The Blue State

Thai student group against coup marches in streets

The military leaders that staged the coup in Thailand are now banning political meetings of five or more people, and are shutting off all media that can get out, including text messaging.  This is what military rule looks like.  But a pro-democracy student group is resisting.

Yesterday I wrote about the political theory behind why blind trust for a military-led coup is bad for democracy.  My column referred to the bloodless military coup on September 19th that overthrew the Prime Minister of Thailand while he was in New York.  To summarize, I said the following:

Democracy isn't perfect, but it is much better than handing overcomplete authority to a military force that, unlike an elected body,has no incentive other than possibly its own idealism to serve thepeople's best interest.  I am sorry to all you idealists out there. But when a governmental system relies solely on idealistic trust, asopposed to a realistic power structure that forcesleaders to serve the people, then that system is taking a giant leap offaith.  In that leap of faith, all that it takes is one non-idealistofficial in the government who uses his power as a means to an end, aspower politics usually works, to completely consolidate authority andremove populist-friendly laws to his liking.

Today, young educated adults in Thailand are realizing precisely how dangerous it is to let their military consolidate power in weakened democracy.  A student group is trying to take back the streets:

Using the worldwide web, the group - calling itself the 19 SeptemberNetwork against Coup d'Etat - has labelled the military overthrow ofthe Thaksin administration as the death of democracy in the troubledSouth-East Asian nation.

"You can't build democracy by destroying it," the group reportedly said in a statement.

The group was planning to meet peacefully in Bangkok tonight to protest against Tuesday night's coup.

Political meetings of five or more people are now banned in Thailand under hardline military law.

While coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin has been thanked forthe bloodless nature of the takeover, any sign of dissent has beenswiftly dealt with by the military.

The military has also sought to impose sweeping bans on the media,affecting web-sites, text messaging and even the broadcasting ofopinions relating to the coup.

Please e-mail the U.S. State Department and tell them to put pressure on Thailand's new self-installed head of state, and urge for immediate elections.

Helping Lebanon before the chaos was a lost opportunity

As countries beg Hezbollah to stop launching rockets into Israel, maybe the White House needs to consider what would have happened if the U.S. gave money to prop up the pro-western government in Lebanon before all this went down?  Last year, if you recall, Syria lost control over Lebanon.  They were forced out as a pro-western revolution took shape. 

This was such a great opportunity for the United States.  Instead of leaving the new democracy to struggle for itself, we could have lended aid to it.  But no, our attention was diverted elsewhere.  During that entire year before this Mideast violence all of a sudden erupted, the United States spent $9 billion per month in Iraq.  Think if just half of that monthly money went to Lebanon.  Think how it could have been used to strengthen their infrastructure, put kids in school, kick gangs off the streets, and force Hezbollah back into Syria.

This is what happens when we look at Iraq and lose focus of everything else.  While our backs have been turned, Iran and North Korea are expanding their nuclear programs.  Hamas won majority in the Palestinian cabinet.  Even though we have been in Iraq, the place is in the midst of a civil war.  Meanwhile, Lebanon was just sitting there by itself without any help, even though its neighboring country is Syria.  What were we thinking?

After this Middle East conflict is over, if Syria has not reclaimed Lebanon, then we need to help the pro-western Lebanese government.  When President says he wants to protect democracy around the world, he had better mean it.
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Other blogs writing about this issue: Gorilla's Guides, Democratic Space, Poetic Remi, Global Justice Online, The Glass House.

Contradicting Democracy: Rumsfeld's Pentagon to merely oversee disinformation campaign in Iraq

Finally, after months and months of debating inside the Pentagon, the defense agency issued a report insisting that it should no longer pay Iraqi journalists to insert propaganda into Iraqi newspapers because it goes against the democratic belief in free press.

But then the report contradicted itself by concluding that private companies head the disinformation effort instead:

According to a summary of the investigation led byRear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk, the Pentagon failed to consider whetherthe payments would "undermine the concept of a free press in Iraq," andmust now implement procedures to "ensure proper oversight" of theprivate contractors leading the propaganda effort.

This appears to be a reference to the Lincoln Group,a Washington-based firm that, according to press reports last fall, waspaid to plant articles in Iraqi newspapers without revealing thestories were written by the military. The Lincoln Group also paid someIraqi journalists directly for favorable press.

The mere "oversight of contractors leading the propaganda effort" is another way of saying that the propaganda effort will continue.  The bottom line is that our tax dollars will continue to fund disinformation efforts in what we are trying to make a thriving democracy -- what a paradox!

Sadly, the Pentagon leadership fails to understand what makes a democracy in the first place.  A democracy starts from the ground-up, not from the disinformants-down.  When you get into the position of trying to convince a country to become a democracy, you know that you are in real trouble.  If Donald Rumsfeld ever read the great political philosopher John Locke, he would have learned that the most successful civil government is not one where the consent to rule is merely supplied, but instead it is one where the consent to rule is demanded by the people.

Google's undemocratic actions might signal turning point in history

This morning, Google company CEO Eric Schmidt tried to justify their cooperation with Chinese censorship laws:

"We believe that the decision that we made to follow the law in China was absolutely the right one...I think it's arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are justbeginning to operate and tell that country how to operate."

What ever happened to the ideal that American businesses were to use capitalistic means throughout the world to influence democratic reforms?  What is going on today with Google signals that this notion about capitalism and democracy might regrettably be a Cold War theme.  Since when did political theory indicate that companies using free markets would help shield unfree law in other countries?  Or, maybe it has to do with a lack of regulation on the part of the United States government -- not preventing U.S. companies from doing what Google is engaging in with the Chinese.  Quite possibly, it could be a little bit of both.  Nonetheless, Google's actions might signal a turning point.  Today, U.S. businesses are adapting to foreign governments, instead of making foreign governments adapting to free market ideals like they should.

Iraq five years from now

A column in the New York Times points to the alarming truth that Bush's foreign policy since 9/11 has actually had an opposite impact on democracy than intended:

..the political rise of Islamists, the chaos in Iraq, the newfoundShiite power in Iraq with its implication for growing Iranianinfluence, and the sense among some rulers that they can wait out theend of the Bush administration have put the brakes on democratization.

"Itfeels like everything is going back to the bad old days, as if we neverwent through any changes at all," said Sulaiman al-Hattlan, editor inchief of Forbes Arabia and a prominent Saudi columnist and advocate."Everyone is convinced now that there was no serious or genuine beliefin change from the governments. It was just a reaction to pressure bythe international media and the U.S."

Yesterday's Baltimore Sun newspaper referred to a report from the International Crisis Group about the affect that pro-Iranian Shiite dominance will have on future Iraq:

A recent report by the International Crisis Group found that Shiiteinfluence in the region "is fast becoming the paramount concern. Thisperception triggered Jordan's King Abdullah's warning ... that if Iraqwere to be controlled by pro-Iranian parties, the result might be a'crescent' of dominant Shiite movements and governments stretching fromLebanon through Syria, Iran and Iraq to the Gulf."

The link between Shiites in Iraq to the government of Iran is debatable among different circles of academia.  But most importantly, what we might have eventually is an ethnic civil war that will spill over into other parts of the Middle East, which as I wrote in a column last August could have an enormous impact on the stability of oil -- eventually hurting the wallets of American consumers.  Just think: all of this because of terrible postwar planning.  What a shame.