Manufacturing Dissent: US NGO's Build Opposition in Thailand

June 9, 2018 New Eastern Outlook

Should decidedly anti-British government organisations be found across the United Kingdom to be funded and directed by Russians, we could only imagine the reaction. Even whispers of hints of Russian influence have resulted in legislation, sanctions and quite literally years of punditry warning of the Kremlin's insidious reach.

When the tables are turned, it is clear London, Washington and Brussels understand the inappropriateness of one nation interfering in the internal affairs of another.

Yet this acute awareness has not informed US or European foreign policy, including components of what could be called "soft power," or influence operations. While soft power implies non-coercion, in practice it is always used in conjunction with coercive means toward exacting concessions from targeted nations.

Hiding US Funding 

In the Southeast Asian Kingdom of Thailand, a growing army of such influence operations has formed the foundation of an opposition to the current government. It is an opposition that without its current funding and support from abroad otherwise would not exist.

Just as was done for years against nations like Syria, Libya, Ukraine and Egypt (nations to have recently suffered or nearly suffered the impact of Western-sponsored regime change), Thailand faces long-term interference in its internal affairs as a direct result of these influence operations.

The opposition in Thailand itself is minute and unpopular. However the organisations supporting them enjoy a veneer of credibility owed primarily to their efforts to obfuscate from audiences their foreign funding and their actual role in organising and leading the opposition.

One example can be seen in the local English-language newspaper, the Bangkok Post. Its article, "The fight for basic rights," interviews the American founders of a supposed nongovernmental organisation called, "Fortify Rights." Fortify Rights has consistently used its platform to support anti-government protests under the pretext of defending human rights.

Nowhere in the interview is Matthew and Amy Smith asked where their money comes from and how, as Americans, it is their moral imperative to involve themselves in critical issues faced by Asia.

US Regime Change Targets Thailand

May 12, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - While US-led regime change in Syria continues to make headlines, it is important for the public to be aware and stay ahead of other US-led campaigns to target, destabilise and overthrow the political orders of other nations around the globe.

Observers of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine have warned about potential violence as the US continues arming its proxies and their dangerous ultra-right militant groups in Kiev. Analysts have also been covering US-sponsored political destabilisation being fomented in Armenia.

US funding and support alongside its Canadian and European allies in Southeast Asia is also on the rise. Protests planned throughout May in Thailand's capital Bangkok are openly aimed at regime change.

US regime change operations can be broken down into several categories; Western media operations, US-funded local media operations, US-backed political parties, US-backed street fronts, US-funded academia and US-funded "human rights" advocates. Identifying them before Thailand's political crisis grabs international headlines provides analysts and commentators with a guide to facts that will almost certainly be omitted from mainstream reporting.

Western Media Operations in Thailand 

The centre of Western media operations in Thailand is best represented by the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT). It serves as the physical headquarters of many of the West's most prominent media organisations including:

British state media front, the BBC;
Reuters;
NBC;
Qatar state media outlet Al Jazeera;
the Financial Times;
NBC;
ABC and;
many others.  

Reuters and the BBC in particular pursue a transparently bias agenda in support of political destabilisation and regime change in Thailand. Their narratives are unquestioningly repeated throughout many other US and European media platforms, big and small.

Their role in covering up the abuses of the previous and now ousted Thai regime of Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck Shinawatra while attacking and undermining the institutions that finally began dismantling their political machinery has played a central role in perpetuating Thailand's ongoing political crisis.

US Human Rights Racket Defends Thailand's Joseph Goebbels

May 6, 2018 New Eastern Outlook  

The US and European-funded human rights racket comprised of organisations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and myriad fronts funded by the United States government via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have helped promote some of the worst human rights abuses in recent human history.

This includes their role in selling the US-led NATO assault on Libya in 2011 and their continued role in justifying US-led military intervention in Syria. "Human rights" have been cited by the US and its European partners during NATO's assault on Serbia, among the first of the so-called "humanitarian wars."

Of course, by citing "human rights," the US is able to paper over the very inhumanity the opposition groups it supports are carrying out, or the injustice of the destabilisation and destruction the US is attempting to perpetrate.

And while Washington's systematic destruction of the Middle East has taken centre stage among international headlines, the US is also using similar tactics to pressure nations elsewhere around the globe, including Southeast Asia's Thailand.

To the West, An "Activist" 

When Somyot Prueksakasemsuk was released from prison after some 7 years behind bars, the US and European media and their partners in Thailand's media hailed the release of what they portrayed as an "activist" and "political prisoner."

The Reuters in its article titled, "Thailand frees former magazine editor previously imprisoned for insulting monarchy," would claim:

A high profile Thai activist and former magazine editor imprisoned for insulting the country’s monarchy vowed on Monday to keep pressing his call for democracy after he was released from prison.

The article would also mention:

Mr Somyot, who was the editor of a political magazine, Voice of Taksin, had been imprisoned in 2013 for 10 years under Thailand’s lese-majeste law, but the Supreme Court reduced his sentence in 2017.

For unwitting readers, they would suspect this was another simple case of a draconian dictatorship in the developing world unjustly incarcerating progressive political activists.

In reality, Reuters intentionally omitted any details about the publication Somyot was the editor of, "Voice of Taksin."

US Decries Chinese High-Speed Rail in Laos

April 24, 2018 New Eastern Outlook  

China's plans to build high-speed rail connecting Kunming in its Yunnan province with the rest of Southeast Asia are already underway. In the landlocked nation of Laos, tunnels and bridges are already under construction.

The United States has, in general, condemned China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) sweeping infrastructure programme, with US and European policy circles accusing Beijing of what they call "debt trap diplomacy."

