Craving Trumps embrace

Few sensible world leaders crave U.S. President Donald Trump’s imprimatur. Thailand’s General Prayuth Chan-ocha does. The Dictator heads the world’s only military dictatorship and the royalist elite he “represents” has been flummoxed by previous U.S. criticism of military rule.

Trump, far less attuned and attached to the trimmings of democratic rule, has no apparent moral issue in dealing with dictators (unless he takes a dislike to them). We imagine that this lack of a moral compass is a product of his own mini-dictatorship over various property development firms and other business dealings.

For The Dictator of Thailand, meeting Trump will, as a Reuters headlines it, “seal Thai-US normalisation.” It has been a “normalization” that has been unfolding since Trump’s election.

As the report puts it, citing human rights groups, “Monday’s White House meeting will underscore Mr Trump’s willingness to embrace authoritarian leaders and regimes at the expense of human rights concerns…”. (We should not ignore the Obama administration’s capacity for dealing with dictators too, like Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.)

In other words, for The Dictator and his military dictatorship, they will be anointed as “legitimate” by the United States administration.  The meeting “gives the outspoken former army chief [General Prayuth] a chance to burnish his leadership credentials amid signs he may be seeking to stay in power after an election tentatively scheduled for next year.”

With the Shinawatras exiled or facing more charges, with the red shirts corralled and with democracy activists hobbled by surveillance, charges and jailings, General Prayuth seems to be cementing his control and can decide how long he wants to be premier.

Trumps embrace matters for the military rulers.

Black deals II

It seems that if a diplomat is posted to Thailand, he or she is not inoculated against foot-in-mouth disease. This affliction is rife amongst the members of Thailand’s military dictatorship and it highly contagious.

The US ambassador appears to have caught it.

In a revealing story at the Bangkok Post, Ambassador Glyn Davies has decided to “shed light on US President Donald Trump’s invitation to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to visit Washington, saying people have a ‘misconception’ that Washington halted diplomatic relations with Bangkok following the coup.”

There’s no need to shed light on Trump’s invitation. He’s invited Prayuth and Philippines President Duterte, praising the latter’s murderous war on drugs. Everyone understands what Trump’s doing and that he feels better when cosied up with right-wing fascists. The only place he has made a claim for “democracy” is in rolling back Obama’s changes on Cuba.

And, Trump is demanding trade deals to even things up, so let death’s traders do their work.

Davies goes further, saying that he and presumably the administration in Washington have decided that the junta is civilianizing. As we said a very long time ago, that’s all the US wanted.

But to deny that “the US stance towards Thailand under a military government has changed recently, particularly after Mr Trump in April invited Gen Prayut to meet him at the White House” is a bit like the military dictatorship denying it uses torture. Both are fabrications and distort that thing known as truth.

Then Davies adds more on the military relationship with the junta, saying that “despite the past criticism of the military government, the relationship has continued as usual, citing the sale of military equipment to Thailand this year.”

Of course, the “as usual” bit is a gross exaggeration. But he’s been told that Trump wants to get back in Thailand, so Davies stuffs and garnishes his exaggerations: “Our military ties have been strong. We have sold almost US$1 billion (about 34 billion baht) worth of arms to Thailand just over the last ten years…”.

Ten years means since 2007. He then says the “Thai government bought Black Hawk and Lakota helicopters from the US after the coup.”

We are not sure this is accurate. We recall orders in 2009 and 2011, and deliveries in 2013 and then in August 2014. We are not sure that is a purchase of Black Hawks after the coup. We think the Lakota sale goes back to 2013, with deliveries after the coup. Readers can look up these and more at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

His claim that in “2017 alone, US$261 million worth of military deals are in the works…” is probably accurate, although “in the works” is elastic.

We are pleased that Davies clarified that the reduced cooperation and assistance after the military coup was just something to do with law and that it was a minor impediment.

Now he’s really sounding like the military dictatorship, saying: “Our laws state that when a civilian-elected government is overturned by a military coup, certain aid must stop…”. But that’s trifling says the ambassador: “a few million dollars of aid could not be compared with the kind of cooperation that has continued between the countries.” Yahoo! That law is nothing and we deal with dictators.

We all knew that, it’s in the DNA of the relationship between Thailand and the USA.

Black deals I

Remember all that stuff from the Obama administration about Thailand’s military junta and how it was shunned? Remember the lines about no military trading?

