The United States, stung by the rapid deterioration in relations with its longtime ally, the Philippines, now stands on the precipice of losing another strategic ally in Asia. Reports that the much-revered king of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has sat on the throne for 70 years and is 88-years old, is gravely ill is prompting a belief that Thailand will join the Philippines in rejecting American dictates.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, the former mayor of Davao City in Mindanao, stunned the Obama administration by cozying up to China in the South China Sea maritime dispute. Duterte followed up his independent foreign policy by inviting China and Russia to establish bases in the Philippines, canceling further U.S.-Philippines military exercises in the region, and calling President Barack Obama a “son of a whore.” Durtete also told the United States, “Do not treat us like a doormat because you’ll be . . . We aren’t ‘little brown brothers of America.’”
The Obama administration’s trouble with Duterte began after U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg began interfering in the domestic affairs of the Philippines, including the election that propelled Duterte into office. Goldberg has a history of involving himself in the affairs of countries where he is posted. In 2008, the Bolivian government of President Evo Morales expelled Goldberg, the U.S. ambassador, for stoking secessionist movements in four Bolivian provinces. In August of this year, Duterte called Goldberg a “bakla” son-of-a-bitch. Bakla is Tagalog for “gay.”
Upon the Thai king’s death, what has happened in the Philippines could see an instant replay in Thailand. Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, the heir to the throne, is known to be close to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister, former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, both of whom were ousted in military coups engineered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Thaksin was overthrown in 2006 and Yingluck in 2014. Yingluck, who was accused of corruption by Thailand’s “anti-graft” agency, saw essentially the same treatment as meted out to Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo.
Thaksin and Yingluck continue to enjoy wide support from the largely rural-based “Red Shirt” movement of Thailand. Vajiralongkorn is not popular with the loyal subjects of his father. In order to garner support for his reign, Vajiralongkorn may have to conclude a pact with not only Thaksin and Yingluck but also the Red Shirts, among whose ranks are a number of anti-monarchists. The Red Shirts are also opposed to American hegemony over Thailand and are suspected of receiving support from China.
Today, rather than use tanks and military juntas to overthrow leaders it does not like, the CIA relies on phalanxes of lawyers and judges, all controlled by the CIA, to bring about “constitutional coups.” This has been a hallmark of the Obama administration and could be called the “Obama Doctrine.” This doctrine proves more than anything else that Obama is nothing more than a product of CIA talent-spotting and grooming over the three decades he spent in Indonesia, Hawaii, Los Angeles, Pakistan, New York, and Chicago.
The Obama Doctrine has not been lost on Duterte and will not be lost on future King Vajiralongkorn. Bhumibol, who was born in the United States, succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother, King Ananda Mahidol. At 9:00 am on June 9, 1946, Bhumibol visited his brother in his bedroom at the Royal Palace in Bangkok. At 9:20 am, a shot rang out from the king’s bedroom. Ananda was found lying face up in bed with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The cause was determined to be accidental suicide caused by the young king playing with a loaded pistol.
The U.S. Ambassador to Thailand was Edwin Stanton. Ironically, his namesake, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, continues to be accused of involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
Ambassador Stanton worked with the Japanese-appointed Regent of Thailand, Pridi Banomyong, who ruled the country while Ananda was in exile during World War II and who became prime minister after the war, to absolve Bhumibol and the United States and Britain of any involvement in the king’s death. The British Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, thought Ananda was a “pathetic” figure and not worthy of being a king. In any event, after Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram, the pro-Japanese military leader of Thailand during the war, overthrew Prime Minister Pridi in 1947, the government charges two royal pages with the assassination of the king. Both the pages were ultimately found guilty and executed.
Stanton had successfully convinced Prime Minister Pridi that Communists disguised as students, Buddhist monks, journalists, and academicians were invading Thailand with the intent of overthrowing the monarchy. Stanton’s warnings were a ruse and none of the reports of Communist “infiltration” were true.
Many people in Thailand know that it was the pre-CIA Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that carried out the assassination of Ananda with the connivance of U.S. Ambassador Stanton, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Charles Yost, the British MI-6 station in Bangkok, and the OSS chief in Bangkok, James “Jim” Thompson. After “officially” leaving the OSS, Thompson founded the Thai Silk Company, Ltd., which helped to revitalize Thailand’s war-ravaged silk industry. Thompson was also a notorious pedophile whose house guests in Bangkok always included a number of Thai and Burmese children. The house, itself, was adorned with a number of phallic statues. Authors Truman Capote, Somerset Maugham, and Margaret Landon, the author of Anna and the King of Siam, upon which the movie “The King and I” was based. were among Thompson’s famous guests in Bangkok. In 1967, Thompson, who knew where many of the CIA skeletons were buried, disappeared without a trace in the Cameron Highlands in Pahang, Malaya.
Since King Ananda’s assassination by the OSS and MI-6, Thailand has been ruled by a series of CIA-installed and Thai military-backed puppets, with only a very few exceptions.
For seventy years, the Thai people have only been able to whisper about the events of 1946. With the king’s passing, there will be scores that will have to be settled with the United States and Philippines President Duterte has shown Thailand that Asian nations that have long been under the jackboot of Uncle Sam can also kick out from their countries the bearded caricature who, for Asians, represents militarism, pedophilia, and subversion.
