Archive for May, 2011

Natthawut’s Struggle for True Irony

Posted: 31st May 2011 by bangkokdave in 2011

Published in The Nation, June 1, 2011 Thai politics may be short on many things: honesty, decency, common sense – but one can safely say that it is definitely not short on irony, especially during election season. From the interesting notion that a hand-picked family “clone” of one of most divisive political figures in Thai [...]

Red-Shirt Tactics that Led to May 19

Posted: 24th May 2011 by bangkokdave in 2011

Published in the Bangkok Post on May 25, 2011; in The Nation, on May 28, 2011 As the one-year anniversary of the army’s crackdown on the red-shirt protest has come and gone, many people remain bitterly divided on just what happened a year ago and what it means for Thailand today. The recently released Human [...]

The Killing of Seh Daeng: A Case of Rogue Justice

Posted: 13th May 2011 by bangkokdave in 2011

After Osama bin Laden was hunted down and killed by the US armed forces earlier this month, President Obama immediately went on television to explain his government’s actions. He admitted to the killing and justified it as a necessity of war. While some may oppose this method of summary justice, even for international terrorists of [...]

September Diary

Posted: 3rd May 2011 by bangkokdave in Other Essays

Though Thailand is the main topic of this blog, with news of bin Laden’s death dominating the last 24 hours, thoughts and memories of September 11 started naturally coming back. The piece below is just a personal essay I wrote after visiting New York City in the aftermath of that day; and it was originally published in The Nation on December 10, [...]