Seems like all of that was for public consumption and that the USA continued to deal with the corrupt and repressive regime. Of course, that’s what you would expect – think Egypt – and the US has seldom had any problem dealing with dictators. Its history in Thailand is of supporting military dictatorship. But all that American rhetoric about “democracy” was strong.

Then there were all those journalists and commentators who got excited, declaring that Thailand’s junta had been ditched by the US and had cuddled up to the Chinese. It seems that is not so accurate.

At Khaosod, there’s a report that should alter all of those views. The news yesterday that the Trump administration was selling more Black Hawk helicopters to Thailand had “US embassy spokesperson Melissa Sweeney [saying] … the latest development is part of the two nations’ ‘strong defense relationship’.”

Sweeney added that “US military sales to Thailand since the 2014 coup amounted to approximately USD$380 million, including Black Hawks and Harpoon Block II Missiles.”

$380 million is about 13 billion baht. That’s one Chinese submarine. Of the military sales data we have seen, the junta’s purchases from China are about the same level as all other purchases. In other words, half of arms and equipment purchases since 2014 have gone to China.

While this is a change, the details on the US’s sales and the junta’s gratification that Trump has looked their way suggests that the China tilt has not been as acute as previously suggested by the regional watch commentators.

2016 State Department human rights report

PPT thinks that human rights are probably not going to be anywhere near the top or even the middle of what passes for President Trump’s foreign policy agenda. So the US State Department’s 2016 report on human rights might be the last that tries to be a comprehensive review as seen from the United States.

The country report for Thailand is pretty much as expected, although the State Department does regularly under-report on human rights violations in Thailand and does so in a rather glib manner. Here’s some clips from some 60+ pages:

Reports continued, although less than in previous years, that security forces at times used excessive and lethal force against criminal suspects and committed or were involved in extrajudicial, arbitrary, and unlawful killings….

Representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and legal entities reported police and military officers sometimes tortured and beat suspects to obtain confessions, and newspapers reported numerous cases of citizens accusing police and other security officers of brutality….

In fact, torture is standard practice.

The military government held some civilian suspects at military detention facilities….

NCPO Order 2/2558 grants the military authority to detain persons without charge or trial for up to seven days. Military officials frequently invoked this authority. According to OHCHR the military government summoned, arrested, and detained approximately 1,500 persons since the 2014 coup. Prior to releasing detainees, military authorities often required them to sign documents affirming they were treated well, would refrain from political activity, and would seek authorization prior to travel outside the local area. According to human rights groups, authorities often denied access to detainees by family members and attorneys. Military authorities threatened those who failed to respond to summonses with prison and seizure of assets….

Emergency decree provisions make it very difficult to challenge a detention before a court. Under the decree detainees have access to legal counsel, but there was no assurance of prompt access to counsel or family members, nor were there transparent safeguards against the mistreatment of detainees. Moreover, the decree effectively provides broadly based immunity from criminal, civil, and disciplinary liability for officials acting under its provisions….

The law gives military forces authority over civilian institutions, including police, regarding the maintenance of public order. NCPO Order 13/2016, issued in March, grants military officers with the rank of lieutenant and higher power to summon, arrest, and detain suspects; conduct searches; seize assets; suspend financial transactions; and ban suspects from traveling abroad in cases related to 27 criminal offenses, including extortion, human trafficking, robbery, forgery, fraud, defamation, gambling, prostitution, and firearms violation. The order also grants criminal, administrative, civil, and disciplinary immunity to military officials executing police authority in “good faith.”…

Procedures for investigating suspicious deaths, including deaths occurring in police custody, require a prosecutor, forensic pathologist, and local administrator to participate in the investigation and that, in most cases, family members have legal representation at the inquests. Authorities often failed to follow these procedures. Families rarely took advantage of a provision of law that allows them to sue police for criminal action during arrests….

Human rights groups remained concerned about the NCPO’s influence on independent judicial processes, particularly the practice of prosecuting some civilians in military courts….

