Beaucoup Coups: Thailand!

Soon to be Served Military Coup a la Mode!!

No country can boast the number of military,  civilian coups as Thailand.   It does not matter what is the issue.  It’s totally irrelevant who is in charge and who wants to be in charge….

  You can always be certain that if there is any sort of discontent anywhere up and down the Kleptocracy,  once called Siam,  then one or another military officer will initiate a coup.   More often than not,  the military coups are bloodless but the one that is about to happen now,  February 26, 2014 has already taken the lives of 21 people.  In addition,  the number jailed over the four month anti-government demonstration has risen close to 1000 people.

Interestingly,  Thailand is a country that was literally constructed for the “King And I”.    The king,  of course,  unbeknownst to his servile population is American born ---Cambridge Hospital,  Cambridge, Mass.    However,  the King does nothing but posture and grimace which seems to suffice the body politic.  The Thai King is treated as a God.     However,  be wary of saying anything negative about his ersatz king.  According to the Thai people the American King can do no wrong.   Therefore,  the pandemic Thai problems of  child prostitution;  dysfunctional civil institutions; and  rampant corruption/ constant military coups has nothing to do with this American born King.

  Wow! What a racket!

You could  have guessed that yours truly had been arrested in Bangkok for uttering the King’s name [whatever it was] in vain to Thai Airline employee.  Before you could say WTF?,   military officers,  policemen and officials of Thai Airline were confronting me in the First Class Lounge.  The issue was not clear then and it certainly is not clear now.   Apparently,  I had mentioned the ‘king’ in some manner that the Thai Airline official felt was ‘insulting’.   For that I refused to apologize.  They wanted to take my passport away.  I refused.   Eventually they declared me PNG—Persona Non Grata.   This PNG nonsense was absurd because I was not an official of the USG and just a passenger in transit to my more favorite country of Cambodia.

  Can you believe that dear readers?
  That a country where once the Khmer Rouge ruled and decimated became my favorite country—even over the puerile pleasures of Pat Pong—Sin City, Bangkok?

  The truth is that even as DAS for East Asia,  I never liked the Thais.   I found them supercilious, venal and completely without any moral integrity.    Once I even threatened to ‘take out‘ Pol Pot who was residing under Thai protection.   But that is another story for another time.

  Needless to say that Thailand was an,  is an ally to anyone who will pay its price of maintaining a standing army which for the most part,  kills Cambodians, Burmese, and Thais.    The Thai military,  like the king and queen,  are an ambitious testimony to hypocrisy and venality.

 

It is important to understand that Thailand has never been invaded for several centuries because they are clever enough to create Low Intensity Conflicts [LIC] on all their borders so no country would venture to traverse an ongoing LIC.   It would be militarily very costly and foolish.

  Therefore despite the fact that the present military officially ruled out a coup,  guarantees me that there will be a coup.    What is one more coup or so, in a country that has lived in cynical version of Roger/ Hammerstein’s Broadway  Musical –The King And I?

  What makes the hypocrisy almost unbearable is that every Thai military general with whom I had to work with,  informed me as a point of conciliation  [of what?] that they had to be Buddhist Priests for at least one year or more,  before returning to their vicious ways in the military.

There are only two certainties in Thailand and Bangkok—Venereal Disease and an accompanying military coup.    Please be aware that the Thai military controls and profits from the endless bordellos servicing all kinds of carnal/sexual pleasures for the straight and LGBT populations of the world.   All of which, I am certain, the effete American King has never partaken of……MUCH !!!

To the next Thai coup!   May it be at least as successful as the one before, and less tortuous than the next one. 

  Coup A La Mode!! 

Congratulations Thailand –you still have not evolved!!!! 

on another subject
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/02/evidence-that-both-navy-seals-found-dead-on-the-maersk-alabama-had-links-to-boston-bombing-sniper-teams-2906646.html?utm_campaign=&utm_content=beforeit39snews-verticalresponse&utm_source=direct-b4in.info&utm_medium=verticalresponse&utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fb4in.info%2FtVDA

some news updates
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/world/europe/russia.html?hp&_r=0

Ukraine Victory Defeats Putin!
The next countries to fall because of the Western “PUT” [Stock Short] on Putin’s Hegemony are: Belarus; Moldava; Georgia; and Central Asian Republics.

  As I predicted some time ago,  the Ukraine’s civil war would end in a coup.  The President left,  his security forces did not resist and Russia lost it’s economic/political influence over the Ukraine.

Still the “western front” is not quiescent.

  However,  Putin’s extravagant expenditures of over 50 Billion Dollars on the Sochi Olympics combined with the loss of Russian leverage over the Ukraine, places Vladimir Putin in grave trouble.   

