made by the US Embassy at our expense under her reign. Ambassador Kenney is painfully narcissistic.
Yet her narcissism and immaturity is not what is causing normal Thai to hate her. Thai are disgusted with her narcissism, but that does not bring anger towards Kenney.
Anger from millions of Thai derives from her openly supporting the criminal enterprise that serves US interests, but not Thai interests.
The formula for creating hatred is simple: Disgust + Anger = Hatred.
Hatred is a compound emotion derived from mixing the basic emotions of disgust and anger. Among millions of Thai, Kenney has reached the level of creating extreme disgust and extreme anger. There have been only limited, peaceful demonstrations at our Embassy to date.
The growing hatred towards Kenney and now John Kerry openly supporting a criminal enterprise, could cause a landslide. This provides a start to what is going wrong with US-Thai relations.
Do not take my word for it. These things can be rediscovered by anyone with enough due diligence.
Our relations are not gone or destroyed...yet. There is high friction but there is still time to turn this around. For starters, we need a new Ambassador. At this time, the hatred is mainly towards Kenney as an Ambassador, and our policies, not towards Americans in general, who are still very welcome and safe here.
Wow, thanks for that, SDR. Interesting stuff, especially hearing it firsthand from someone.
I imagine the US's bending over backwards to not call the Egypt coup a coup is because of the growing fear of upsetting Muslims, whom seem to have an untouchable status now on par with trannys.
Does religion enter much into what's going on, there? Is Islam a mainstream religion there? I imagine there were no Muslim egos to bruise so they decided to go with the condemnation route and the hell with common sense.
Side note: Oh sweet Jesus lord, Kristie Kenney is indeed a blithering idiot. Check out her Twitter page, full of Maya Angelou weeping and other non-related personal BS: https://twitter.com/KristieKenney
Thailand is mainly Buddhist but with a rather violent group of Muslim separatists in the south. I think the main reason the US doesn't want to label Egypt as a coup is that by law, they have to suspend military contracts and Egypt gets a lot more money than Thailand does.
Thailand does get some direct cash support from the US?
It was $10.5 million but they cut $3.5m after the coup.
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-thai-crisis-font-us-suspends-aid-as-thailand-coup-criticism-grows-1.603997 (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-thai-crisis-font-us-suspends-aid-as-thailand-coup-criticism-grows-1.603997)
Interesting, with Thailand's very long history of independence...
Thailand fought alongside the US during the Vietnam war and the US Airforce flew out of Thailand during that time.
I worked in a town called Lopburi in 2007-2008. They have a big special forces army base there and a lot of nations send their SF troops there for jungle warfare training. I believe the US was one of those nations. I rarely saw the foreign troops there as I suspect they were under orders to keep a low profile and not be seen/photographed. I did meet a couple of Aussies at the train station heading into Bangkok. We shared a compartment on the ride down and it was pretty obvious they were military but they really didn't want to talk about it.
Hmm I wonder what convinced Thailand to fight with the US during the Vietnam War.
Fear of Communism and the Domino effect. The royals were very, very worried that Communism would creep in to Thailand via Laos and Cambodia.
That is very logical, cap'n.
Yeah, the region where the communists would've most likely set up is in Isaan in the northeast of the country. Not surprisingly this is the area where most of the poor, rural farmers are who support Thaksin and the Red Shirts. I think the reason that they're so looked down upon by the Yellows is that they weren't part of the old Siamese empire. They were part of the Lanna kingdom which wasn't brought into the Thai fold until the late 1700s.
Lanna kingdom was independent?
It was for a while after the Khmer empire collapsed. Then it was taken over by the Burmese in the 1500s. They overthrew the Burmese in the late 1700s and then agreed to become a vassal of Siam to protect themselves against more Burmese incursions.
Really interesting. How do you know so much about the area? Are you from there?
Nope, I'm a pasty white (Scottish and Icelandic ancestry, it doesn't get whiter) devil from the mountains of British Columbia. I worked in Thailand for a year and visited quite often prior to that when I was working in Japan. For each of the countries I worked in, I spent a fair amount of time reading up on the history and the culture prior to going and more while there. I find it interesting purely from an intellectual curiosity perspective. It also helps one gain a better understanding of whatever ancient pile of rubble one happens to be looking at. It also somewhat demystifies why the locals do some of the things they do, say some of the things they say, and act the way they sometimes act. Plus some of the locals seem to appreciate the fact that you've taken an interest in their culture and history, so that helps.
I also had a lot of free time on my hands during the evenings when the curfew was in place, everything was closed and the cable was off. I'd read some of the posts on the links I provided earlier and then find something I didn't know about before. Curiosity would kick in and I'd go off and read about that for a bit.
Cable off?? INCONCEIVABLE.
that has got to be the most interesting post I've read in forever SDR.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on May 30, 2014, 08:45:20 PM
that has got to be the most interesting post I've read in forever SDR.
Ditto!
Just found this video about Thailand during the Vietnam War and found it quite interesting.
Cool stuff, always keep exploring SDR.
It's a an interesting region, and tragic at the same time.
Buddy I went back to Southeast Asia with was a vietnamese refugee that was a kid back in the late 70's, living off the coasts of thailand a few years after Saigon fell (they had to leave as his dad was a South Vietnamese Colonel who got shot in the head by Viet Cong; things weren't exactly comfortable after the Communist takeover, with the mother looking after 6 kids. There were Thai pirates that almost messed up the rest of the family while they lived on the beaches for a year or two, waiting for money from one of the brothers in Canada via the Red Cross. It's pretty amazing they survived the whole thing. We checked out his old house in Da Nang, and the near the beach in Thailand. Makes you wonder how tough life can really be.
