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April 24, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Thailand-based newspaper Bangkok Post in its article, "Yingluck denies Thaksin's involvement," refers to ousted, US-backed dictator Thaksin Shinawatra, removed from power in 2006 by a military coup after nearly two terms in office trampling the rule of law and the lives and livelihood of the Thai people, and claims that he has extensively relied on foreign lobbyists in a bid to return to power.

During this struggle to return to power, he has placed a series of proxies in his place, most notably his own brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat who served as prime minister in 2008, and his own sister Yingluck Shinawatra who served as prime minister from 2011-2014 before being removed by a subsequent coup.

Image: Thaksin Shinawatra (center) is a convicted criminal who fled Thailand to evade a 2 year prison sentence, multiple arrest warrants, and multiple pending legal cases. He is one of the worst human rights violators in Thai history, nearly 3,000 people during his time in power, and resorting to armed violence in his bid to seize back power. He is also benefiting from immense lobbying efforts arrayed behind him by Washington.

More specifically regarding his lobbying efforts, the article claims:

Thaksin's legal counsellor Noppadon Pattama denied the allegation on the same day, saying Thaksin did not hire lobbyists or was behind criticisms of foreign governments or international organisations against the junta.

Ms Yingluck on Friday confirmed Mr Noppadon's account.

"I believe every country considers all facts and listens to all sides before making a decision. It won't let its decisions be dictated by lobbyists Life is hard enough for him [Thaksin] abroad and he's unlikely to plot such things."

However, both Pattama and Yingluck Shinawatra's statements are verified lies - easily verified lies. By law, clients seeking to lobby in the United States must register through the US House of Representatives in their "Lobbying Disclosure" database. By simply entering "Shinawatra" into the client search field, a total of 49 documents turn up, dating from 2006 when Shinawatra was ousted from power, up to and including this year, 2016.

This exposes Pattama and Shinawatra's comments as outright, verified lies and is yet another affirmation as to the true nature of their agenda and the means through which they attempt to achieve it, and goes far in explaining why Thailand's current government has gone through such lengths to prevent this political machines from seizing back power.

Lobbying firms propping up Shinawatra's political machine since 2006 include Amsterdam & Peroff, Baker Botts, Barbour, Griffith & Rogers (BGR), and Kobre & Kim. This has been done by both coordinating political stunts within Thailand through US State Department-funded nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and planting favorable spin throughout the Western media which unquestionably portrays Shinawatra as "pro-democracy" and those that ousted him as "anti-democratic" and "dictators" - a familiar and essential ingredient in Washington's regime-change recipe.

In reality, Shinawatra's utility for special interests on Wall Street and in Washington are the sole purpose he is being backed by the US - having committed Thai troops to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, hosting the US CIA's abhorrent rendition program on Thai soil, and attempting to ramrod through an illegal and unpopular US-Thai free trade agreement in 2004.

Shinawatra - a serial human rights offender - has maintained his grip on power not only with the help of foreign sponsors, but also through a campaign of intimidation, violence, kidnappings, assassinations, and terrorism. In 2009 and 2010 he attempted to seize Bangkok with mobs bused in from across the country. In 2010, those mobs included 300 heavily armed terrorists wielding AK47s, M16s, hand gernades, and even rocket propelled grenades (RPGs). The violence claimed nearly 100 lives and culminated in nationwide arson carried out by his supporters and mercenaries.

Image: One of Shinawatra's heavily armed mercenaries takes aim with an M16/M203 in the middle of Thailand's capital city of Bangkok. It was the beginning of weeks of gunfights that would leave nearly 100 dead including soldiers, police, protesters, and bystanders and culminate in nationwide arson, including extensive fires and looting in Bangkok itself.

It is easy to see why Thailand was eager to remove Shinawatra from power, and eager to keep him and his proxies from ever returning to it. Considering his utility to Western interests while in power, it is also clear as to why he has been able to marshal such impressive lobbying behind him.