In a 2014 order, the NCPO redirected prosecutions for offenses against the monarchy, insurrection, sedition, weapons offenses, and violation of its orders from civilian criminal courts to military courts. On September 12, the NCPO ordered an end to the practice, directing that offenses committed by civilians after that date would no longer be subject to military court jurisdiction. At the time of the order, the NCPO explained that approximately 500 pending civilian cases would continue in military courts, as would any other cases in which the alleged crimes were committed before September 12. According to government and NGO sources, from May 2014 to May, military courts initiated at least 1,546 cases against civilians involving at least 1,811 persons, most commonly for violations of Article 112 (lese majeste, defaming or insulting the king, queen, heir-apparent, or regent); failure to comply with an NCPO order; and violations of the law controlling firearms, ammunition, and explosives.

Military courts do not provide the same legal protections for civilian defendants as do civilian criminal courts. Military courts do not afford civilian defendants rights outlined by the interim constitution or the 2016 constitution to a fair and public hearing by a competent, impartial, and independent tribunal.

The NCPO routinely detained those who expressed political views (see section 1.d.). As of March the Department of Corrections reported there were 103 persons detained or imprisoned in the country under lese majeste laws that outlaw criticism of the monarchy (see section 2.a.). Human rights groups claimed the prosecutions and convictions of several lese majeste offenders were politically motivated….

Yes, that’s as far as the State Department is willing to go. Sadly deficient and spineless.

The NCPO enforced limits on free speech and expression using a variety of regulations and criminal provisions….

The NCPO also invoked criminal sedition statutes to restrict political speech….

Senior government officials routinely made statements critical of media. Media operators also complained of harassment and monitoring….

The government continued to restrict or disrupt access to the internet, and censored online content….

The NCPO intervened to disrupt academic discussions on college campuses, intimidated scholars, and arrested student leaders critical of the coup. Universities also practiced self-censorship….

The military government continued the process of revising secondary and primary school textbooks and increased instruction on patriotic themes….

Invoking authority under Article 44 of the interim constitution, coup leaders prohibited political gatherings of five or more persons and penalized persons supporting any political gatherings….

The interim constitution set the framework for the adoption of a new constitution but did not provide citizens the ability to choose their government peacefully….

There have been no elections since the 2014 coup….

The interim constitution did not contain provisions providing for the right of freedom of association or the right to bargain collectively….

There’s a lot more. Despite the State Department’s reticence and dull tone, it is a sad read.

For love of (dead) king

PPT didn’t read any of the stories about the rather awful Miss Universe contest. We did know, as Wikipedia states:

In 2015, after businessman Donald Trump, then co-owner of the pageant, made statements about illegal immigrants from Mexico in his U.S. presidential campaign kickoff speech, NBC decided to end its business relationship with him and stated that it would no longer air the Miss Universe or Miss USA pageants on its networks. In September 2015, Trump bought NBC’s share of the Miss Universe Organization, becoming its sole owner for three days, then sold the entire company to the WME/IMG talent agency.

In Thailand, because of previous victories in 1965 and 1988 and because of state promotion of nationalism over many years, there remains some interest in the parade of attractive women making small talk and little speeches about love, peace and, sometimes, politics.

With that short background, we turn to a story a reader sent to us. For us, the interesting bit of the story are the comments of The Dictator and his Dictatorial Deputy. General Prayuth Chan-ocha proudly declared:

The prime minister thanked Ms Chalita for representing the country and helping to promote unique Thai culture to other candidates.

Gen Prayut said he felt proud when Miss Thailand spoke about King Bhumibol Adulyadej in the question round, and praised him.

Perhaps if she hadn’t spoken of a deceased king, then Chalita “Namtan” Suansane might have been suspect in The Dictator’s eyes. There is huge pressure on Thais in sport, film and other areas to conform with royalist diktats on culture and king.

As our reader observes, the comments on General Prawit Wongsuwan, are revealing of something else:

Meanwhile, Defence Ministry spokesman Kongcheep Tantrawanich said Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, who also serves as defence minister, watched the contest and supported Ms Chalita to be crowned as Miss Universe.

Gen Prawit was disappointed that Ms Chalita, who was doing well, failed to make her way to the final round, he added.

Maj Gen Kongcheep said Gen Prawit was speaking to media members before attending a meeting at the Defence Council meeting, which he chaired.

Gen Prawit described Ms Chalita as “beautiful and perfect. She was doing so well in the question round.”

He said he wanted to vote for Miss Thailand in the internet voting but he did know how.

It is Prawit who has been campaigning against “anti-monarchists” on the internet, claiming these are dangerous people. Yet, he can’t, himself, use the internet….

