Transcript of the above video:

Much like with COVID, we are, the firm, me, everybody here in Thailand right now, have been thrust into this situation involving this border conflict with Cambodia. We are all trying to deal with it as best we can. We certainly wish everyone the best up there, and hopefully this can be resolved as peacefully as possible with as little loss of life as possible. That said, it has escalated in a few key areas. I feel like Thailand has been very justified in utilizing force in order to repel and deter this kind of activity, because quite honestly, it has just gotten, it's beyond reasonable. It wasn't reasonable when we had violence at the boarder before, but now it has really gotten out of hand and frankly, I think, and maybe my biases are showing here, but I think Thailand has acted with a great deal of forbearance and I also think that Thailand has acted in such a way as to try to as best they can, comply with international law, but at the end of the day we need to defend our sovereignty here in this country against people who are literally throwing ordnance over the border and killing people here. So that's basically what led up it is and here we are. 

That said, now we've got all sorts of outside coverage and scrutiny that's trying to make this seem like it's - I don't know if anybody has ulterior motives - it's just a matter of Fog of War if you will, and also if you're not on the ground, or you don't know the history, there are a lot of things that can be sort of espoused in such a way that is not in line with the reality of the situation, and that's why I'm making this video. To be clear, I have always admired a lot of the things that the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations puts out in terms of various white papers, press releases and things, they're not an unserious group and they are rather intelligent. There's quite a bit of information that can be gleaned from the CFR, but I'm here to tell you, the critique here is based on the fact that yeah, the parts of this article I'm going to cite are not accurately reflecting the reality of the lead up this situation, especially in the political sphere here in Bangkok. 

So I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the CFR, that is cfr.org, the article is titled: Thailand Calls a Snap Election During a Border War: What It All Means. Quoting directly: "Thailand has called a Snap Election after its Prime Minister formally dissolved Parliament on Friday. Instead of elections being held in March as planned, they will now be held on February 8, 2026." Now that's all correct. We have gone through all of that. I have discussed that in other videos and things and there's plenty of news out there.  That said, quoting further: "The snap election was called as interim Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul" - well let's be clear. He's not ‘interim’ anything, he's the Prime Minister, and he dissolved the House. Yes, I understand, outsiders don't understand Thai politics very well, but look the former government, specifically Paetongtarn Shinawatra was removed from Office because of her call to Hunsen, the President of the Senate and "strong man" of Cambodia, and her actions on that call were deemed to be so inappropriate as to cause her to be removed from Office: rightly so, as I discussed at the time. And that is one of my big critiques in this article is it completely leaves out how all this got started and by whom. And the finger can be clearly pointed at the Shinawatras because that's how all this got going last summer and I have covered it at length, as has the rest of the Press. So first of all, my real critique of this article is they just leave out the 10,000-pound gorilla in the room of Pheu Thai and the Shinawatra connection to how we got into this mess, let alone the political maneuvering, which again they seem to be completely overlooked which I'll get to here in a moment, but it's important to point that out. That said, quoting further: "Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul faced a looming no-confidence vote led by the People's Party." That's not exactly accurate, as I will get to here in a moment. It's actually Pheu Thai that has been pushing for no-confidence going into December 12th, which has been in Bangkok Post and a ton of other mainstream articles in the past two weeks. I don't know why this is missing from this particular piece. Quoting further: "which has a significant number of seats in Parliament, though not the majority." Okay, let's get to the Pheu Thai issue which appears to be being somewhat obfuscated. 

Before I get into this, it's important to point out, we go into deep dive analysis on a lot of this stuff in our paid news service, Integrity News Service. You can email us, [email protected] to get on the mailing list for the long-form content: we'd be happy to get you on that list. Also while I'm talking my book, it's fair to point out that my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok, Pancake House is the name. As the name implies, it's breakfast anytime. Don't let the name fool you though. We do have non-breakfast diner style American food: hamburgers, cheeseburgers; we even have Sloppy Joe's, buffalo wings as well as glass bottled Coke, grilled cheese as well as breakfast anytime including English breakfast by the way for the Brits out there. So if you're interested, please feel free to check the description below. There are links in there; we would love to see you. There are links to get to us at Pancake Palace. 