The loss of the Philippines and Thailand to Obama’s grand militaristic design for Asia, known as the “Pivot to Asia,” will represent the final nails in the coffin of America’s 70-year suzerainty over East and Southeast Asia.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
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U.S. about to lose another key Asian ally
Posted on October 14, 2016 by Wayne Madsen
The United States, stung by the rapid deterioration in relations with its longtime ally, the Philippines, now stands on the precipice of losing another strategic ally in Asia. Reports that the much-revered king of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has sat on the throne for 70 years and is 88-years old, is gravely ill is prompting a belief that Thailand will join the Philippines in rejecting American dictates.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, the former mayor of Davao City in Mindanao, stunned the Obama administration by cozying up to China in the South China Sea maritime dispute. Duterte followed up his independent foreign policy by inviting China and Russia to establish bases in the Philippines, canceling further U.S.-Philippines military exercises in the region, and calling President Barack Obama a “son of a whore.” Durtete also told the United States, “Do not treat us like a doormat because you’ll be . . . We aren’t ‘little brown brothers of America.’”
The Obama administration’s trouble with Duterte began after U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg began interfering in the domestic affairs of the Philippines, including the election that propelled Duterte into office. Goldberg has a history of involving himself in the affairs of countries where he is posted. In 2008, the Bolivian government of President Evo Morales expelled Goldberg, the U.S. ambassador, for stoking secessionist movements in four Bolivian provinces. In August of this year, Duterte called Goldberg a “bakla” son-of-a-bitch. Bakla is Tagalog for “gay.”
Upon the Thai king’s death, what has happened in the Philippines could see an instant replay in Thailand. Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, the heir to the throne, is known to be close to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister, former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, both of whom were ousted in military coups engineered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Thaksin was overthrown in 2006 and Yingluck in 2014. Yingluck, who was accused of corruption by Thailand’s “anti-graft” agency, saw essentially the same treatment as meted out to Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo.
Thaksin and Yingluck continue to enjoy wide support from the largely rural-based “Red Shirt” movement of Thailand. Vajiralongkorn is not popular with the loyal subjects of his father. In order to garner support for his reign, Vajiralongkorn may have to conclude a pact with not only Thaksin and Yingluck but also the Red Shirts, among whose ranks are a number of anti-monarchists. The Red Shirts are also opposed to American hegemony over Thailand and are suspected of receiving support from China.
Today, rather than use tanks and military juntas to overthrow leaders it does not like, the CIA relies on phalanxes of lawyers and judges, all controlled by the CIA, to bring about “constitutional coups.” This has been a hallmark of the Obama administration and could be called the “Obama Doctrine.” This doctrine proves more than anything else that Obama is nothing more than a product of CIA talent-spotting and grooming over the three decades he spent in Indonesia, Hawaii, Los Angeles, Pakistan, New York, and Chicago.
The Obama Doctrine has not been lost on Duterte and will not be lost on future King Vajiralongkorn. Bhumibol, who was born in the United States, succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother, King Ananda Mahidol. At 9:00 am on June 9, 1946, Bhumibol visited his brother in his bedroom at the Royal Palace in Bangkok. At 9:20 am, a shot rang out from the king’s bedroom. Ananda was found lying face up in bed with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The cause was determined to be accidental suicide caused by the young king playing with a loaded pistol.
The U.S. Ambassador to Thailand was Edwin Stanton. Ironically, his namesake, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, continues to be accused of involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
Ambassador Stanton worked with the Japanese-appointed Regent of Thailand, Pridi Banomyong, who ruled the country while Ananda was in exile during World War II and who became prime minister after the war, to absolve Bhumibol and the United States and Britain of any involvement in the king’s death. The British Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, thought Ananda was a “pathetic” figure and not worthy of being a king. In any event, after Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram, the pro-Japanese military leader of Thailand during the war, overthrew Prime Minister Pridi in 1947, the government charges two royal pages with the assassination of the king. Both the pages were ultimately found guilty and executed.
Stanton had successfully convinced Prime Minister Pridi that Communists disguised as students, Buddhist monks, journalists, and academicians were invading Thailand with the intent of overthrowing the monarchy. Stanton’s warnings were a ruse and none of the reports of Communist “infiltration” were true.
Many people in Thailand know that it was the pre-CIA Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that carried out the assassination of Ananda with the connivance of U.S. Ambassador Stanton, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Charles Yost, the British MI-6 station in Bangkok, and the OSS chief in Bangkok, James “Jim” Thompson. After “officially” leaving the OSS, Thompson founded the Thai Silk Company, Ltd., which helped to revitalize Thailand’s war-ravaged silk industry. Thompson was also a notorious pedophile whose house guests in Bangkok always included a number of Thai and Burmese children. The house, itself, was adorned with a number of phallic statues. Authors Truman Capote, Somerset Maugham, and Margaret Landon, the author of Anna and the King of Siam, upon which the movie “The King and I” was based. were among Thompson’s famous guests in Bangkok. In 1967, Thompson, who knew where many of the CIA skeletons were buried, disappeared without a trace in the Cameron Highlands in Pahang, Malaya.
Since King Ananda’s assassination by the OSS and MI-6, Thailand has been ruled by a series of CIA-installed and Thai military-backed puppets, with only a very few exceptions.
For seventy years, the Thai people have only been able to whisper about the events of 1946. With the king’s passing, there will be scores that will have to be settled with the United States and Philippines President Duterte has shown Thailand that Asian nations that have long been under the jackboot of Uncle Sam can also kick out from their countries the bearded caricature who, for Asians, represents militarism, pedophilia, and subversion.
The loss of the Philippines and Thailand to Obama’s grand militaristic design for Asia, known as the “Pivot to Asia,” will represent the final nails in the coffin of America’s 70-year suzerainty over East and Southeast Asia.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2016 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).