Wednesday, September 27, 2006

A Former US Ambassador To Thailand's View On The 2006 "Coup"

Darryl N. Johnson, a former US ambassador to Thailand (2001-2004), wrote an article about the coup. บทความภาษาไทย

He also commented about Thaksin situation in April 2006 here.

Monday, September 25, 2006

บทความควรอ่าน

วันรัฐประหารหรือวันเด็กกันแน่ โดย ชัยอนันต์ สมุทวณิช

นายกฯ-ครม.ต้องมีทุนจริยธรรมสูงไม่ใช่ทุนขายชาติเดิมๆ โดย โสภณ สุภาพงษ์

ได้โปรดเถิด...อย่าปล่อยให้ปฏิรูปหลงทาง โดย ปราโมทย์ นาครทรรพ คำเตือนที่ผมเห็นด้วยมาก

จากสนธิถึงสนธิ ฉบับที่ 1 โดย ผู้จัดการออนไลน์ และ เชื้อทรราชปฏิวัติเงียบ ส่งสมุนวางยา คปค. โดย ผู้จัดการรายวัน ผมก็ไม่รู้ว่ามีชัย ฤชุพันธุ์ วิษณุ เครืองาม และบวรศักดิ์ อุวรรณโณ เข้าไปทำอะไร ดูจากประวัติความเป็นเนติบริกร ทำให้ไม่น่าไว้วางใจอย่างยิ่ง ความสามารถที่ไม่มีจริยธรรมนั้นอันตรายอย่างยิ่ง ผมว่าขาดสามคนนี้ไป ประเทศไทยก็น่าจะมีคนเก่งทำได้เหมือนกัน

เปิดขุมข่ายทุนทักษิณ วัดใจคปค.ไล่เช็กบิล โดย ผู้จัดการรายวัน ดูความเสียหายที่กลุ่มทักษิณทำเอาไว้

และแน่นอน มาร์ชเทียนแห่งธรรม/ต่อพงษ์ โดย ต่อพงษ์ (อย่าลืมกดเข้าไปฟัง) ซึ่งผมขอคัดลอกบางส่วนมาดังนี้:

อ้อ อีกอย่างที่ต้องไม่ลืมนะครับ พวกสื่อทั้งหลายที่อ้างตัวว่าเป็นสื่อ พวกนี้แหล่ะตัวดีนักที่มีส่วนร่วมในการก่อสร้างความมั่นคงให้ระบอบทักษิณอย่างมากมาย พวกเขาเอาความเขลาเบาปัญญามาใส่ไว้ให้กับคนไทยเยอะแยะ จนหวิดจะนองเลือดหลายครั้งก็เพราะคนเหล่านี้...

อย่าลืมภาพของ วราภรณ์ สมพงษ์ ทางช่อง 3 ที่หลุดคำว่า เมื่อไหร่จะเลิกประท้วงกันสักที บ้านเมืองจะได้สงบได้ไหม
อย่าได้ลืมภาพของ สรยุทธ สุทัศนะจินดา ที่อาศัยความพลิ้วของตัวเองสร้างความชอบธรรมให้ระบอบทักษิณผ่านทางช่อง 3 และ ช่อง 9 โมเดิร์นไนน์
อย่าได้ลืม จักรพันธุ์ ยมจินดา แห่งช่อง 5 ว่าเคยใช้ฝีปากและความเชี่ยวชาญของงานโฆษกถล่มประชาชนที่ไม่เห็นด้วยอย่างเผ็ดร้อนตอนเช้าๆ
อย่าได้ลืม กิตติ สิงหาปัด ฐปณีย์ เอียดสินชัย แห่งไอทีวีว่า คนเหล่านี้เคยบิดเบือนและทำให้สังคมเข้าใจว่าระบอบทักษิณนี้ดีงามประเสริฐที่สุด ฯลฯ

อย่าได้ลืมว่าตลอด 1 ปีที่ผ่านมา สื่อพวกนี้เคยพร่ำออกหน้าจอ พยายามจะอาศัยพลังแห่งสื่อทีวีเพื่อให้ให้เรายุติการประท้วง เพื่อให้เราสามัคคีคนที่จาบจ้วงต่อสถาบันกษัตริย์อันเป็นที่รักยิ่งของเรามาแล้ว เพื่อให้เรายุติการทวงถามเรื่องการคอรัปชั่นของรัฐบาลทักษิณ และเคยที่จะกลบข่าวความแตกแยกในสังคมไทยที่เกิดขึ้นโดยน้ำมือของทรราชผู้นี้

Thursday, September 21, 2006

A Parable Starring Titus & Tatia, Or A Computer Nerd's Guide To Thailand 2006 Coup


Titus got his new operating system installed on his computer. The previous OS was crufty so he upgraded it to the latest version. He had high hope for this OS because it was designed by a team of famous computer scientists and engineers.

