Thaksin declares Thailand "Neutral"

[itsmedave]

Yesterday "THE NATION" reported that the prime minister has decided to help neither the terrorists or help the U.S. should it want to start a war. Thailand is to remain neutral.

Is this because:

A. He is an extremely cowardly man, more worried about angering those big, bad terrorists than doing the honorable thing?

B. He was never that great a friend of the West to begin with?

C. Both of the above.

D. ???

[OldAsiaHand]

The Post, on the other hand, reported more or less exactly opposite comments from El Jefe. You wonder whether the local reporters were just being their usual inept selves, or if this is one more of those cases of classic Thai positioning --- i.e. say one thing at one time and exactly the opposite thing fifteen minutes later, then walk away happy as Larry, gloating that you have now pleased or fooled everyone, depending on how you prefer to look at it.

Remember, the Thais have a good deal of experience at this kind of thing. They even managed by and large to ignore World War II, shifting sides regularly depending on who appeared to be winning. I'd think that opting out of this little upheaval ought to be a piece of cake for folks with that kind of experience.

Some of my Thai accquaintances snicker a lot about what a clever job the inscrutable Thais do of manipulating the great, blundering powers of the world. They tend to react rather badly, however, when I suggest that it is more a case of no one particularly giving a crap about what Thailand claims to think anyway.

[Guest]

Also don't forget Thailand has many muslims in the south. The king halted plans for a canal that was going to be cut through the "thin" part inorder to aid shipping. Why?

To keep a united Thailand.

This is the land of sanook and the king is a smart man.

[liquidflux]

And who will they call when these terrorists take refuge in "neutral" thailand? The USA of course.

Chris

[Guest]

If I may be allowed at playing Nostradamus a bit:

Thaksin will go down in Thai history as one of the most disastrous leaders the country has ever had - if the history books aren't forged, that is, or the historians aren't bribed!

[ September 17, 2001: Message edited by: Scum_Baggio ]

[liquidflux]

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere but I'm going to post it here. It's from a canadian broadcaster named Gordon Sinclair and was orignally broadcast in I beleive 1971:

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Misssissippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them ... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters .. with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody...but nobody... has helped

[Sukhumvit]

quote:

---

Originally posted by itsmedave:

Thailand is to remain neutral.

---

Phew, that's a relief. I thought for a moment the shit had really hit the fan. I bet OBL will sleep easier tonight.

[sinsin2]

Thailand has to remain neutral,it has its

own separatist problems in the South.(They

are Malasyian not Thai..........Thailand nicked it).

Over the past year the film footage for the Thai National Anthem has started to include Muslim images (before King,Army,Buddha).

Thailand,s foreign policy has always had to be

Pro Arab because of this.

[ranma500]

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I wonder whether America's history of involvement in South East Asia, obviously Vietnam, but certainly Cambodia has actually earned the trust of Thailand.

I remember reading that the U.S. has always given a lot of aid to Thailand because it was seen as a stable and friendly nation in that region, but that in recent years as the area has opened up and become less of a threat generally, this aid has gradually dried up. Can anyone confirm this?

As previous posters have mentioned, Thailand would seem to have been quite adept in the past at maneouvring itself out of potential (at least international, if not domestic)trouble by making deals with whoever it had to.

Also it has quite successfully avoided religious division and conflict. I have never seen any evidence of Muslim/Buddhist confrontation.

I also wonder if the Buddhist philosophy itself in a small way supports the idea of neutrality.

And finally, has any poster ever tried to raise a tricky or confrontational issue with a Thai? I have had extraordinary experiences, even though I was calm, polite and deferential, when trying to signal a problem or error. On more than one occasion, the person I was dealing with, simply closed their ears, and pretended that I didn't exist, to the point of carrying on with their work and not looking at me.

I think all I'm saying is that given all these different factors, one maybe shouldn't see the Thai neutrality as cowardly or duplicitous - just as part of what makes them Thai.

[Sukhumvit]

Didn't Thailand take sides during the Vietnam War? Or was it all just a dream?