As Howard Cosell the boxing aficionado might have announced over the airwaves:
“Putin,  the ten year heavy weight contender of Russia has finally found himself against the ropes.  He is exhausted from both the body punches by the indomitable forces from the west [read CIA]  to his pocket book and security apparatus.  He no longer can maintain his country in the luxurious state they have become used to.”
Only one year ago,  Putin appeared on top of the world.  He was a close ally of Iran,  Syria, Venezuela,  Cuba,  and in control of the Central Asian Republics Kazakhstan etc.   However today,  after the Ukrainian coup and the Sochi Olympics,  Putin looks fatigued and overstretched.

Putin and his financial cohorts in the Kremlin have to be aware of key factors eroding Russian hegemony at home and at ‘near-abroad’.  Here are some of my assumptions as to why Putin is now in serious trouble at home and beyond:

[1] Russian demographics show that the aging population is increasing exponentially; while the youth are not reproducing at a high enough rate to compensate; and they are fleeing the country for better opportunities abroad.

[2] Putin has to contend with ethnic tensions in Central Asia as we have witnessed recently with the Russian anti-terrorist activities all over Dagastan, Sochi and elsewhere in Central Asia.    In addition,  millions of Central Asians arriving into Moscow,  St Petersburg and in other parts of the Russia have caused even more civil strife and increased ethnic tensions with a concomitant rise of Russian Neo-Fascist Nationalism.

[3] Putin  just lost his strategic  leverage over the Ukraine.  Now Putin has to be even more careful to maintain a stronger hand over his ex-wrestler thug,  Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in his ‘hit-man’ and ‘fixer’ for decades.

Sidebar: I have to share an incident that occurred with me and a companion almost a decade ago.   I was on my way to Warsaw, Poland on a train from Moscow, Russia.   The KGB knew that I was on the train.   At 4:30 am the train stopped in Brest-Litovsk, one thousand meters away from the Polish border.   Lukashenko’s security guards armed with machine guns arrested me and my companion,  interrogated me for hours then threw me off the train.   I finally found my way to Minsk where the kind Belarus citizens offered to help me.  I then boarded the train back to Moscow where I reamed the KGB for their cowardice behavior and warned them that they and Lukashenko would pay for this dastardly deed.   Riots erupted in Minsk several weeks later thanks to my brave professional colleagues in the US.

But really what makes me so certain that Putin is in very real trouble?

 

Its the economy STUPID!!!   Russia’s domestic economy is literally in the toilet.

  Since the 2009 Russian financial crisis,  Russia’s growth has been less than 1.5 % compared to a high GDP of 8% in several years ago.   Most of the growth came from inflated prices in the energy sector which was controlled by the Kremlin.   At the same time, Putin adjusted the price of his energy to his former satellite countries,  especially the Ukraine.   Despite the fact that the energy sector made up half of the Russia’s budget,  the country found itself in ECONOMIC STAGNATION where it still remains.    Foreign Investments in Russia have markedly decreased because of a worldwide mistrust of Putin and his corrupt political cronyism.    Private sector outflow of capital reached a peak of 48 Billion Dollars,  a ten year high. And the capital is still leaving Russia despites Putin’s personal threats against the Russian oligarchs [ex-KGB].

Finally the Central Bank Of Russia is in VERY SERIOUS TROUBLE---closing over 800 banks all over Russia for ‘irregularities’.    In a similar situation , The National Bank of Kazahkhstan has devalued its country’s currency creating a financial crisis in the Moscow-led Customs Union—Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Georgia, Central Asia.    Russia as regional power is waning if not evaporating.

  I tell you these things to explain why a revolution in one country,  like the Ukraine has a serious consequence beyond its own borders.

I stated in previous blogs that the President of the Ukraine would be forced out by a coup,  I also will predict that in time [not too long], Putin will find himself embroiled in domestic turmoil.   Putin will once again recognize the familiar contours of the old Bolshevik Revolution that brought his ancestors into the Soviet Union.   There will be civilian protests.   Next there will be the repression of the civilians by the Russian security forces.  The Russian military will be placed on stand by.    Putin will have to decide how much power he may have to exhort in order to maintain Law and Order.   Power in the Russian sense,  means only one thing.   Putin is a devotee of Stalinism.   Putin knows all too well how Stalin defined power: “Through the barrel of a gun!”

  The real question is how much force and intimidation will Putin exert before he is removed from power….by whatever means. 

  za vashee zda-ro-vye!

To your health,  Putin!

   

Venezuela Invokes Martial Law: “A State of Exception” ---Military Junta Possible as Venezuela Military Called into Quell Rioters in Caracas.

