So much for that scuba trip!
I just hope they can keep exporting their food.
Just got an email from a friend who does a political blog in Thailand. She’ll be updating it soon in English.
She says that as far she knows, a coup is going on at the moment and that PM Thaksin Shinawatra will be deposed shortly. People are waiting for the commander of the army to make a televised announcement.
Troy
Was this expected? Were there signs? Is this just a subset of Military dissidence? He was a pretty popular, if controversial figure in Thai politics for some time now.
There has been military unhappiness with Thaksin related to his inability to deal with unrest in the south. Thailand has a history of tense civilian/military relations, and Thaksin accused the army of trying to kill him a few weeks ago.
Troy
Looks like they’ve finished already. After 18 in 70 or so years, they are getting good at this.
Well, that’s just fucking great. You know how much stock I have in Childlove Tours, Inc? I’m probably going to lose twenty grand today.
From articles linked on the BBC site, it looks like the police arrested some senior military officers and charged them with planning an assasination of the PM. they said they found a car bomb in one of their trunks. Sounds like the pressure built and now it’s resulted in a coup.
Fear not, the bars and nightclubs have stayed open. The touristy places seem not to be affected.
Worry not, western liberal democrats: the Thai word for “military coup” is the same as the one for “cabinet reshuffle.”
Update: It appears the coup was actually in England:
So dreadfully sorry, excuse me, excuse me, pardon me, don’t mind the tanks, would you like some cake? Fondant fancy, perhaps?
Where will Rush go for his Oxycontin fueled man-boy-love?
What Rob said.
I got up this morning and was paging through email when one of those CNN Breaking News alerts came up. As I read the words ‘Tanks in the streets of…’, I had a brief instant where I thought we’d rolled into Iran.
But, phew, it was just some crazy Thai dudes.
-Tom
Sounds like a thoroughly polite dustup.
I heard about this on the Colbert Report last night, where it was brought up by way of the Thailand UN reps finding out about it during Bush’s speech. Man, that must’ve been weird for those guys, huh? What do you do in that situation?
Does it seem kinda weird that the White House hasn’t come out and said anything about this? I mean, this is a president who keeps saying he’s intent on delivering Democracy to the world at a gunpoint, and yet it seems a bit hypocritical that a democratically-elected leader of a supposedly friendly nation gets tossed out by his military, and not a word?
It’s this kind of crap that makes the Middle East suspect our motives. “We want you to have Democracy, unless it’s a Democracy we don’t like (aka Hugo Chavez, Hamas,)…” Now, keep in mind, Chavez is a feckless thug and an opportunist, but it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t gets more votes than the other guy, and that’s the definition of democracy, last time I checked.
He got the memo but didn’t believe it.
It’s a coup d’éthai.
Jesus Roger, maybe you’d better just get your coat.