Transcript of the above video: 

If you notice a small grin starting to kind of creep across my face, it comes from the fact that this is one of those rare opportunities I get where I get to sort of be the John Madden, Pat Summerall if you will, on the sidelines sort of looking in on the sort of US-Thai relationship. I have likened the American-Thai relationship in the past to - if you've ever seen the movie Tombstone or the film Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner, Tombstone had Kurt Russell in it - I think those films both came out in the same year. It was back when studios used to kind of copy each other and oftentimes they make sort of very overlapping sort of genre pieces and things in the same year, and both of those films are great for very different reasons. I know many people kind of prefer Tombstone for a variety of reasons. I do like that film. It's sort of more of an almost kind of an action movie whereas Wyatt Earp is really sort of a biopic and it's far longer and sweeping too. It goes back to his origination as a law man in Kansas - particularly Dodge City - and who he met up with there and then he ends up in Tombstone. 

But not to digress too much, the reason I bring this up is because I've often likened the US-Thai relationship to the relationship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.  I'm not designating one country is either of those, it's just at different times with the fluidity of the Thai-American relationship, at any given time you can sort of pinpoint the Thai-American relationship and you can say well in that circumstance, the Thais were kind of the Wyatt Earp there and maybe the Americans were a little more Doc Holliday. Then other times it has flipped where the Americans are sort of more Wyatt Earp and the Thais are a little bit more Doc Holliday. But drilling even deeper down into it than even that dynamic, is it really is a close relationship and I don't think people really fully understand this especially Americans, because the diplomatic relationship is I believe at this point now 200 years old, and people often forget that Thailand is America's oldest ally in Asia; oldest continuous ally. I believe it's high in the running for the oldest ever, only eclipsed I believe by the relationship with France which goes back to the American Revolution. But again 200 years, and 190 years we have had a Treaty relationship the latest iteration being the US-Thai Treaty of Amity ratified in 1966 and still ongoing today; it's still in force, in effect today. Again this is really important to sort of understand because America and Thailand have almost like a brotherly relationship for lack of a better term and what I mean, I say that sort of encompassing the full spectrum of everything that could entail. What do I mean? Well it's not just, how do we say oh we have a diplomatic, no Thais and Americans, and I'll get into it when we drill into this article here real quick, but they kind of say things to each other that you would say only to like your closest of friends or family and sometimes it is said very politely but if you know how to read between the lines it's kind of, I just get a kick out of it sometimes. I think the alliance is great if you can't tell, I have got my little Thai-America pin here. I was born in America and I naturalized to Thai Citizenship some six and a half years ago so obviously I have the fervour of the cheerleader here as somebody who loves the alliance but every once in a while you see these little things that I just kind of get a giggle out of it. So let me get into this. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from world.thaipbs.or.th, that's Thai PBS World, the article is titled: Thai PM discusses flooding with US Secretary of State in Vientiane – that's in Laos. There was recently a big summit for ASEAN up there. I believe Secretary of State Blinken sort of flew in to interact with some of the parties in that Summit. Now full disclosure here, I want to be very clear where my biases are at. I imagine Blinken and I probably don't see eye to eye on much in terms of like politics, especially domestic American politics. I expect we probably see eye to eye on a few things with regard to foreign policy but I expect there are a lot of things we don't see eye to eye on there as well. That said, I have a personal soft spot for Anthony Blinken and let me explain why. Right after the change of administrations from Trump into the current Administration, America and Thailand were working out the reaffirmation of our Treaty relationship, and I got a little worried. I was like wow in the sort of the shuffle if you will of the change of Administrations, are the Americans going to show up and do this right? Because to my mind, and I think to many especially here in Thailand and to those sort of in the know if you will in American foreign policy circles as well as sort of American-Thailand watchers whatever you want to call it, American expats here in Thailand, the alliance is important and I can see where in the hustle bustle of American politics, it might not be seen in the same perspective as it is by us out here. My point in making this is notwithstanding the fact I may not agree with him politically on a lot of different issues, he did show up here and in my opinion, that reaffirmation of our Treaty relationship went off without a hitch. It was very well done and I think it was one of the first things he did after coming in as Secretary of State and he came over here and it was just, I remember remarking to a friend of mine that I looked at that as sort of “tonally perfect” and I said that as a sort of double entendre if you will as Thailand, the language is “tonal”, they use tones in Thai and then on top of it the sort of “tone” of the proceedings was also, it was just perfect. It was well done and he was the one that did that. He came out here and did that so I have a little bit of personal soft spot with respect to Mr. Blinken just on a personal level.