What Trump can learn from the military dictatorship

In a recent post at New Mandala, a supposedly populist Donald Trump – now U.S. president-elect – was compared with another said to be a populist, Thailand’s  Thaksin Shinawatra. The comparison was a little silly, with the differences seemingly to far outweigh the similarities.

Such comparisons might include bad hair and the wide public acceptance of comb-overs. Trump has heinous hair, but so too do many leaders in Thailand. Think of the failed and corrupt General  Udomdej Sitabutr.

Trump can learn that one should never allow that comb-over to get out of control. One must maintain the orderliness of one’s appearance, for appearance can be considered to overcome a dark heart, ignorance or boorishness.

This kind of comparison is no less silly than the one mentioned above. However, we can take this further and consider the characteristics of quite different political leaders.

General Udomdej’s carefully sculpted comb-over and his inability to allow any greying to appear has a lot to do with conceit and arrogance, and the forever orange-tanned and “blonde” Trump certainly displays such characteristics by the truckload.

In a list of characteristics of Thailand’s military regime, and of The Dictator himself, one that ranks high is arrogance.

General Prayuth Chan-ocha has demonstrated remarkable arrogance, dominating the media, as all dictators do, and establishing his “values” as those for the nation. He even “pens” songs that Thais are forced to hear, again and again. The Dictator demands that Thailand be more like him. Narrow, loyalist and conservative.

Trump can learn a bit more about narrow nationalism and enforcing conservatism from the draconian actions of the military dictatorship. Of course, Trump is well known for his arrogance and remarkable hubris. This derives from privilege, wealth and the loyalty of jellyback servants in a hierarchical and dictatorial business organization. For the military dictatorship, loyalty and subservience also rank high. However, The Dictator’s arrogance derives not so much from wealth as from a surplus of power at the head of a murderous and hierarchical organization. The Dictator has shown how to enforce that jellyback subservience by weeding out “opponents” in the state’s organizations. Trump may seek to do similar things in the U.S.

Related, as we emphasize through our labeling of General Prayuth as The Dictator,  narcissism and egoism drive him. These characteristics are most certainly defining of Trump. Some argued that he has shown the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Yet narcissism is not just a “disorder.” It is a political style that emphasizes authoritarianism and a personality cult.

One characteristic that The Dictator has taken to a remarkable level is disingenuousness. Just lie. Whenever anything mildly disturbing to The Dictator personally or is considered “threatening” to the regime, just lie. We are sure that Trump will have no difficulty following this example. Making stuff up is the essence of an authoritarian regime.

The Dictator and his regime also show the way on double standards. Under this military dictatorship, there are no standards that are not double standards. Again, we have no trouble believing that Trump can quickly adapt this when he becomes president.

Authoritarianism defines the military dictatorship. Liberal values and liberal patience for dissent are expunged. They are expunged from law, practice in the bureaucracy, in the media and educational institutions. In Thailand, this was made easy by the “tradition” of military authoritarianism and interventionist feudalism in the form of the monarchy. In the U.S., Trump will surely build on an illiberalism that has been built in civil society, much of it fostered by religious fundamentalism and conservative nationalism or “patriotism.” We can see him moving against institutions identified with U.S. liberalism.

Anti-liberalism and authoritarianism in Thailand has long been associated with a deeply conservative emphasis on orderliness. This fetish has been fostered by the hierarchy of military and monarchy. Trump is unlikely to rely on the military, although many in the military will be ideologically drawn to him. He may seek to make his family more monarchical, just as The Dictator has adopted characteristics of the dead king.

Misogyny and boorishness have been defining elements of The Dictator’s personality and regime. As we know, Trump has little to learn from The Dictator on these scores. Yet we might understand that these characteristics are a part of a conservatism that allocates privilege to selected groups in society.

Ignorance is another central characteristic of the military dictatorship. The Dictator and his closest colleagues have little knowledge of the world.This group gained its leadership position based on royal posterior polishing and adherence to hierarchy. They have no experience of a real world, even in the military. Trump, for all of his investments, is essentially a New York property developer. He can learn from the military dictatorship that such narrowness simply doesn’t matter when your constituency is boorish and narrow too.

The final characteristic is an inability to “fail” or “lose.” The military dictatorship is never wrong and never gets anything wrong. The problem is “others” who are undermining the regime, opponents of the regime or duped by nasty politicians. Trump can learn from this. He certainly knows that even defeats must be reworked as “wins.” However, the targeting of opponents will likely become his excuse for all kinds of nastiness.