Titus went looking for an application software to run on his new OS to make his life easier and more productive. He read off the descriptions of a bunch of programs. A program called TRT caught his attention. It promised to do all the amazing things while consuming little or no resource. Of course, the claim did not make any sense since getting everything for nothing was impossible. However, Titus believed the claim because the CEO of the TRT company was a billionnaire with a Ph.D., and Titus believed that rich people don't lie and people with Ph.D. know what they are doing.

In the beginning, TRT program seemed to be doing its job. The interface was really flashy and nice. Everything looked wonderful. The online updates always told Titus of even more, even flashier features in the coming months. Titus was quite happy. There were small glitches here and there, but Titus thought they were random occurrences that just happened. Titus kept running the TRT program.

Unbeknown to Titus, TRT surreptitiously installed a rootkit, many viruses, a key-logger, and other malwares that consumed more and more resources while doing no useful work for Titus. The rootkit was particularly pernicious since it subverted and modified the OS into an essentially a proprietary TRT OS that did secret things beneficial to the TRT company such as siphoning financial and other personal information to the TRT company so that they could spend Titus's current money and borrowed even more money under Titus's name and used it to buy nice stuff for the TRT executives. The modified OS also lost the ability to detect and defend against any future TRT malwares.

Titus began to notice more and more glitches. His life became harder. He attributed this to his bad luck and "how the world normally works." Tatia also observed the strange behaviors of Titus's computer. She had seen these symptoms before on many types and brands of computers. They were results of rogue programs disguised as beneficial ones. Many computers were destroyed by such programs. Tatia told Titus that the computer was infected by the TRT program and she tried to remove it using various software means but failed. Meanwhile, the TRT program, sensing detection, accelerated its stealing of Titus's resources and told Titus that Tatia was destroying the computer. The TRT program also started selling off Titus's properties to highest bidders. Titus didn't know whether to believe Tatia or the TRT program, besides he could not do anything anyway since he did not know how to remove the TRT program. Besides, which other program he could replace TRT with? They all looked drab and boring and he suspected they would install another set of malwares anyway.

All these events were observed by the local computer technician. His job was to make sure that the computer under his responsibility kept running in a reasonable manner so that there would still be a computer at the end of the day. He stepped in, backed up the necessary data, then formatted the harddisk (bloodlessly, I might add), getting rid of the TRT program with its associated rootkit and malwares. He was in the process of installing a better and more secure OS. More importantly, Titus should have learned from this experience about how to protect his computer properly from malicious programs like the TRT program in the future.

Titus was waiting for a better OS to be set up. The computer technician told him it would take a bit of time but Titus would have the full control of his computer again soon. Titus and Tatia are waiting to see how it goes.

*** * **** * ***** *********
Now, make these replacements in the above story and you should understand Thailand's current situation a bit better:

Titus = General Thai population,
Titus's computer = Thailand,
Computers = Countries,
Operating System (OS) = Constitution + Legislative branch of the government,
Application software = Executive branch of the government,
TRT = Thai Rak Thai Party, a political party with apparently no decent principle or belief,
TRT CEO = Thakky Shocker, the ousted Billionaire Prime Minister,
Tatia = PAD (People's Alliance for Democracy) and many informed people,
Malware removal software = Peaceful rallies and lawsuits,
Local computer technician = CDR (The Council for Democratic Reform - the people who staged the coup) + cooperating governmental staff.
***
P.S. I'm quite amused by this news of the US condemning the bloodless coup. This is from the country that sent in troops to topple another country's government, killing tens of thousands of civilians, killing thousands of soldiers on both sides and did it all using fake reasons (such as the invisible 9/11 tie or WMD, etc.) Besides, these decisions were made by a leader who won in elections with growing evidences of foul plays using Diebold machines. Also, the biggest trade partner of the largest non-democratic country in the world should not be condemning other countries about an interim solution that should lead to a more democratic society in the future.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

My View On The Coup

I'm not worried about the coup. If necessary, people will rally against a coup that stays too long in power. This has been true for the past 50 years. I was very worried about Thaksin's abuse of power. Below is what I emailed my English speaking friends to calm them down a little bit:

Dear Friends,

You might be alarmed by the coup in Thailand last night. I can assure you that it was very peaceful and is a good thing for Thailand. Informed people of Thailand, numbered in tens of millions, have been trying to get Thaksin to step down for the past two years with peaceful means. Starting from the beginning of this year, there were at least 40 big rallies that 100,000 to 500,000 people joined to ask Thaksin to resign to no avail. I really hated sitting in the hot or wet streets or sleeping over in the park but I was prepared to go again when the new rally was scheduled today. (The rally is now canceled since it's not necessary anymore. I am very relieved! )

Five years ago, Thaksin was a telecom operator, already a billionaire. He won the elections with populist policy reminiscent of Juan Peron of Argentina and Ferdinand Marcos of the Phillippines. He overpromises most of the things and always comes up with new flashy projects to distract people while he and his cronies rob Thailand.

