News ID : 52891
Publish Date : 8/9/2020 5:51:07 PM
What is the US looking for in Thailand amid pandemic?

BY: Alegandroo Gomez Delacroz

What is the US looking for in Thailand amid pandemic?

The question that has arisen for the people and some of the party leaders is that Thailand is not in a state of war or conflict with a country, and in these difficult circumstances, it is not a good time for military training. But the presence of Gen. James C. Mc Conville last month and the arrival of US troops this month goes back to other issues.

NOURNEWS – Thailand, one of the first countries to be affected by the outbreak of coronavirus, ranked high in the fight against corona and has not had a single new case of infection in the last two months. In this regard, the Corona Fighting Headquarter in this country has created very strict rules and protocols for people and foreign tourists, and this decision has been very effective.

On August 3, at 7:00 AM, 71 U.S. troops from the island of Guam flew OAE6555, a privately-owned passenger aircraft, to U-Tapao Airport in Sattahip District, Thailand.

The U.S. troops, under Alternative State Quarantine (ASQ), were stationed at the Conrad Hotel to participate in the Thai Army SFAB SMEE exercise.

 On August 3, at 18:00, the US Army RCH-552 aircraft carrying 32 other US troops from Yokota, Japan, arrived at U-Tapao Airport to participate in the Thai Army Balance Torch Exercise. They also, located at Anantra Riverside Hotel.

The next day, August 4, at 12:15 a.m., the US Air Force TREK-948 aircraft arrived at U-Tapao Airport from Okinawa, and seven other US troops arrived at the Anantra Riverside to participate in the Balance Torch exercise and three others to participate in the HMA exercise, hosted at The Idel Hotel in Patum Thani.

The Corona Fighting Headquarter in Thailand announced on the morning of August 3 that US troops were planning to travel to Thailand for military cooperation. After the announcement, US troops arrived in the country at 8 am on the same day. Dissatisfaction of some political parties in the country, The Corona Fighting Headquarter announced to calm the situation that before the arrival of American troops, we asked the Thai army to stop the travel of American soldiers, but we faced opposition from the army and the army informed us that regarding Homeland Security issues U.S. troops must enter the country.

American soldiers in the city of Okinawa in Japan were the cause of the outbreak in this city and the beginning of the outbreak of the disease in Yokota. On August 4, the latest death toll in Okinawa was 637, of which 286 were US troops at the Okinawa military base, or 40 percent of Okinawa infected numbers, were US troops, the highest in Japan. American troops in Okinawa enjoy high privileges and are easily allowed to travel in the city without masks and use nightclubs in the city and traffic between people.

What are U.S. troops doing in Thailand?

The question that has arisen for the people and some of the party leaders is that Thailand is not in a state of war or conflict with a country, and in these difficult circumstances, it is not a good time for military training. But the presence of Gen. James C. Mc Conville last month and the arrival of US troops this month goes back to other issues. The United States felt the need for a missile base in Southeast Asia after launching its navies into Chinese waters and the possibility of a Chinese missile threat to its naval vessels.

Looking at ASEAN and Far East, we can see Cambodia is an ally of China, Vietnam has a long-standing enmity with the United States, Japan and South Korea are not ready to cooperate, and Singapore does not have a missile base, so Thailand is the best option for a missile base in Southeast Asia. After China introduced the Dong Fang medium-range missiles, the United States felt more threatened, so it needed a missile base that could fire its hypersonic missiles in the ready area.

The US troops who arrived in Thailand are mostly US military technicians and engineers, and their trip to Thailand is to explore the facilities and prepare Thailand for its main purpose, which is to build a hypersonic missile base in Southeast Asia.

This has also caused great dissatisfaction among the Thai people and the country’s political parties, to the point that many political parties, from Democrats, Republicans to Monarchists and Constitutionalists, have strongly opposed the presence of the US supersonic diaper base in Thailand.

The leader of the Yellow Party (the pro-monarchy pro-monarchy party), Mr. Sondhi Limthongkul, also formally told the Thai military that if the military wanted to bring the war between China and the United States into Thailand and allow the US to establish a base in Thailand, their party will launch large-scale demonstrations across the country in cooperation with all groups and parties.

In recent years, the United States has been constantly sending its troops to train and prepare Thai soldiers for use of electronic weapons, sending a very small number of troops under the pretext of participating in the exercise.

For the Thai people, it is questionable why the United States, with the island of Guam and the close ties with countries such as Japan and Korea, chose Thailand to do so, and why the Thai military and government intend to work with the United States to enter Thailand in to the conflict between the United States and China?

US troops are due to stay in Thailand for a full month until the end of August. US troops in Thailand, like Okinawa, still have special privileges and are allowed to choose a hotel and accommodation in the city center. Although the Corona Fighting Headquarter team has announced that they are in quarantine, it has been observed that American soldiers are moving in and out of the hotel normally and not wearing masks in the city.

But what is happening beyond that is killing two birds with one stone strategy in Thailand.

The US decision to establish a missile base in Thailand will make it the second Poland to confront China, and “the country of similes” ‘s enduring culture and policy of neutrality will erode. It will also seriously challenge the 500-year-old Thai political system and monarchy to collapse, by creating widespread discontent and uniting all Thai political groups and parties.

The United States hoped that the new king of Thailand, because of his cultural and educational roots in the West, would personally deliver Thailand to the West and the United States.

But in the last three years, the new king has adopted prudent and impartial policies, as well as measures to restore the rich culture of the Thai people, such as ordering the closure of brothels, organizing tourism policies, examining the return of Thai Shaykh al-Islam officially. Also independent policies in various international events including the abstention from the IAEA resolution against Iran and the adoption of neutrality in the tensions between China and India, showed that Thailand seeks to become an independent island of stability in Southeast Asia, an event that will severely threaten US interests in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea.

In this regard, it seems that the United States, with the help of the Thai government, whose prime minister came to power during a dubious election and after 4 years of government of post-coup, intends to simultaneously establish a new plan to consolidate its military presence in Southeast Asia and also begin to make sweeping and strategic changes in the political and social structure of Thailand.


Political Economy Journal
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