CNN and other world media are reporting that Thailand has fallen to a military coup.
This is a sad day, anytime a functioning democracy is unplugged by armed thugs. Yes, they claim rampant corruption in the government. After all, they don't want to be compared to their thug neighbor, Burma. (Screw the military fatheads there, by the way, I won't call it 'Myanmar' any more than I was inclined to do what Pol Pot said and call his country 'Kampuchea'. We all know how <i>that</i> turned out.) But they did the ultimate cowardly thing, and waited until the prime minister was out of the country. This tyrant, Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, didn't even have the cojones to do it with his boss in the house.
What caught my eye in the article was something in the first paragraph of the Reuters report (which appears on Yahoo! News, where I saw this originally): "The Thai army took control of Bangkok on Tuesday without a shot being fired, dismissed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, revoked the constitution and promised a swift return to democracy after political reforms."
What's wrong here is "revoked the constitution". This is a common misconception among tyrants and enemies of the people. A democratic constitution cannot be "revoked", nor can it be "suspended". Nor bent, folded, spindled, or mutilated. The United States Constitution cannot be suspended. Wanna know why? Because if a mechanism existed to do so, every time an election, a decision, a judgment went against what someone wanted as the outcome, they would be looking for that button. Saying a national constitution is "revoked" is akin to saying it didn't matter in the first place.
Constitutions are not a "let's see if this works out" kind of thing in a democracy. It is <i><b>everything</b></i>. The Thai army thug claims "rampant corruption". By whose measure? From what the news article said, the duly elected leader, Thaksin Shinawatra, was re-elected twice. When his government was questioned, he <i>volunteered</i> to have elections taken again. A rational person would conclude that Mr. Thaksin has this democracy thing figured out to a fault (what American president would dare to call an early election just to show he really deserved to be there?) and that he figured on winning the election a third time.
The Thai opposition, though, claimed that "he had skewed neutral bodies such as the Election Commission in his favor and boycotted the poll. That rendered the election result invalid." This statement also speaks volumes. The Thai opposition party, the so-called "Party of Democratic Reform", is in charge with the army. In a democracy, this is anathema. So one must wonder what they meant by "neutral bodies". Certainly not the military, apparently. They also assumed that since elections have been coming out against them, the Election Commission must be biased in some fashion. This is another misunderstanding: as the Democratic Party in America has had to come to grips with, you're not "correct" by default, and so losing elections does not mean everyone is out to keep you down. So when Mr. Thaksin cheekily called a third election early (and he was either overly optimistic or kinda dense to do so, really) the opposition really didn't want to lose a third time. The best way to make an election seem invalid is to not show up. This is the third mistake in judgment by the opposition. In America, elections are valid even if only 8 percent of registered voters show up. We raise our own local taxes with such ridiculously low participation with alarming regularity.
Militaries in democracies are always dicey things. Any military is, by definition, <i>not</i> a democracy by necessity. Militaries have efficient chains of command, and we would like to think that advancement in the military is merit-based. That's a dream, of course, but any country with sense and a conscience should try. And who is selected to run the military should be someone who is sworn to uphold that country's constitution, and not take judgment into his own hands whenever he thinks the country isn't being run right. Democracy does not exist because the military deigns to permit it, but because the people will it to be so. The purpose of the military is to keep other countries out so the people can run this democracy stuff.
Anything that smells of mixture between military and civilian makes me nervous. America set a horrible precedent when they named the former head of Military Intelligence the head of the CIA. It was, in my mind and heart, an unforgivable mix, especially considering that this person did not resign their commission in the military. When you look around the world, you see daily proof that this intermingling is a bad idea. (It's also a really bad thing when two family members run both the military and the government, but that's a different story.)
A couple of paragraphs in the CNN article on this caught my eye as well, such as this little gem quoting a press release from the coup perpetrators: "The armed forces commander and the national police commander have successfully taken over Bangkok and the surrounding area in order to maintain peace and order. There has been no struggle," the coup announcement said, according to The Associated Press. "We ask for the cooperation of the public and ask your pardon for the inconvenience."
<i>Pardon the inconvenience?!?</i> "We're really sorry if our tanks screw up morning rush hour." So this is apparently a <i>polite</i> coup! Oh, well that's okay then. If I'm a Thai citizen, what am I supposed to think of this? As long as it doesn't get in my way, the forcible turnover of my duly elected government is just a minor annoyance. Just keep the armored personnel carriers out of the McDonald's drive-thru....
And CNN makes this off-the-cuff observation: "Sonthi, who is known to be close to Thailand's revered constitutional monarch, will serve as acting prime minister, army spokesman Col. Akarat Chitroj said, according to The AP. Sonthi is a Muslim in this Buddhist-dominated nation, AP reported."
Things that make you go "Hmmm". (See my previous blog entry for relevance.)
So what happens now? The response of the international community will be very interesting. Will they roundly condemn this act of subversion, as they should? Or will they use the fact that Mr. Thaksin is wealthy as a rationalization for his removal? The United States government should pull out the stops, cutting off this rogue government and insisting that Mr. Thaksin be restored to office, and suspending diplomatic relations until they do so. We tolerate this crap far too frequently.
America is a beacon of freedom and democracy. It is exactly times like now that we should use our might to set a good example, and refuse to deal with countries that just don't get it. If Thais get this democracy thing, they should call for Mr. Sonthi's execution as a traitor.