During the time that he's a prime mister, he:

1. Cheats in elections. Ballot stuffing, intimidation, killing opposition (under war-on-drug pretext, see below), buying votes are standard practices of his administration. He always proclaims that he is the democratically elected PM, but "election thief" would be a more accurate description.

2. Changes various laws to thwart the check-and-balance procedures so he can do things with impunity by putting his own people in the various independent auditing agencies that are supposed to watch corruptions.

3. Dominates the boards of various telecom, energy, logistics state enterprises with his men and makes those enterprises that compete with his business much weaker so that he could either take them over or destroy them.

4. Signs various FTAs (free trade agreements) with various countries without disclosing the terms in the parliament (so that the terms can be reviewed by the public) before the deals are done. It seems that for all the FTAs, he has the signing countries buy his regional telecome services, especially the service involving IPStar (a broadband geosynchronous satellite he owned.)

5. Tries to setup various special economic zones with laws that greatly benefit his and his friends' businesses, effectively create sub-countries within Thailand.

6. Allows rampant human right violations to happen. In the south, where a large fraction of the population is Muslim, there are a lot of police-state intimidation actions and killings of civilians. Under his "war-on-drug" pretext, thousands of people were killed without due process. No meaningful investigation into their deaths was performed. A prominent civil-right lawyer was kidnapped and disappeared when he raised this human right issue.

7. Practices extreme cronyism. His friends and relatives are put into various positions to control and benefit from all business.

8. Hides his assets against the laws. Most likely to do insider trading and manipulate the stock market.

9. Distorts the free operation of news media. News organizations and people who reported unfavorable news about him or his business got sued for billions of baht. News organizations who reported his propagandas got lavished with lots and lots of ads money from him and his cronies. Free broadcast TVs were controlled by his administration.

I could go on and on, but I think any one of the above should disqualify him from his office already.

You can find out more about the guy at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaksin (or for a more insider-joke type page: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Thaksin_Shinawatra )

Here are my past posts about Thaksin:

An open letter to all my Singaporean friends when I found out that Singapore's administration seemed to be colluding with Thaksin in ripping off Thailand: http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2006/03/dear-singaporean-friends.html

Thaksin tried to fake a news of his assassination so that he can put his soldiers in power: http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2006/08/inept-bombing-attempt-or-clumsily.html

Gandhi was right. I was wrong to doubt him: http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2005/06/gandhis-quote-1.html

I was relieved when I could hear Thailand's Democracy Radio again. http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2005/06/democracy-radio-is-back.html

...Democracy Radio was attacked again. http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2005/06/democray-radio-under-attack.html

An honest investigator was pressured out of her job (but she got back her job a year later when the King didn't sign an endorsement of her replacement for a really long time.): http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2005/09/corruption-thailands-iron-lady-my.html

Thailand's Corruption Index: http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2006/01/corruption-index-thailand-government.html

You know I must have felt pretty hopeless when I had to draw some inspiration from a fiction (my favorite part from The Lord of the Rings): http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2006/02/4-2549.html

A website called Corruption Watch was blocked. It is in Thai and lists many of the stinking corruption situations in Thailand: http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2006/02/corruptionwatchnet-is-blocked.html

I was preparing for the unlikely event that I could not teach my children, so I wrote a small list for my wife and relatives: http://kostuff.blogspot.com/2006/02/things-to-teach-my-children-version-10.html

If you are still with me this far, don't worry about us in Thailand. Normal people are going on with their lives. Crooks are scrambling to get away from courts and jails. Many civilian actually took pictures of themselves with the tanks and soldiers. I didn't see any soldiers or weapons along the way from my house to my office (12 km stretch.) I observed in the newspapers, TVs, and mobile phone clips that the soldiers didn't load their rifles with magazines yet. I think this coup is one of the most mellow coups ever in the history!

Cheers,

Ko

Thaksin Virus Is Gone!!!

It's a very good news to hear that Thaksin is no longer the Prime Minister of Thailand.

Some of my friends from the US might think that having a military coup to topple Thaksin is a step backward for Thailand's democracy. However, I would like to point out that Thaksin's massive abuse of power, destruction of check-and-balance mechanisms, control of media propagandas, and election frauds, have already damaged Thailand's democracy to the ground. Besides, the US has a bigger problem with Bush's reign.

Now, the people of Thailand should be stronger and more self-reliant in fighting corruption and building a better society. We emerged from Thaksin crisis a stronger people :-)

It's great that the virus didn't overwhelm the immune system.