Quartz in an article titled, "Eight countries in danger of falling into China’s “debt trap”," would claim:

Beijing “encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices, and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty, denying them their long-term, self-sustaining growth,” said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 6. “Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap, but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries,” he added.

The report continued, stating:

Some call this “debt-trap diplomacy“: Offer the honey of cheap infrastructure loans, with the sting of default coming if smaller economies can’t generate enough free cash to pay their interest down.

While nations should protect themselves from the dangers of being indebted to foreign interests, the US and supposedly international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are hardly innocent of wielding debt as a geopolitical weapon themselves.

Future of Asia: China's Economic Opportunities or America's Perpetual Conflict?

April 21, 2018 New Eastern Outlook 

The US recently announced possible plans to deploy thousands of addition US Marines to East Asia as part of the recently revealed 2018 National Security Strategy which designates China along with Russia as the US Department of Defence's "principal priorities."

The Business Insider in its article, "The US is considering sending heavily armed Marines to Asia to counter China," would state:

The possible MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit] deployments could reassure Asian allies that the US is not a waning power in the region, something that has become a concern for partners in the Indo-Pacific.

However, if a nation needs to arrange a token redeployment to convince its allies it isn't a waning power, such gestures seem to only confirm such suspicions.

China is the New "Threat"  

Within the pages of the 2018 National Security Strategy, the US has justified its increasingly direct, adversarial posture towards China by claiming:

China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea.

The document continues:

China is leveraging military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce neighboring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantage. As China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.

The paper also makes mention of what it calls an "international order," a reoccurring theme throughout several decades of US policy papers. While this particular paper claims it is "free and open" and "rules-based," other papers have more candidly described it.

Prolific US policymaker and neoconservative pro-war commentator Robert Kagan would claim:

The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it. 

In other words, the "international order" is merely the world as the US sees fit. US policy in Asia, attempting to maintain hegemony in a region a literal ocean away from its own shores validates Kagan's interpretation of what "international order" actually means. It is neither "free and open" nor "rules-based" unless it is understood that the world is considered "free and open" for Washington to do with as it pleases, with "rules" used only to constrain the actions of others in order to prevent competition.

Vietnam Locks up US-funded Agitators

April 11, 2018 New Eastern Outlook  

Vietnam has tried and imprisoned several members of a US-funded network engaged in sedition across the country. The move follows  trials and prison terms handed out earlier this year for other US-funded operatives meddling in Vietnam's internal political affairs. 

The prison terms for agents of US-funded political meddling in Vietnam come as the US and its European allies continue pushing accusations of Russian meddling. However, unlike the US and Europe's accusations against Russia, agents of US-funded sedition in Vietnam are exposed by extensive evidence, much of which comes from the US government itself. 

The BBC in its April 6, 2018 article, "Nguyen Van Dai: Vietnam jails activist lawyer and five others," would claim:

Six prominent Vietnamese activists have received heavy prison sentences on charges of "attempting to overthrow" the country's communist government. 

Lawyer Nguyen Van Dai was sentenced to 15 years, while the other defendants were jailed for between seven and 12 years, relatives said on Thursday.

The article mentions Nguyen Van Dai and his fellow defendants' role in founding the so-called "Brotherhood for Democracy."

Deutsche Welle in its article, "Vietnamese human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai among six given jail terms," adds that:

Dai founded the Committee for Human Rights in Vietnam in 2006 and was sentenced to five years in jail in 2007 for spreading propaganda against the government. While his term was reduced to four years on appeal, his lawyer's license was revoked. 

After his release in 2011, Dai co-founded the Brotherhood for Democracy network in 2013. It included other, formerly jailed dissidents advocating via social media for human rights throughout Vietnam.

DW would also report (our emphasis):

They were all accused of "activities aimed at overthrowing the people's government," according to the indictment issued by the Supreme People's Procuracy in Hanoi last December. The charges included carrying out human rights training, calling for multi-party democracy and receiving funding from foreign groups.

The BBC, DW and other US and European media organisations went through extensive efforts to avoid mentioning US training, funding and other forms of support provided to Nguyen Van Dai and other recently arrested and jailed "activists." The defendants' various website also fail to directly and openly disclose their funding.

However, admissions have been inadvertently made.

Exposing and Stopping the Danger of US "Soft Power"

March 21, 2018 New Eastern Outlook  

US soft power is included in US policy papers and promoted by US politicians and diplomats on a regular basis. It is also included as the admitted purpose of US, UK and European international programmes like Chevening and Fulbright scholarships.

Foreign Affairs magazine, published by big-business-funded US policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, would reveal in a review of Joseph Nye's book, "Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics," that (my emphasis):

...the term "soft power" -- the ability of a country to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion -- is now widely invoked in foreign policy debates.

The United States can dominate others, but it has also excelled in projecting soft power, with the help of its companies, foundations, universities, churches, and other institutions of civil society; U.S. culture, ideals, and values have been extraordinarily important in helping Washington attract partners and supporters.

And in reality, US domination and its soft power work together to create what is modern day empire and the foundation of US global hegemony.

The United States' many organisations, from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to its Young Leaders Initiatives targeting the Americas (Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative/YLAI), Africa (Young African Leaders Initiative/YALI) and Southeast Asia (Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative/YSELAI), all seek to indoctrinate and co-opt the populations of targeted nations to serve the interests of Wall Street and Washington rather than their own.

While the US does this often under the guise of promoting "democracy," it is clearly engaged in precisely the opposite. While democracy is generally understood as a process of self-determination, through US soft power, the process is co-opted and abused to allow Wall Street and Washington to determine the policies and direction a targeted nation takes rather than its own people.