US Color Revolution in Thailand: Compromising Academics

Why is a supposed “professor” lying and basic facts, accusing others of “fake news” while engaged in it himself? A look at how the US co-opts academia in a targeted country.

When Thitinan calls something that is a fact, “fake new,” he is the one making fake news. 

This time, the forces of the status quo revolving around the military, monarchy, judiciary and bureaucracy are at it again. But this time their primary opponent is not the political party machine of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and its associated “red-shirt” supporters and voter bases in the North and Northeast. Instead, a broad-based and organic youth movement on myriad campuses in high schools and universities across the country is knocking on the door and challenging the established centres of power to reform and modernise.

And here are the protests Thanathorn promised. There is nothing – even at face value “organic” about these protests. It was a corrupt billionaire’s promise to use mobs to gain the power his performance at the polls in 2019 failed to gain him.

Image: The purpose of investing in academics like Thitinan can be seen here when US State Department propaganda like Voice of America needs a local voice to buttress US State Department talking points – in particular – claims that Asia’s population resents China while only uncooperative “anti-democratic” governments are doing business with Beijing.

The go-to for blame in the recent past was Thaksin, and lately it has been Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, founder of the Future Forward Party, a parliamentary vehicle of young Thais which was hastily dissolved earlier this year. Yet student leaders and stage speakers have hardly praised either Thaksin or Mr Thanathorn. They look to be fighting their own fight and making their own struggle.

Image: Protests are regularly attended by politicians from Thailand’s billilnaire-led opposition parties Pheu Thai (right) and Future Forward/Move Forward (left). They often participate and provide material support to the protesters – because obviously “students” are buying or even renting stages, sound systems, diesel generators, and the fleet of trucks and workers who bring them to protest sites.

Thai-US relations under President Donald Trump since 2017 have warmed up considerably compared to his predecessor Barack Obama. President Trump received Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, then a military junta leader, at the White House in October 2017. Since then, Thai purchases of US military hardware have revived. Just last month, Thailand and the US signed a Joint Vision Statement to reaffirm and reinvigorate the bilateral treaty alliance that dates back to 1954, highlighted by the US Army chief-of-staff’s visit to Bangkok. It does not make sense for the US to support the student movement to see the back of Gen Prayut and his government. Any Thai government cannot afford to be anti-China but the Prayut-led and military-backed regime has been broadly pro-US since Mr Trump took office.

Nothing about any of this adds up. Signing nonbinding “statements” is meaningless. Visits are meaningless. The Chinese president also visited the US and the US president visited China – does this mean the US and China are allies?

Thai-US arms deals have not been “revived.” Notice how Thitinan again omits any actual figures or facts.

The vast majority of Thailand’s military hardware is now being purchased from China, Russia, and Europe with purchases from the US steadily declining. Even a side-by-side comparison between US and Chinese arms deals with Thailand reveals China enjoys a nearly three-fold advantage – this is not even counting another two submarines Thailand seeks to purchase from China.

Image: Thailand’s purchases from China including VT-4 main battle tanks, VN1 armored vehicles, a submarine, and an amphibious ship vs. its purchases of US-built Strykers, Harpoon missiles, and AH-6i helicopters. Thailand is slated to buy 2 more Chinese submarines – not included in this chart.

Thitinan could have read the very same Bangkok Post his own op-eds regularly appear in to find this out. A 2019 article titled, “China competes with US for weapons sales to Thailand,” noted (emphasis added):

US-Thai relations soured after Gen Prayut led a military coup in 2014, triggering American laws that restrict defence ties until democracy is restored. China quickly filled the void, stepping up military exercises and signing 10 major arms deals including Thailand’s largest defence purchase ever: $1.03 billion for three diesel-electric submarines and 48 battle tanks, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Finally, even groups organizing bodies to fill up rallies like “Assembly for the Poor” is funded directly by the US NED.

The list goes on, and the best way to separate fact from fiction and fake news is to listen to what these young Thais have been saying. Eyes, ears and an open mind are all that are needed to know the imperative for change and reform in Thailand.

Listening to protesters behind which billionaires and foreign governments are hiding – is not the best way to separate “facts from fiction and fake news.” Investigation and the gathering of evidence is.

Thitinan’s op-ed was practically a check list of facts he deliberately attempted to discredit as fake news.

When Thitinan calls something that is a fact, “fake new,” he is the one making fake news.

An associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science, with more than 25 years of university service. He earned his MA from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and PhD from the London School of Economics where he was awarded the UK’s top dissertation prize in 2002.

Not mentioned in his bio are his moonlit dinners at 5 star rooftop restaurants in downtown Bangkok with W. Patrick Murphy, former US Chargé d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in the Kingdom of Thailand.

This wining and dining is a typical feature of compromised figures in Thailand’s academia and media – drawn in by US and other Western embassies to unflinchingly support Western special interests when they should be critically examining them and reporting on them to the public in order to serve the best interests of their own nation.

Worse still Thitinan is a signatory for at least one of the US NED’s projects, the so-called, “Coalition for Democratic Renewal.”

He is a co-signer with the US NED’s president, Carl Gershman, as well as pro-war US Neo-Conservatives and NED directors like Francis Fukuyama, George Weigel, and the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum, as well as fellow Thai agitators who directly receive money from the US NED like Jon Ungphakorn and Nidhi Eoseewong. Other signatories are NED funded agitators like Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim and Ambiga Sreenevasan, Hong Kong’s Joshua Wong who regularly flies to Washington for support and directives and his compatriot Nathan Law who was caught seeking aid and directives in the US consulate in Hong Kong, Sam Rainsy whose Cambodian opposition party is literally run out of Washington D.C., and Russia’s US-based critic – Garry Kasparov.

Is it possible Thitinan is signing off on NED projects but completely unaware of what the US NED is doing in Thailand or how it is funding virtually every aspect of Thailand’s current protests he has just lied to the public about when claiming they are “organic?” Not likely.

With 25 years of university experience – the concept of conflicts of interest and how to avoid them should be second nature to Thitinan, yet he appears to revel in them either oblivious to the ethical complications of his “after school” activities, or indifferent to them. His ability to objectively present analysis to the public when fearing his next dinner date with US State Department personnel might be in jeopardy means he cannot effectively do his job.

The fact that people like Thitinan are going through such lengths to cover up the truth behind these protests illustrates just how malign and dangerous they are.

It is not “online hate” that threatens to divide and destroy Thailand – it is the media and academia who are supposed to be the informed and educated voices sounding the alarm when dubious interests mobilize against the nation’s best interests – not just failing to warn against this danger, but actively enabling it.

Thailand’s protests are not “youth-led” or “organic.” They are backed by both the most destructive interests in Thailand, and the most destructive interests beyond Thailand’s borders – Thaksin Shinawatra and his allies who have repeatedly soaked the streets with blood and have attempted to burn the nation down – and the US who burns entire nations to the ground around the globe.

Is letting these sort of interests through the gates really worth another moonlit dinner with a US State Department official?

https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2020/08/us-color-revolution-in-thailand.html