That said, I think this interchange between Paetongtarn, the Prime Minister here in Thailand, and Mr. Blinken is just something that I got a giggle out it. Let me get into it here. Again, Thai PBS World, the article is titled: Thai PM discusses flooding with US Secretary of State in Vientiane. 

Quoting Secretary Blinken: "Whether it's dealing with climate change, the clean energy transition, in all of these areas the partnership that we have is really designed to produce results for our people, and that's what we're determined to do."  First off, let's be clear, with regard to the things I disagree with Mr. Blinken probably on a policy level, things like so-called “climate change” and “clean energy transition” and all of this stuff, we are probably not on the same page on that, let me just put it that way. That said, kind of all of this factors in to some later analysis here. So let me keep going, and this is the really relevant one. I really want to drive this one home because this is a fair point. Quoting directly: "But particularly between us, our countries have such an extraordinary history together, and we simply want to build on that." Yeah, absolutely and he's dead right on that. Again as I said it's like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. The American-Thai relationship is very unique. I understand outsiders to it; they can kind of like look at it say well that's an interesting relationship you have there and the history there, again very unique amongst American relationships abroad, also very, very bilateral again as exemplified by the US-Thai Treaty of Amity. That stated and this is where I get to laughing a little bit because the Thai Prime Minister, if you kind of read between the lines here, well let me just get into it. 

Quoting directly: PM Paetongtarn: "Yes indeed. I believe that the USA and Thailand has a very long-term good relationship, and of course, like, anything you want to do, and we just can talk and then - but (inaudible) have something together just very, like future forward, something like that." And this is kind of where it gets a little bit like now we are talking within the family kind of thing. Quoting further: "And so we can invest or we can just do some project together that may help a lot of people (and then sort of inaudible)," and then again this is kind of where it hits the road, " the problem right now is that Thailand is facing, the main problem that we have that we - like in the country, so the north of Thailand is flooding every day." 

Again, read between the lines on that. That's kind of like if I'm talking to my brother and he says "yeah hey our house flooded" and I say "we've got a long relationship here and we have a relationship with climate change and clean energy" and then my brother would probably turn around to me and say "well like yeah, but my house is flooded. Are you going to bring some buckets or like are you doing something? Like what are we doing here?" and it goes on in there and clearly they probably went behind closed doors again and had some deeper discussions but I just like the kind of the little observation by the PM where it's like "yeah, okay climate change, all that good stuff; we're flooded out up North, are you going to like maybe send some row boats, or maybe help out." I kind of just read between the lines of like, you can talk a lot of platitude and stuff about climate change, but we've got some environmental problems right now and maybe there's something going on with that, and if you read, again I urge those who are watching this video, go check out world.thaipbs.or.th, you can go ahead and see sort of the further discussion there, and I think probably yeah there will be some assistance between the Americans or at least some collaboration between the Americans and the Thais with regard to that. On the other side of it, if you're talking intra family a little bit it would be like "well we got problems in North Carolina too. Are the Thais sending any buckets and row boats out there? I'm just asking."

Again, the point I'm trying to make with this video is that the Americans and the Thais have that kind of relationship where they can just kind of talk to each other much more fluently than I think in a lot of other circumstances, and I think that's a good thing. Thailand and America have a very special relationship. A relationship where the Secretary of State shows up and says "hey you're one of our oldest allies; we have an extraordinary relationship with you folks." and the Thais say "yes sure we do, yeah we agree. We couldn't agree more. Though we are having some flooding issues so if you are worried about climate change and environmental stuff, we could use some help, like right now if you're offering". But again that's not really even the point. The point of this is that there is the relationship between the Thais and the American that exists that they can talk in this very, how would I even put it, not loose, not carefree, but just it doesn't have to be in such a stilted diplomatic dialogue type manner and overall I think that's a good thing.