Reckless statements

re: "DSI: Grounds to charge GT200 distributors" (BP, September 28)

Dear editor,

Whilst it is not inappropriate that some businesses connected with the import and distribution of the  GT200, which certainly points reliably to gross incompetence, to fraud, and perhaps to corruption, have been found guilty and that others will be tried, some of the official responses manifest a disturbing recklessness.

When defence minister Prawit Wongsuwon insists that "the devices had been tested and found working at the time of purchase," this is tantamount to an admission of gross incompetence by the authorities who were responsible for and accepted that testing. A half competent high school student in a STEM program could have designed a double-blind test that would have proven the devices worthless. Gross incompetence is the least awful possibility that is plausible.

Even more reckless is the statement by a member of the anti-corruption commission, who loftily intones that the expensive pieces of worthless plastic with a cheap antenna are as valuable as a Buddhist amulet, that "The equipment, even though it may not be efficient, has a high morale value."  Although this defence of the indefensible by an official from the anti-corruption commission surely deserves the loan of a gold Rolex, since relying on "the equipment" would seem to have posed an actual threat to national security, not to mention reckless endangerment of the lives of conscript soldiers on the ground who blindly relied on it based on nothing more than the unfounded word of their superior officers, this must also appear suspiciously like dereliction of duty to exercise proper oversight, the sort of failure that led to former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra being sentenced to prison. Or are some held to a different standard, one infallibly determined by the devotees of those magical GT200s?

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on September 30, 2018, under the title "Reckless statements" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1549262/reckless-statements
  

Land of the unfree

re: "Time to lift rights bans" (Editorial, September 17)

Dear editor,

Whilst the Bangkok Post is doubtless sincere in the editorial "Time to lift rights bans " (September 17), that sincerity clearly fails to understand some basic governing principles of the Thai nation.

First. although some were duty bound on May 22, 2014 to cancel the democratic constitutional monarchy that had previously existed, which cancellation repeated a dozen equally well-intended precedents in Thai modern history, such wickedness as peacefully calling for discussion of the political structure of the Thai nation is not to be permitted less exemplary Thai citizens.

If all Thai people were respected as though they had dignity as free persons, as if they were endowed with basic human rights such as free speech to peacefully state an opinion on matters of national importance, they might very well start thinking that they are in fact a free people entitled to a democratic voice in their nation's affairs, thereby undoing the achievements of the example-setting politicians who have governed since May 2014 after they appointed themselves the ruling politicians of the Thai state that had suddenly been reformed into something very other than a democratic constitutional monarchy. Such an unwarranted aspiration to liberty by the Thai masses will never do. What, after all, was the point of the coup if not to stamp out that unThai notion that Thai people are free, that they have basic human rights consistent with a constitutional monarchy that respects democratic principle?

Naturally, some few do have a duty to shoulder the burden of freedom; but this duty should be limited to those who make up the rule of law to help the rest maintain their proper places, where tradition allows them the privilege of serving the nation and its generous abundance of army generals diligently protecting the interests of those select Thais who are apparently free to say and do whatever they want, including giving themselves and loyal allies both actual and de facto amnesties in case the laws has loop holes that might allow the better sort to be treated as the poorer type, an aberration not to be borne.

It is not, after all, as though the word "Thai" looked anything remotely like the word "free": they don't even share a single letter! 

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on September 19, 2018, under the title "Land of the unfree" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1542614/land-of-the-unfree
  

Generals live off the people

re: "Too many generals" (PostBag, August 3)

Dear editor,
Johnny Waters ("Too many generals". PostBag, September 3) is to be commended for a timely reminder of a blatant example of corruption in Thailand's body politic. No one doubts that some civil politicians have been seriously corrupt, but at least they did not make up rule of law to whitewash anything on the scale of the amazing number of army generals living off the Thai people in return for doing little more than furthering the vested interested of army generals and their allies intent on maintaining a status quo that appears to primarily benefit the excess of army generals and the colluding oligarchy that likes things the way they have been for too long, however many coups it takes to keep things that way.

A Thai government genuinely intent on reform to eradicate corruption would not promote such an example to the rest of Thai society. 

Nor is there is any need to imagine the outcry had Thaksin sought to whitewash his corruption by a similar legal whitewash, at least not after he had selfishly betrayed the oligarchy that had until then lauded him as one of its own favoured poster boys.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on September 9, 2018, under the title "Generals live off the people" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1536782/herbicide-not-so-harmless