One important piece of information for those that think the USA shouldn’t intervene in Thai affairs – they already are and have been for decades. This intervention has always been on the side of the Thai military and the USA are quite clearly one of the Thai army’s biggest and closest supporters.
This military relationship between the USA and Thailand stretches back for decades. In fact, according to the US State Department’s own website, Thailand has been the single biggest beneficiary of US military training on earth.
Thailand has received U.S. military equipment, essential supplies, training, and assistance in the construction and improvement of facilities and installations for much of the period since 1950; since then more Thai have been trained under the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program than any other country. Over recent decades, U.S. security assistance included military training programs carried out in the United States and elsewhere. A small U.S. military advisory group in Thailand oversaw the delivery of equipment to the Thai Armed Forces and the training of Thai military personnel in its use and maintenance. As part of the mutual defense cooperation over the last 3 decades, Thailand and the United States have developed a vigorous joint military exercise program, which engages all the services of each nation and averages 40 joint exercises per year.


But what exactly have the US been “training” the Thai army to do? Stage coups, crush democracy, cluster bomb civilians and shoot and murder protesters?
The Thai Army has an appalling record of direct involvement in Thai politics and has been quick to use deadly violence against the very Thai citizens it is supposed to protect. The USA should, quite frankly, be ashamed of its close association with such a vicious institution. Or maybe too many interests converge  between the Thai military and the US government for the USA to care too much about ordinary Thais? And while unarmed Thais are being shot by US military-trained and equipped Thai soldiers any slippery US claim of “non-intervention” rings hollow.
Maybe it’s now time for the USA to cease its backdoor intervention in Thai politics?