Thailand has demonstrated that authoritarianism is a slippery slope. The country is now at the bottom of the slope. The U.S. is no liberal heaven but Trump can easily knock away some of the remaining checks and balances and the slope gets steeper and the slide down it accelerates.

Trump and Thailand

PPT pays only limited attention to US domestic politics. However, when there are links to Thailand’s politics we get interested.

Over the past couple of weeks, US presidential candidate Donald Trump has been getting some attention for his links to Alex Jones. As one of the many Jones-linked websites has it, the “mainstream media is in a state of panic with the fact that Alex Jones and Infowars are influencing mainstream politics and aligning with presidential candidate Donald Trump.”

Trump’s interview with Jones is available.

Jones pedals extreme rightist conspiracy theory. But a vociferous group of Trump supporters, mostly white, gun-toting, racists, buys into it. More significantly, according one report,

Donald Trump’s top donors are now backing an InfoWars-approved challenger to Sen. John McCain— a Tea Partier [Kelli Ward] who blames the former prisoner of war for the rise of ISIS and who once held a town hall on chemtrails [the conspiracy theory that says government airplanes are spraying, through visible contrails that streak the skies, dangerous chemicals to change the weather or for darker motives].

Robert and Rebekah Mercer—the father-daughter duo spending millions to boost right-wing candidates—have substantial clout in the Trump campaign. While most Republican mega-donors have stayed away from Trump, Mercer and co. are all in for him.

What does this have to do with Thailand? Back in 2013, we had a post about Jones-acolyte “Tony Cartalucci,” who writes material that has been popular among far right yellow shirts and other royalists, including some in the current junta.

As we said back then (and we haven’t updated the links and Land Destroyer has changed its pages since we first posted):

His [“Cartalucci’s”] blog has been Land Destroyer, which provides no information on funding, but as a reader at Prachatai pointed out at the time, it:

[l]inks to Infowars.com which is Alex Jones. Infowars.com accepts advertising from Midas Resources (http://www.midasresources.com/store/store.php?ref=62&promo=specialOffer) which is “One of the world’s premiere precious metals firms, parent company of The Genesis Communications Network, proud sponsor of the Campaign For Liberty and creator of the Ron Paul Air Corps.”

The Ron Paul initiated Campaign for Liberty (http://www.campaignforliberty.com/about.php) draws inspiration from a range of conservatives and libertarians and localists. According to University of Georgia political scientist Keith Poole, Paul had the most conservative voting record of any member of Congress from 1937 to 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul).

Midas Resources was founded by Ted Anderson. Ted Anderson and Alex Jones are collaborators, with Jones appearing on the Genesis Communications Network, where Anderson is the CEO (http://www.gcnlive.com/contact.php). It was established to promote the sale of precious metals (http://www.gcnlive.com/faq.php). Its front page advertisers include Christian holster sellers and a range of survival products (for surviving the coming global food crisis) along with Ron Paul sites and Russia Television/Russia Today. GCN has interviewed right-wing, anti-Semite Lyndon LaRouche (http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2008/interviews/080401jack_blood_genesis.html), seen as a political extremist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche). LaRouche also has a fan in another link at Land Destroyer in F.W. Engdahl, yet another conspiracy theorist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._William_Engdahl), who believes in global cooling (not warming).

Jones and Anderson have promoted conspiracy rants by people associated with the extremist John Birch Society (http://mediamatters.org/blog/201101290003).

Companies linked in these groups, such as Free Speech Systems (http://freespeechsystems.com/) provide no links or information; certainly not practicing what they preach.

Land Destroyer links to a range of other conspiracy theory websites that never provide any details about funding. One of these is to the site of long-time conspiracy theorist Webster Tarpley who has a remarkable Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster_Tarpley). Another is to anti-fluoride, anti-vaccination, Bin Laden is alive (Alex Jones too), and conspiracy theorist Jim Corr who is also on about the threat or One World Government (http://www.jimcorr.com/).

In the LaRouche Wikipedia page, in the section on “Selected Works,” it might be noted that LaRouche wrote a book with Uwe Von Parpart in 1970. Several sites note that he later worked at Asia Times and The Manager magazine owned by Sondhi Limthongkul. Interesting connections.

Conspiracy theories seem to be experiencing quite a comeback under rightist movements, not just in the US, but in Thailand too.