Panitan moves from lapdog to envoy
AFP has a report that PPT found here on the decision to send still acting government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn to the United States. Regular readers will know that PPT has little respect for Panitan, who as an academic has a weak record but who puts himself out to hire. In this role as hired academic he has been lapdog for two post-coup governments and who claims credit for developing the Internal Security Act that provides a legal framework for military political involvement.
Today it seems that lapdog has turned envoy for the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime that he serves. AFP reports that the most boring of all of his talking heads has been sent as "a special envoy to Washington this week to convince US policymakers that the kingdom is returning to stability and is committed to shift its fractious politics from the street to the ballot box."
Hopefully he also explains why that return to the ballot box is predicated on a military coup, elite entrenchment, a doctored constitution and huge funds poured into electorates in search of an electoral victory for a so-called Democrat Party.
Panitan says: "Our mission is to tell them that we're back in business." Does this suggest that the government fears a loss of foreign investment? It has been trumpeting economic success, so what's up? Or is it just that the Democrat Party seeks a return to the cozy bilateral relationship of the past?
The U.S.'s Obama administration, was exceptionally weak in its response to the red shirt rallies and to the murder and injuries to hundreds perpetrated largely by the state. This is largely because, as in the past, Thailand is seen as an important part of a "mostly US-friendly region has been neglected due to Washington's preoccupation with Afghanistan and the Middle East."
Panitan "said that Thailand also sought a stop by Obama" when he visits Southeast Asia. He states: "We are working hard for that…. A visit would be very good. By that time, we should have a new government in office." Of course, Panitan reckons that after all of the killing, imprisoning, censorship and electoral rigging that that government will be led by the Democrat Party.
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