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Survey finds two-thirds oppose military spending


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12 minutes ago, scorecard said:

Ask around, you will find many low ranking military guys (Army, Navy, A. Force, regular and conscripts) assigned permanently to one officer or one house and others on rotating rosters, full-day, half day, etc.

 

Some years back in our old Bkk condo there was a high level Navy guy and his Thai wife (2 people only), their huge condo was all of one side of the building on a high floor, 6 young navy guys lived-in permanently; to clean, cook, wait on the dining table, drive, wash several cars and more, plus the wife owned a travel company and 1 of the 6 worked all day on clerical duties at her office. 

 

She treated all of them like they were dogs. 

 

 

Sure, I'm certain that happens, just as senior officers in the British army each still have a batman.

 

Lest we should stray too far from the subject.....a sizeable and well equipped army is essential for Thailand, exactly how big is debatable. But to repeat: there's almost 5,000 kms of land border and 2,800 kms of sea border that must be patrolled. The neighbours on all sides can be bad guys at times and there is recent evidence of skirmishes and fighting on the long border with Myanmar, fighting between Keren separatists, Burmese regulars, Shan state and goodness knows how many more self interested groups. Drug production and transhipment, people smuggling and separatist guerilla groups are all significant problems requiring military intervention - the border with Laos is known to contain drug factories, the border with Myanmar has multiple issues and the border with Cambodia is the source of gun fights from time to time.... if the army doesn't take responsibility for tackling those problems, who will.

 

Conscription is a bit of a red herring in this debate....the military budget either pays for conscripts or it pays for regular army soldiers, the overall number of soldiers doesn't reduce proportionately just because conscription ceases....we each have different views on whether conscription is good or not, I say it does no harm and can be beneficial.

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On 10/21/2019 at 7:55 PM, saengd said:

Sure, I'm certain that happens, just as senior officers in the British army each still have a batman.

 

Lest we should stray too far from the subject.....a sizeable and well equipped army is essential for Thailand, exactly how big is debatable. But to repeat: there's almost 5,000 kms of land border and 2,800 kms of sea border that must be patrolled. The neighbours on all sides can be bad guys at times and there is recent evidence of skirmishes and fighting on the long border with Myanmar, fighting between Keren separatists, Burmese regulars, Shan state and goodness knows how many more self interested groups. Drug production and transhipment, people smuggling and separatist guerilla groups are all significant problems requiring military intervention - the border with Laos is known to contain drug factories, the border with Myanmar has multiple issues and the border with Cambodia is the source of gun fights from time to time.... if the army doesn't take responsibility for tackling those problems, who will.

 

Conscription is a bit of a red herring in this debate....the military budget either pays for conscripts or it pays for regular army soldiers, the overall number of soldiers doesn't reduce proportionately just because conscription ceases....we each have different views on whether conscription is good or not, I say it does no harm and can be beneficial.

WRONG.  It is harmful to those and their families who have no choice in the matter.   If the Thai army cannot woo volunteers, let them "reform" as the fascists who call themselves democrats use to say. 

 

You make it out like Thailand is under siege.  Its not.  Drugs are a social problem.  Do you think the army is equipped to handle that?  How has the military handled vehicular deaths in the last six years, the economy or anything else?  How has it handled teen pregnancies or STDs?  If the answer is well, then they should teach the public sector.  You do not want an army in the public sector.  The Shans, Cambodians and Burmese are not looking to invade.    The Shans do have nice food though ????

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12 hours ago, yellowboat said:

WRONG.  It is harmful to those and their families who have no choice in the matter.   If the Thai army cannot woo volunteers, let them "reform" as the fascists who call themselves democrats use to say. 

 

You make it out like Thailand is under siege.  Its not.  Drugs are a social problem.  Do you think the army is equipped to handle that?  How has the military handled vehicular deaths in the last six years, the economy or anything else?  How has it handled teen pregnancies or STDs?  If the answer is well, then they should teach the public sector.  You do not want an army in the public sector.  The Shans, Cambodians and Burmese are not looking to invade.    The Shans do have nice food though ????

Oh deary me!

 

The role of the army versus the police and other agencies is very clear, the army is not responsible (in any country on the planet) for controlling STD's, road traffic accident fatality rates, unwanted pregnancies, public education or the management of the Thai economy...really, you can trust me on these things!

 

The role of the army is to protect internal security and the borders of the country, drug cultivation, manufacture and distribution is large part of that.

 

And yes, Thailand is under siege in many respects. Five thousand kms of border with three countries sees armed factions and proxies following a number of different agenda's, statehood, commercial and criminal......take a trip along the western or northern borders and you will see that in spades.

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On 10/21/2019 at 6:43 AM, saengd said:

If the military budget were cut, how does Thailand patrol the 4,800 kms land border with three of Asia's most notorious drug producing countries and the 2,700 kms coastline, leave it to the BiB perhaps? And as I recall it was less than ten years ago that mortar rounds fired from Myanmar were landing in the market at Mae Hong Son plus the Cambodian border dispute was only five years ago, I mean, this is not exactly Europe.

The US has the biggest military spending yet it doesn't stop drugs coming across the border. 

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2 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

The US has the biggest military spending yet it doesn't stop drugs coming across the border. 

Duh...the US military isn't responsible for border control or drug suppression, CBP and DEA are!

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40 minutes ago, saengd said:

The role of the army is to protect internal security and the borders of the country, drug cultivation, manufacture and distribution is large part of that.

 

 

Internal security ?  No.  In almost all countries the army has to protect the country against threats from other countries. Often the army is also responsible for border control.

 

The army is not responsible for things that happen inside the country like drug cultivation. I know in Thailand things are different. Here the army even comments/criticises politics. Where I come from an officer doing that would be fired on the spot.