It is not simply a criminal billionaire buying off US support, it is the US cultivating a proxy with which to influence and control Thailand through. Either way, the presence of such lobbying casts into serious doubt the torrent of criticism the US, EU, and UN have leveled against Thailand since the ouster of Shinawatra.

And while Shinawatra's supporters in Thailand attempt to claim that the US, EU, and UN would still be critical of Thailand without the influence of special interests and lobbying, this too is an easily verified lie. One only needs to consider US, EU, and UN relations with Saudi Arabia, undoubtedly the most totalitarian regime on planet Earth, guilty of egregious human rights abuses, and absent even the feigned semblance of democracy. Yet despite these realities in Saudi Arabia, the US and EU eagerly arm the regime in Riyadh, provide it with substantial political support, and literally defend it with military bases arrayed along its borders while providing logistical and military aid for various acts of direct and indirect aggression against Saudi Arabia's regional neighbors.

It is quite clear that the US and EU do not consider principles when condemning one nation for alleged violations of human rights and deficiencies in "democracy," while excusing others, and instead only consider utility and convenience in doing so, even at the expense of these very principles.

Image: Contrary to popular belief, the United States does not care about human rights or democracy and instead only uses such principles to undermine its enemies when convenient, and trampling these same principles in propping up loyal regimes who hold human rights and democracy in open contempt, i.e. Saudi Arabia.

It is apparent that this same charade is taking place throughout the rest of Asia, with lobbyists and US State Department-funded agitators propping up pro-US political fronts everywhere from Malaysia through Anwar Ibrahim to Myanmar through Aung San Suu Kyi, to the Philippines and Laos, seeking to overturn nearly a generation of struggle by Southeast Asia to reestablish independence after centuries of European and American influence and outright colonization.

The overt nature of US lobbying and meddling in Thailand is a warning and of grave concern to the rest of Asia. Failure to help expose and condemn this extraterritorial meddling by the United States through such means will simply ensure that should Thailand succumb to such a campaign, Thailand's neighbors will inevitably be next. In the case of Myanmar, they have already.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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US Lobbyists Meddling in Thailand a Concern For All Of Asia

Posted by Knowledge is Important on Sunday, April 24, 2016

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April 23, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Despite Syria's ongoing conflict, life in many parts of the nation goes on. Syria's election schedule is no exception. The last parliamentary elections before the latest held this month were in 2012. Since these elections are held every 4 years, the recent elections were far from a "political stunt" to bolster the legitimacy of the current government, but instead represented the continuity of Syria's ongoing, sovereign political process.

Attempts to undermine the credibility of the elections have become the primary objective of US and European news agencies, however, even the US government's own election monitoring nongovernmental (NGO) agencies have conceded the last presidential election in 2014 saw soaring voter turnout, and despite attempts to leave voter turnout this year omitted from US-European press reports, it appears to also have been high.

The Washington-based, USAID-funded "Election Guide" reported a 73.42% voter turnout in Syria's 2014 presidential election, a turnout that would be astounding had they been US elections. Voter turnout for the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections in the US, for example, were 57.1% and 54.9% respectively. The 2016 Syrian parliamentary elections appear to have also enjoyed a high turnout, with the International Business Tribune in its article, "Syria Elections 2016 Updates: Geneva Peace Talks Resume Amid Scrutiny Of Country’s Ballot Process," reporting that:

Voting hours for the Syrian parliamentary elections Wednesday were extended for an additional five hours because of such a high voter turnout. A religious leader there lauded the number of voters participating, saying that it was an indication to voters' apparent opposition to the "cruelty, terrorism and destruction” experienced in Syria's civil war.

Despite high turnouts in previous elections and indicators like that reported in the International Business Tribune regarding this latest poll, US papers like the New York Times (NYT) decided to sidestep facts and intentionally indulged in unconfirmed, anecdotal stories to portray turnout as low as possible and the credibility of the elections nonexistent.

