
US State Department's Daniel Russel, a chief proponents of the US
"Pivot to Asia" strategy aimed at using Southeast Asian nations as client
states to encircle and contain China, recently made comments condemning
Thailand's attempts to reign in a notorious criminal family - one the US so happens to have backed for the past decade.
First in Hong Kong, now in Thailand, ongoing US plans to install proxy regimes to extend hegemony across Asia-Pacific have fallen into disarray.
The latest row comes after US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel made comments condemning the recent coup that first deposed, then saw the impeachment of ex-Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra over a vast array of corruption and abuse of power charges.
Russel was quoted by an official US State Department transcript of a speech he gave in Thailand as saying:
...a narrow, restricted process -- carries the risk of leaving many Thai citizens feeling that they've been excluded from the political process.
That's the reason why we continue to advocate for a broader and more inclusive political process that allows all sectors of society to feel represented, to feel that their voices are being heard. I'd add that the perception of fairness is also extremely important and although this is being pretty blunt, when an elected leader is removed from office, is deposed, then impeached by the authorities -- the same authorities that conducted the coup -- and then when a political leader is targeted with criminal charges at a time when the basic democratic processes and institutions in the country are interrupted, the international community is going to be left with the impression that these steps could in fact be politically driven.Russel's comments about "Thai citizens feeling that they've been excluded" is the preamble Shinawatra's own political front often uses to justify acts of terrorism and armed insurrection that have left hundreds of people dead. It is also a familiar line used to justify engineered US-backed violence in other nations aimed at regime change.
Russel's claims that Shinawatra's criminal charges were "politically driven" beg belief. For the US to defend a prime minister openly serving as a proxy for a convicted criminal hiding abroad, and who presided over a regime that recklessly destroyed the economy while literally murdering its political opponents in the streets, is a clear breach of diplomatic protocol and unbecoming of the alleged purpose of the US State Department itself.
Indeed, the US State Department exists to represent the will of the American people abroad, not to impose it upon others.
The Thai government quickly condemned the comments, and a large public backlash followed, aimed at what is now increasingly seen as direct US meddling in Thailand's internal affairs.













Comment: Terrorism hits Thailand: Ousted regime that vowed violent reprisals finally follows through