The bad quick fix in Thailand

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Thailand has so many military coups that the Wikipedia entry for each one should have a “Next” and “Previous” button like on pages for national elections.

This coup was so poorly thought out that the Royal Thai Army instinctively suspended all but one article of the 2007 constitution, which was written by…drumroll please…the Royal Thai Army after the 2006 coup. You’d think if these coups solved anything they wouldn’t be needing another one so soon against their own constitution.

Of course, that assumes that the coup is a means to an end rather than an end itself. And judging by what we’ve heard from the opposition protesters for six months, it’s probably more a goal than a tool, to them. Unlike many mass protests around the world, it’s not that they want more democratic opportunities, it’s that they don’t want democracy at all. In that light, a coup is the destination itself, not the path to get there.

A gleeful and defiant barbarism

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With EU chemical export bans taking their toll on lethal injection death penalty capacity in the States, Tennessee just re-legalized the electric chair and pro-death penalty activists in other states are pushing to bring back firing squads.

So, is a declining America just trying to ride the bomb down to the ground like a defiant Major Kong at this point?

Columbia Pictures (1964)

Thai military: Haha, just kidding, it’s a coup.

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So much for insisting earlier this week that they were just imposing martial law and not overthrowing the government. It’s officially now a coup:

Thailand’s military has announced it is taking control of the government and has suspended the constitution.

In a TV statement, army chief Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha vowed to restore order and enact political reforms.

The cabinet has been told to report to the military, TV broadcasting is suspended and political gatherings are banned. A nationwide curfew will operate from 22:00 to 05:00 local time.
[…]
On Tuesday the army imposed martial law. Talks were then held between the main political factions, but the army announced the coup on Thursday.

Political party leaders, including opposition leader Suthep Thaugsuban, were taken away from the talks venue after troops sealed off the area.

 
Foreign media are reporting very rapid consolidation of power and the army focusing on breaking up protest camps in support of the government, even though the opposition protesters have been obstructing everything for six months.

The military is traditionally aligned with the faction currently in the opposition and last overthrew the ruling coalition during the 2006 coup. By some reckonings, this makes military coup number 19 since absolute monarchy ended in 1932.

The military leadership claims the coup was a necessary step because the elected government did not want to step down as part of crisis talks. All the political representatives were detained and carried off to barracks when talks failed to make progress, before the coup was announced.

Thailand: When is a coup not a coup?

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thailand-flag-200After six months of anti-democracy protesters trying to prevent elections, Thailand’s military has stepped in — but insists they are just preventing chaos, not overthrowing the government.

So: Where is the Thai military is going with their martial law announcement? They’re repeatedly saying (in domestic and Western media) that it’s not a coup, they’re declining to remove the leadership (for the moment), and they’re telling the opposition protesters to leave the streets.

But they could be telling them to leave because they got the coup they wanted. And they could be keeping the civilian leadership in place because they don’t need to remove them if they control everything anyway — especially since the elected prime minister has already been removed by the courts. And is martial law without civilian authorization a coup by definition?

Moreover, the military has seized power, according to the BBC, “at least” 11 times since 1932, which implies there have been a lot of these halfway coups. (The last official coup was in 2006 against the again-now ruling coalition.)

Meanwhile, the Bangkok Post says there have been 18 coups in eight decades, though they didn’t elaborate on how they counted. Even their experts seem a bit mystified as to what exactly is happening.

We’ll probably see more developments shake out in the coming hours and days that clarify what the plan is. But I’m not counting on the opposition protesters to leave the streets even with a partially friendly military also in the streets, because their goal is the indefinite suspension of democracy.

They probably won’t leave the streets unless the military either a) goes all the way and clearly takes power itself or b) is actually willing to fire on their own biggest civilian supporters and lose mass approval.

 
Update at 10:40 AM ET: A slight clarification on Tuesday from the military leadership — re-emphasizing that government workers should continue normally, that they want a political solution to be negotiated among the politicians, that there is no curfew, and that martial law will continue indefinitely until no longer needed (however that is determined). However, they also took control of television stations, shut down several satellite broadcasts on both sides of the political fracas, and restricted entry into the capital. The military also cited economic concerns, such as investor confidence, as a key reason for the coup. (Thailand’s tourism-heavy economy has struggled in the face of persistent unrest.)

GOP working hard to make sure Dems fully united in 2016

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Screen capped this from the top of Google News yesterday. It’s a pretty good summary of where the Republican top brass is right now:
Screenshot2014-05-18at4.45.37PM
From the people who brought you an ancient, walking future health emergency with anger management issues as their nominee six years ago comes… rampant, idle, and sexist speculation based on nothing!

At the rate they’re going with these absurd attacks, even the Anti-Hillary Democrats will be willing to walk through a field of land mines to get to the voting booth to elect her in November 2016.

Renegade ex-general again attempts Libya coup

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general-khalifa-haftarVirginia’s finest rogue foreign officer is at it again in Tripoli, Libya this week, as he tries a second time this year to seize power in the country from which he was exiled from 1987-2011. This time he actually remembered to bring troops.

About three months ago, Gen. Khalifa Hifter tried to overthrow the government of Libya without much success:

Former longtime Virginia resident and past/present Libyan military general Khalifa Hifter attempted to seize power in Libya on Friday, claiming he had suspended parliament and initiated a military takeover to put the country back on the right path. Then what happened?

What happened was that nobody showed up. So that coup went poorly. At least no one got killed in that effort.

But the ex-general (or current general, depending on whom you ask), who may have been a longtime CIA asset, bided his time and continued building up his personal army in the country’s major cities. In the last couple days, his forces stole military aircraft and launched a combined air-ground assault on an Islamist fighter base in Benghazi. Then, actual units of the Libyan military joined in for the hell of it, leaving the government in Tripoli to sputter in impotent rage about how he had not been authorized to conduct military actions (which is, of course, also true of every warlord’s personal army in the country at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped anyone). At least 70 people were killed in the unauthorized raid and 140 more were injured.

Finally today, after several recent weeks of unrelated internal upheaval in the transitional national government and a new prime minister (or three), this weekend former General Hifter has rolled back into town — literally — with a lot more mobile firepower and people. After some fighting near the largely empty buildings, he announced he was replacing the national parliament with his own emergency cabinet.

Gunfire rang out in streets surrounding the General National Congress complex in the capital, Tripoli, witnesses said, and the official LANA news agency said routes leading to it had been blocked by armed men with truck-mounted heavy weapons.

Frightened residents took to social media to report rocket fire in at least one area of the capital, and the road to the city’s international airport was closed. The Associated Press cited hospital officials saying the attack killed one person and wounded nine.

It was not clear whether any lawmakers were inside the parliament building at the time of the assault. LANA quoted one as saying most had left earlier after a session was adjourned, and other reports said the building had been nearly emptied after warnings of the coming attack. However, the website of the Libya Herald, an English-language newspaper, said seven lawmakers apparently had been captured by the assailants.

A spokesman for Khalifa Haftar, the former general, later appeared on television to say the assailants had assigned a 60-member constituent’s assembly to take over for parliament and that the current government would act on an emergency basis, the Associated Press reported.

 
It remains to be seen if the national parliament and cabinet will be able to fend off the armed insubordination — or if anyone even notices. Because as I noted in his last coup attempt, would anyone really even notice if he “seized power”?

In reality, it’s kind of absurd on its face that a general would try to stage a “coup” in Libya. Right now there barely is a Libya.