Peace
In junior high school I was good friends with a Vietnamese girl who was part of a refugee family, her name was Linh Nguyen. She was very 'Americanized' and had a great sense of humor and being 13-14 I of course fell in love with her. Her parents would never let us date though because I was not Vietnamese.
Was she taller than you, Gus?
After re-reading my previous post, I realized that there was some other stuff that was dancing around in my mind that I wanted to get down but didn't.
After Thaksin was found guilty of various crimes in a Thai court in 2008, the Thai government asked for him to be extradited and returned to Thailand. He spent his time bouncing around between Dubai and Cambodia mainly but would also spend time in London, New York, and Tokyo. The Thais weren't happy that the west refused to extradite him. They also asked that his accounts be frozen but that never happened either. The UK was only too happy to let him come in and buy the Manchester United soccer team. The willingness of the West to look the other way as far as Thaksin was concerned didn't sit well with the Yellow shirts. Didn't amount to much at the time as they were voted out soon afterwards but I think it planted some seeds of doubt.
The first few days after the coup was announced were somewhat tense as no-one was really quite sure just how in control of things the military was. The officers were solidly behind the coup and mostly supported the yellows but there was some question regarding the willingness of the enlisted to carry out the coup. A lot of them were from Red strongholds in the north and northeast and it could be assumed that for many, their sympathies were with the Red shirts. In fact, the Thais jokingly referred to regiments from these areas as the Watermelon Army, green on the outside but red inside. These regiments had mostly been deployed in the far south, fighting in a long running, low intensity conflict with Muslim separatists but there were more than a few called out to enforce the coup. People were worried that some might defect and a shooting war could start. It wasn't a groundless fear as some senators from Red Shirt areas were caught using their government issued cars to smuggle military weapons and explosives to radicals in the northern provinces.
As I said previously, prior to the coup but after Martial Law was announced, the General called leaders in from both sides and stated that he wanted them to come to some sort of agreement regarding elections and the caretaker parliament. A few hours after the meeting was called, the coup was announced and all the leaders were detained. Although Thaksin's sister and recently ousted PM Yingluck was asked to attend, she refused. Nobody was sure where she was but most rumours had her already out of the country and in Singapore.
Here's where US actions really started upsetting the Thais. While Yingluck's whereabouts were still unknown, both the US ambassador and John Kerry publicly denounced the coup. The ambassador, along with others, went even further and talked about the possibility of setting up a Thai government in exile led by Thaksin and Yingluck. Most Thais I talked with didn't like this at all. They saw it as dangerous meddling and were afraid that a government-in-exile could lead to civil war with Thailand ending up like Ukraine.
Thankfully Yingluck hadn't fled the country and she turned herself in the next day. The Army announced that she'd be held incommunicado for 3-7 days. Some were worried that this would incite the Reds to act but as the army was holding Yellow Shirt leaders as well, most saw it as fair. This didn't last long though. Mr. Suthep was one of the Yellow Shirts who was detained at the original meeting. Even though he was still up on murder charges, the army let him and 24 of his associates go after he posted a 600,000 baht bail (~$20,000 USD). People were once again worried that this would incite the Reds, especially as how the King still hadn't said anything regarding the coup.
In previous coups, the royal family would give their assent to the coup makers almost immediately but it took 3 days (I think) before the King publicly came out in support of the General. People found this delay curious as previous coup makers had cited the need to protect the monarchy as one of the reasons for launching the coup. This was especially true in the coups against Thaksin (found guilty of lese mageste). More curious was the fact that even though Royal assent to the coup was given, the king didn't make an appearance at the ceremony.
I'm not sure why the king is reluctant to be seen supporting the general. I guess it's because there are rumours that the king was the one who initially instigated the coup but I don't know. The Thais do love the King but he's not long for the world. I think he's 89 or 90. The next in line for the throne is his son Maha, the playboy prince. He is not liked at all by the populace, even though they'd never say it out loud. He's close with Thaksin and basically seems to be a narcissistic, spoiled brat. He's had several wives including a British-Thai actress who he divorced and then whose child he had abducted. The latest wife was his maid. He also has a pet poodle named Fu-Fu who he made a captain in the Air Force. Anyway, I think the Yellows and the King are worried about this twit taking the throne and would much rather see his sister become queen as she seems to be the good one of the kids.
^You're getting all this down in the screenplay right?
And no Linh Nguyen was not taller than me. But she was a sweet girl, pretty and hilarious. Sigh.
I know! It's fascinating. If they were to turn it into an HBO series, it'd give Game of Thrones a run for its money.
You could be Tryion and 13 year old Linh could be your Shae......no wait....that just sounds wrong.
I still look 14.
^ He's been out combing the high schools all day!
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on May 31, 2014, 12:48:23 PM
The next in line for the throne is his son Maha, the playboy prince. He is not liked at all by the populace, even though they'd never say it out loud. He's close with Thaksin and basically seems to be a narcissistic, spoiled brat. He's had several wives including a British-Thai actress who he divorced and then whose child he had abducted. The latest wife was his maid. He also has a pet poodle named Fu-Fu who he made a captain in the Air Force. Anyway, I think the Yellows and the King are worried about this twit taking the throne and would much rather see his sister become queen as she seems to be the good one of the kids.
And his "Heroes" are Caligula, and Nero???