Venezuela like margarine has a ubiquitous presence in the USA.   Every time,  you see or fill up in a Citgo gas station,  you are directly putting money into the pocket of the Venezuelan dictators—Hugo Chavez [before he died] and President Nicolas Maduro [before he is about to die].

 

Why is that the case?

11% of US oil consumption comes directly from Venezuela.   Through Citgo,  Venezuela and the U.S. subsidiaries own eight U.S. refineries.   These particular refineries are highly prized by both Venezuela and the US because they are especially configured to refine HEAVY CRUDE which has a high sulfur content.  This heavy crude oil can then be sold on the world markets at a major discount to lighter crudes.   Like many geographically disparate areas around the world,  oil and gas play an exceedingly important part in the internal dynamics of Venezuela.

American oil and gas interests in countries like the Ukraine,  Iraq,  Afghanistan,  Saudi Arabia, UAE,  and Venezuela are often wrapped in all sorts of different narratives which include such blistering words as ‘democracy’, ’liberation’, ‘freedom’ and so on.

  You get the idea….

Venezuela is not really very much different than the other countries listed above.

  Several decades ago,  a lowly military officer was placed with our approval into the Chancellorship of the failing institution known as Venezuela.   He became so obnoxious and incompetent that our CIA saw it fit to attempt a coup against him.   True to form,  the coup failed.

  Chavez was mad,  rightfully so.    He continued on his dysfunctional course of leading the country to poverty,  corruption and stagnation.

However,  he left our oil interests alone.   Instead we found concern about our geopolitical interests not south of our border but in some 16,000 miles away in Iraq then Afghanistan.

For the most part of the past fifty years,  South America has been of little if no concern to American foreign policy interests.   With exception of our frisky CIA and some of our SOF that have been playing in the jungles and cities of Colombia, Chile, Bolivia etc.    In particular,  the CIA had a momentous burst of history when it arranged for the assassination of Chilean President Salvador Allende and put in his place,  General Pinochet.   However,  this South American shenanigans was not quite movie material for our CIA office embedded in Hollywood.   So these  ‘stand downs’ , ‘false flags’ and ‘assassinations’ in the Southern Hemisphere would not be dramatized for the movie audience,  like Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Homeland et. al.

  Southern Command,  the military headquarters located in Miami was at best an appendage to an inert military civilian South American foreign policy.   Also, SOCOM,  Special Operations Command,  located in Tampa, Florida was replete with sex, mischief and dinner parties.   General David Petraeus as SOCOM Commander and DCI, was literally ‘blown away‘  at the military command center of Iraq,  Afghanistan. 

Sidebar:  Why NOT locate SOCOM in Florida?  Beautiful beaches,  great fishing and gorgeous socialites married to busy doctors and four star military officers bereft of meaningful human companionship….all on our tax dollars! 

Now back to Venezuela.

  The present scenario of young students fighting the oppressive government is familiar.

Then what makes this scenario so different from the one in Libya,  Egypt,  Syria?
  Nothing!

  The nature of 21st century internet coverage by other young aficionados of revolutions have afforded a worldwide audience a chance to see the inevitable pattern of informal opposition to any ruling power,  irrespective of geographical location.    What one sees is that a few organized students start off with rocks bottles,  stones.  Next we see the initial confrontation against the police escalate to Molotov cocktails and then eventually lighting cars on fires and gunshot.   The sequence of events is inevitable because the drama of militant confrontation follows a very strict script.   If one deviates from it, the news disappears or the opposition snuffs out the protests.   However,   if the internet can sustain a conflict for the viewership for whatever Machiavellian or ‘altruistic’ reasons, then the viewership escalates exponentially.

Paddy Chayefsky’s brilliant film,  NETWORK,  presage decades ago the necessity for TV [then] to orchestrate or arrange for riots,  protests for whatever reasons , as a means of entertainment for the masses.

  Am I being facetious or callous?

  Bread and circus had always been a part of the historical imperative of political change,  whether by force or by consensus.   The only difference between Venezuela and the Ukraine is the military.   Once a leader calls upon the services of his/her military to suppress political dissent,  then all bets are off as to the outcome.   The military as in Egypt and Syria can and will support the ruling elite---which is usually the military.

  It is well to remember that in Venezuela,  it was the military that brought Chavez into power and keeps Maduro in his place.   But once you serve at the good graces of any military,  you should well remember,  the sullen words of Brutus:   “I come not to bury Caesar; but to praise him.”

Good luck Venezuela,  you will need it.

America is out for a South American Siesta------  and we will back----- never!

good explanation of the Ukraine's strategic importance, with the watch (10 mins)
Thanks Richard Presser!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6jHhzj08yQ&feature=youtu.be

Here is the AJ podcast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEz30l6jz6E&list=UUvsye7V9psc-APX6wV1twLg&feature=c4-overview