US Nominates War College Grad as Ambassador to Thailand

There are two kinds of “ambassadors” the US employs across the globe to project its unwarranted power and influence beyond its borders. One is a friendly face that covert subversion and manipulation can hide behind, the other is a strong voice that subversion and manipulation can openly rally around.

Thailand had previously hosted the wildly unpopular Kristie Kenney, who while serving as US Ambassador to Thailand from 2010 to 2014 feigned profound ignorance to all that unfolded around her, including US-support for the proxy regime of mass murderer and convicted criminal Thaksin Shinawatra. During her tenure, from 2013-2014, Shinawatra’s proxy regime, headed by his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, employed heavily armed terrorists who mass murdered nearly 30 and maimed over 800 in a series of pistol, grenade, M16, AK47, and M79 attacks.

Kenney remained muted and ambiguous about condemning the violence, openly carried out by the regime which both she and the special interests she represents defended vigorously as the “democratically elected” and “legitimate” government of Thailand. Her inability to more overtly take the side of the regime and its terroristic supporters, or condemn the violence, made her and the nation she represented reviled by both sides.

The military coup that swept the Shinawatra regime from power in May 2014 and put an end to nationwide terrorism it was carrying out saw Kenney leave her post and leave the position of US Ambassador to Thailand vacant.

During the interim, the US State Department would make various demands that the military-led government “return power” to what it called “civilian rule.” Decoded, this message means returning convicted criminal Thaksin Shinawatra to power either directly or through the installation of one of his nepotist proxies.

The military has resisted these calls, understanding that Thailand cannot afford to allow a convicted criminal to run the country from a hotel room in Dubai, where Thaksin Shinawatra has fled since being convicted of corruption and sentenced to two years in prison. And because of the Thai military’s refusal to allow the US to dictate Thailand’s destiny indirectly behind the guise of “democracy,” it appears the US is gearing up for a more direct and “muscular” attempt to influence Thailand’s political landscape.

Enter Glyn Davies, Nominated US Ambassador to Thailand

Glyn Davies, before being nominated as US Ambassador to Thailand, spent his time undermining and meddling on the Korean Peninsula and in particular, attempting to undermine the government of North Korea while encouraging confrontation and conflict between North Korea and South Korea.

Before Davies began his career in “diplomacy,” according to his official biography hosted on the US State Department’s official website, he attended and graduated from the National War College in Washington D.C. earning a master’s degree in “National Security Strategy.”

The National War College trains mid-senior military leaders as well as select members of the US State Department. The curriculum includes topics such as “The Non-Military Instruments of Power” which is described as (emphasis added):

Core course 6300 focuses on the utility of the non-military instruments of power in achieving national security objectives. Specifically, the course analyzes the nature, purposes, capabilities, leadership potential, and limitations of the non-military instruments of statecraft, with blocks of instruction on the diplomatic, informational and economic instruments. The course also investigates and critiques a variety of ways to orchestrate these instruments into coherent strategies. The focus here is on coordinating the use of non-military instruments in persuasive, inducement, and coercive strategies.

There is also “The Global Context,” which is described as (emphasis added):

Course 6500 is to help students understand the world and assess emerging strategic threats and opportunities in the global arena. Students will study selected drivers of international relations, and their impact on a range of nation-states and international regions. Students will examine how states respond to these drivers – analyzing trends and developments within nations, comparing and contrasting regional contexts and national perspectives, and recommending how best to prioritize US interests within and across regions. The course incorporates states, non-state actors and transnational actors in enhancing student understanding of the global context. Through their examination of trends, national responses to those trends, and US responses to changes in the global context, students will develop a working knowledge of the international security context essential for creating, analyzing and carrying out national security strategy and policy.

A War College graduate versed in “non-military instruments of power” being posted in Thailand as US Ambassador as increasingly violent means to overturn the military-led government and its attempts to uproot the Shinawatra regime and the foreign-backed networks propping it up, bodes poorly for Thailand’s peace and stability.

The worst-case scenario sees Davies, just as US Ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford did in 2011, openly consorting with armed terrorists in a blatantly US-backed attempt to violently overthrow Thailand’s political order. The prospects of a “civil war” in Thailand are impossible. What is possible, however, is widespread terrorism aimed at destroying the Thai economy and tarnishing its image both regionally and internationally.

However, these insidious intentions can be preempted by first exposing America’s role in Thailand’s political crisis and, in particular, by exposing their hypocritical stance on insisting a convicted criminal’s fate be determined by “elections” rather than in a court of law. The fact that to this day, Thaksin Shinawatra himself openly presides over the prevailing opposition party in Thailand, “Pheu Thai,” undermines that party’s legitimacy entirely. In the West, a party openly ruled by a convicted criminal and fugitive fleeing from a two-year jail sentence would be utterly unable to exist, let alone contest elections. Yet the United States demands that such an unthinkable scenario be allowed to proceed in Thailand.

Davies’ Little Helpers

If and when Davies is officially announced as US Ambassador to Thailand, he will immediately begin working with the stable of US-funded faux “pro-democracy” NGOs the US State Department created and has funded for years. These include the Cross Cultural Foundation, Environmental Litigation and Advocacy for the Wants (ELAW), the Foundation for Community Educational Media (Prachatai, Thailand Netizen), and the Thai Volunteer Service. It also includes various US-funded faux-academic fronts including those in Chaing Mai University and Thammasat University.

He will also likely end up involved either directly or indirectly with the armed elements of Shinawatra’s political machine, who regularly coordinate campaigns of violence, intimidation, and terrorism alongside the complaining and street protests carried out by the above-mentioned stable of US-backed NGOs.

If Davies and the US propaganda machine can manage it, ideally, these terrorists will be portrayed as “pro-democracy” “freedom fighters,” just as Davies’ counterpart Robert Ford did with Al Qaeda in Syria and NATO managed with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in Libya in 2011.

Understanding this, and the immense investment the US has made in Thaksin Shinawatra beginning almost two decades ago in a bid to overthrow Thailand’s ancient institutions and replace them with an obedient client regime, will help steel Thailand for Glyn Davies’ arrival and the division and destruction he plans to bring with him.

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