 

 

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1 minute ago, saengd said:

Duh...the US military isn't responsible for border control or drug suppression, CBP and DEA are!

My point is that saying the thai need the military to prevent drug entering the country is useless. Your other point are more valid tho. 

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47 minutes ago, dimitriv said:

 

Internal security ?  No.  In almost all countries the army has to protect the country against threats from other countries. Often the army is also responsible for border control.

 

The army is not responsible for things that happen inside the country like drug cultivation. I know in Thailand things are different. Here the army even comments/criticises politics. Where I come from an officer doing that would be fired on the spot.

 

 

"the Thai armed forces serve two main functions: a) internal security: to safeguard ruling class hegemony from challenges by mass movements to expand the democratic space", 

 

See wiki.

 

Drug cultivation in Thailand is not the issue, drug cultivation and more importantly, drug manufacturing along the borders of neighbouring countries, are. Read this: http://www.thailandtoday.in.th/culture-and-society/elibrary/article/894

 

And then google Bangkok Post article that talks about 11 drug plants churn out 20 mill. pills per DAY, near Thailands northern border.

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52 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

My point is that saying the thai need the military to prevent drug entering the country is useless. Your other point are more valid tho. 

The situation in Thailand regarding drugs is nothing like the USA, here the borders are very hostile because drug factories exist just across from the border. If you get to the North, take the road from Doi Tung to Mae Sai, it's marked on the map as a tourist trail which runs along the border. When you turn onto the road you're met with a wall of sandbags and a machine gun post, nearby are army tents and around thirty soldiers, all the roads around there are similar. After 8am you'll get stopped, ID'd, questioned why you there and your details noted on a clipboard. Twenty two miles further on you'll get checked out in the same manner. You have four hours to get from one end of the road to the other, then they send up the helicopter to look for you. After  dark the road is closed and it becomes shooting territory. The scenery along the way is brilliant but it's scary as you know what.

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16 minutes ago, saengd said:

The situation in Thailand regarding drugs is nothing like the USA, here the borders are very hostile because drug factories exist just across from the border. If you get to the North, take the road from Doi Tung to Mae Sai, it's marked on the map as a tourist trail which runs along the border. When you turn onto the road you're met with a wall of sandbags and a machine gun post, nearby are army tents and around thirty soldiers, all the roads around there are similar. After 8am you'll get stopped, ID'd, questioned why you there and your details noted on a clipboard. Twenty two miles further on you'll get checked out in the same manner. You have four hours to get from one end of the road to the other, then they send up the helicopter to look for you. After  dark the road is closed and it becomes shooting territory. The scenery along the way is brilliant but it's scary as you know what.

Yet drug traficking is on the rise. I went to Tijuana in 2008 and it didn't look very safe either. The whole west coast of Mexico had and probably still has the same military block every couple kilometers "preventing" drugs going to the US. Mexico cartels runs the same methamphetamine superlab than their Asian counterparts. You can throw all the money you want trying to prevent this but doing so only increase profitability and incentive. 

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7 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

Yet drug traficking is on the rise. I went to Tijuana in 2008 and it didn't look very safe either. The whole west coast of Mexico had and probably still has the same military block every couple kilometers "preventing" drugs going to the US. Mexico cartels runs the same methamphetamine superlab than their Asian counterparts. You can throw all the money you want trying to prevent this but doing so only increase profitability and incentive. 

The subject is Thailand not the US, they are totally different markets. Thailand is more a transhipment country, the US is a very wealthy end user market. I don't understand how you think that throwing money at military budgets increases drug manufacturing profits and incentive, that's truly bizarre! 

 

The problem with the US model is that the manufacturing and cultivating countries are mostly corrupt so they don't do a decent job of detection, prevention and eradication, that is left to the US DEA which results in:

 

"The FY 2019 budget request for DEA S&E and HIDTA totals $2,441 million, which is a 17.0% increase over the FY 2018 Continuing Resolution. ... The FY 2019 budget request for all DEA resources totals $2,862 million, which is a 15.5% increase over the FY 2018 Continuing Resolution". https://www.justice.gov/jmd/page/file/1033151/download#targetText=The FY 2019 budget request,the FY 2018 Continuing Resolution.&targetText=The FY 2019 budget request for all DEA resources totals,the FY 2018 Continuing Resolution.

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54 minutes ago, saengd said:

"the Thai armed forces serve two main functions: a) internal security: to safeguard ruling class hegemony from challenges by mass movements to expand the democratic space", 

 

See wiki.

 

Drug cultivation in Thailand is not the issue, drug cultivation and more importantly, drug manufacturing along the borders of neighbouring countries, are. Read this: http://www.thailandtoday.in.th/culture-and-society/elibrary/article/894

 

And then google Bangkok Post article that talks about 11 drug plants churn out 20 mill. pills per DAY, near Thailands northern border.

 

 

>> internal security

 

That happens only in a military dictatorship.

 

>> along the borders

 

That is vague. It is in the neighbouring country, or in Thailand. In both cases this shouldn't be a task for the military. If it is inside of Thailand it is the responsibility of police. If it is in another country than they have no jurisdiction.

 

I understand in Thailand things are probably different. But this is not how it should be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, dimitriv said:

 

 

>> internal security

 

That happens only in a military dictatorship.

 

>> along the borders

 

That is vague. It is in the neighbouring country, or in Thailand. In both cases this shouldn't be a task for the military. If it is inside of Thailand it is the responsibility of police. If it is in another country than they have no jurisdiction.

 

I understand in Thailand things are probably different. But this is not how it should be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"But this is not how it should be".... according to, your model, your country's model or Thailand's model!

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