Anne Barnard's questionable NYT article titled, "Syrian Parliamentary Elections Highlight Divisions and Uncertainty," claimed that:

Large parts of the country that are controlled by insurgent groups did not participate in the voting on Wednesday. Despite a fragile partial cease-fire, government and Russian warplanes have continued to hit areas controlled by nationalists and Islamist rebels, as well as territory held by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL. An American-led coalition is also bombing areas held by the group.

Throughout Barnard's NYT piece, she categorically fails to inform readers that while the geographical areas "controlled by insurgent groups" might be "large," the majority of Syria's population does not reside within them, and clearly chose to vote in large numbers both in 2014 and 2016 for the current government.

Claims that Kurdish regions also did not participate, omitted the fact that Syria's total Kurdish population is less than 10% of Syria's population and that not all Syrian Kurds reside in these regions and refused to vote.

Dispelling the Displacement Myths

It is usually the US that reminds the world of Syria's displaced population. What it often doesn't mention is the fact that most of these displaced Syrians have not fled abroad either to Turkey or Jordan or further beyond to Europe, but have instead sought safe haven in Syria's capital of Damascus and the protection of its government and the Syrian Arab Army.

The US-EU-funded Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) would reveal precisely this in its 2012 report, "Syria: No safe haven - A country on the move, a nation on the brink," stating:

Syria's two biggest cities Damascus and Aleppo were seen as safe havens from the violence and gradually saw a large influx of IDPs [internally displaced persons] fleeing from the zones of conflict.

It is clear that the majority of Syria's population are fleeing from US-EU backed "freedom fighters" and seeking sanctuary under the protection of the "regime" Western powers have attempted to convince the world led by villains. With this in mind, poll results in favor of the ruling government should be of no surprise, despite rhetoric circulating in US-European media.

The West's Worst Fears Confirmed

This reality confirms the West's worst fears, that despite all attempts to divide and destroy the modern nation-state of Syria, the people remain relatively united in cause to restore peace and order within the nation, and to do so with the current government leading the way.

It is also ironic that the United States and Europe endlessly expound the virtue of self-determination but now attempt to undermine an exercise in that very self-determination by the Syrian people.

It is clear by the statements made by the United States and several European nations regarding the recent elections that the problem was not necessarily the manner in which the elections were held, but who they included. It was not candidates Syrian law excluded from the elections, but candidates the United States and Europe simply do not approve of. In other words, the US and Europe are doing precisely the opposite of promoting self-determination in Syria and are in fact attempting to undo or otherwise undermine the credibility of the results of the recent elections.

NPR in an article titled, "Parts Of Syria Vote In Parliamentary Elections That Critics Say Are A Sham," would report that:

Mark Toner, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson, said this week that "to hold parliamentary elections now given the current circumstances, given the current conditions in the country, we believe is at best premature and not representative of the Syrian people."

A French Foreign Ministry spokesman called the elections a "sham," while his German counterpart said that country "will not accept the results," Reuters reported.

It should be remembered that the US and its European allies eagerly supported elections held in Ukraine amid fierce fighting in the nation's easternmost region. Despite the inability or unwillingness of many in Ukraine to vote, the elections were both held and recognized by the US and Europe. The reason for this hypocrisy should be clear. Those running in Ukraine's elections were candidates the US and Europe approved of, supported, and knew would win, while those running and most likely to win in Syria's elections are not.

Thus, "democracy" from an American or European point of view, is more about special interests in the West selecting a foreign nation's future government, not its people, unless of course, the people can be convinced to back those candidates Washington and Brussels supports as well.

Not only does the recent election in Syria confirm the West's worst fears of a failed campaign to divide and destroy the nation, casting doubts on the viability of installing a Western-friendly regime into power during the proposed "transition," but rather than exposing the alleged illegitimacy of Syrian democracy, it is the West's brand of selective meddling and manipulation of polls that has been laid out for all the world to see.

With any luck, Syria may serve as an example for other nations to follow in resisting and overcoming foreign interference in their domestic political processes.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

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