This is a sad day, anytime a functioning democracy is unplugged by armed thugs. Yes, they claim rampant corruption in the government. After all, they don't want to be compared to their thug neighbor, Burma. (Screw the military fatheads there, by the way, I won't call it 'Myanmar' any more than I was inclined to do what Pol Pot said and call his country 'Kampuchea'. We all know how <i>that</i> turned out.) But they did the ultimate cowardly thing, and waited until the prime minister was out of the country. This tyrant, Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, didn't even have the cojones to do it with his boss in the house.
What caught my eye in the article was something in the first paragraph of the Reuters report (which appears on Yahoo! News, where I saw this originally): "The Thai army took control of Bangkok on Tuesday without a shot being fired, dismissed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, revoked the constitution and promised a swift return to democracy after political reforms."
What's wrong here is "revoked the constitution". This is a common misconception among tyrants and enemies of the people. A democratic constitution cannot be "revoked", nor can it be "suspended". Nor bent, folded, spindled, or mutilated. The United States Constitution cannot be suspended. Wanna know why? Because if a mechanism existed to do so, every time an election, a decision, a judgment went against what someone wanted as the outcome, they would be looking for that button. Saying a national constitution is "revoked" is akin to saying it didn't matter in the first place.
Constitutions are not a "let's see if this works out" kind of thing in a democracy. It is <i><b>everything</b></i>. The Thai army thug claims "rampant corruption". By whose measure? From what the news article said, the duly elected leader, Thaksin Shinawatra, was re-elected twice. When his government was questioned, he <i>volunteered</i> to have elections taken again. A rational person would conclude that Mr. Thaksin has this democracy thing figured out to a fault (what American president would dare to call an early election just to show he really deserved to be there?) and that he figured on winning the election a third time.
The Thai opposition, though, claimed that "he had skewed neutral bodies such as the Election Commission in his favor and boycotted the poll. That rendered the election result invalid." This statement also speaks volumes. The Thai opposition party, the so-called "Party of Democratic Reform", is in charge with the army. In a democracy, this is anathema. So one must wonder what they meant by "neutral bodies". Certainly not the military, apparently. They also assumed that since elections have been coming out against them, the Election Commission must be biased in some fashion. This is another misunderstanding: as the Democratic Party in America has had to come to grips with, you're not "correct" by default, and so losing elections does not mean everyone is out to keep you down. So when Mr. Thaksin cheekily called a third election early (and he was either overly optimistic or kinda dense to do so, really) the opposition really didn't want to lose a third time. The best way to make an election seem invalid is to not show up. This is the third mistake in judgment by the opposition. In America, elections are valid even if only 8 percent of registered voters show up. We raise our own local taxes with such ridiculously low participation with alarming regularity.
Militaries in democracies are always dicey things. Any military is, by definition, <i>not</i> a democracy by necessity. Militaries have efficient chains of command, and we would like to think that advancement in the military is merit-based. That's a dream, of course, but any country with sense and a conscience should try. And who is selected to run the military should be someone who is sworn to uphold that country's constitution, and not take judgment into his own hands whenever he thinks the country isn't being run right. Democracy does not exist because the military deigns to permit it, but because the people will it to be so. The purpose of the military is to keep other countries out so the people can run this democracy stuff.
Anything that smells of mixture between military and civilian makes me nervous. America set a horrible precedent when they named the former head of Military Intelligence the head of the CIA. It was, in my mind and heart, an unforgivable mix, especially considering that this person did not resign their commission in the military. When you look around the world, you see daily proof that this intermingling is a bad idea. (It's also a really bad thing when two family members run both the military and the government, but that's a different story.)
A couple of paragraphs in the CNN article on this caught my eye as well, such as this little gem quoting a press release from the coup perpetrators: "The armed forces commander and the national police commander have successfully taken over Bangkok and the surrounding area in order to maintain peace and order. There has been no struggle," the coup announcement said, according to The Associated Press. "We ask for the cooperation of the public and ask your pardon for the inconvenience."
<i>Pardon the inconvenience?!?</i> "We're really sorry if our tanks screw up morning rush hour." So this is apparently a <i>polite</i> coup! Oh, well that's okay then. If I'm a Thai citizen, what am I supposed to think of this? As long as it doesn't get in my way, the forcible turnover of my duly elected government is just a minor annoyance. Just keep the armored personnel carriers out of the McDonald's drive-thru....
And CNN makes this off-the-cuff observation: "Sonthi, who is known to be close to Thailand's revered constitutional monarch, will serve as acting prime minister, army spokesman Col. Akarat Chitroj said, according to The AP. Sonthi is a Muslim in this Buddhist-dominated nation, AP reported."
Things that make you go "Hmmm". (See my previous blog entry for relevance.)
So what happens now? The response of the international community will be very interesting. Will they roundly condemn this act of subversion, as they should? Or will they use the fact that Mr. Thaksin is wealthy as a rationalization for his removal? The United States government should pull out the stops, cutting off this rogue government and insisting that Mr. Thaksin be restored to office, and suspending diplomatic relations until they do so. We tolerate this crap far too frequently.
America is a beacon of freedom and democracy. It is exactly times like now that we should use our might to set a good example, and refuse to deal with countries that just don't get it. If Thais get this democracy thing, they should call for Mr. Sonthi's execution as a traitor.
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