That said, going back to this. I want to quote this again to be clear. "The Snap Election was called as interim Prime Minister" - again he's not the interim Prime Minister, he's the Prime Minister. He got 311 votes in Parliament for his Premiership. He was the PM until he became the Caretaker PM as of Friday with the dissolution. That said: "Prime Minister Anutin faced a looming no-confidence vote led by the People's Party which has a significant number of seats in Parliament" - that's not true, it wasn't led by the People's Party. If anything, People's Party was hanging on the sidelines trying to decide what to do and the proof of that is from Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: PT defies threat of early election. So if you read that article, it's the Pheu Thai Party that was the main impetus behind a no-confidence vote. That was who was pushing against Anutin for a variety of different reasons, most notably they were in a government together not even a year ago, less than a year ago they were still in a government together and Pheu Thai tried to push him out because they wanted the Interior Ministry because they wanted to use the Interior Ministry to pack the vote counting apparatus of the election apparatus here in Thailand which is housed under the Interior Ministry. They wanted to put Phumtham Wechayachai - a Communist by the way, insurgent from the '70s - in charge as both Acting PM and Interior Minister so he could an reshuffle all of the positions within Interior in order to have the election in much of the vein of Stalin saying, "I don't care how many votes we have, I care who counts the votes." He tried to put the people in to count the vote, and then illegally tried to dissolve the Parliament. Then he left office and now we have what we have here, okay? 

So all this is being left out of the CFR's narrative in the lead up to this and then on top of it they're making it seem like People's Party is the main push against Anutin in this no-confidence move that resulted in the dissolution of the House. And if you read the article from Bangkok Post: PT defies threat of early election, that article in and of itself explains the real situation and that it is not purely a binary matter between Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai. In fact, quoting directly: "Former Pheu Thai Spokesman Prompong Nopparit criticized the PP for signalling it would not support a no-confidence motion." So how is it that "the snap election was called as interim" - again not interim - "Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul faced a looming no-confidence vote led by the People's Party." How was it led by the People's Party when the Pheu Thai Party Spokesman himself had criticized them for not supporting a no-confidence motion? What are you talking about CFR? Have you researched this? Is this person writing this article on the ground here in Bangkok? Quoting further: "Corruption scandals related to Cambodia have swirled around Anutin's Ministers and put pressure on him since becoming interim" - again inaccurate term, "becoming PM". He's the elected PM. That is why he was able to dissolve the House because he had 311 votes and he was on the Parliamentary slate to be a Prime Minister from the Bhumjaithai Party as is called for under our Constitution. He's not the ‘interim’ anything or he wasn't, and then he dissolved the House. Quoting further: "Prime Minister in September through an intra-parliamentary deal" - with People's Party. - Quoting further: "But as Foreign Policy noted, Anutin may have called a snap election as a way to "avoid impeachment” after the PP accused him of reneging on a promise to dissolve Parliament within 4 months and organize a Constitutional referendum in exchange for PP support." I'll get into the Charter thing in a minute, but let's be clear, as I discussed in a video we made on this channel, he actually called sessions in the House in order to do the readings for the Charter. He has done a great deal toward the Charter referendum. Now the problem is he got basically sideswiped by the Pheu Thai faction that's left in Parliament - it would be curious to see what their numbers are going to be in the aftermath of the upcoming election but never mind that - he got side swiped by Pheu Thai, not by People's Party. They have at least a working relationship.

The impetus behind this, again the thousand pound gorilla in the room, that for whatever reason Council on Foreign Relations doesn't seem to know exists or is trying to obfuscate for, they are the impetus behind the dissolution because they were trying to have a no-confidence vote for God knows what. I still don't know why. I made a video on this too. A no-confidence motion on a government that is going to last another 6 weeks or something. It was nonsense, but they tried it and now this is for whatever reason, I don't know why, being spun up as if this is some kind of fight between People's Party and Bhumjaithai. If you actually know the history here, Anutin became, I won't say friendly, but he got onto a working relationship with People's Party, and the reason the Coalition existed as it did up until the 12th when the Parliament was dissolved, was because People's Party felt they could work with Anutin because unlike Pheu Thai, he hadn't undermined them; he told them the truth and he did what he said he was going to do most of the time, pretty much all the time that I can see as an outside observer, whereas there's all kinds of chicanery that went on between Pheu Thai and People's Party. I mean they even noted the fact that the Leader of the People's Party - I think this was in Thai PBS World, some article I read a while back - there was a great deal of animosity between Thaksin and the leader of the People's Party because Thaksin had said all kinds of insulting things on various campaign stops, in various political forums regarding the Head of the People's Party. All this is just being left out, and it is being framed as if this is just some big Battle Royale between Bhumjaithai and People's Party; that's just not an accurate representation of what's going on over here. Quoting further: "Which was necessary since Anutin's Party had nowhere near the number of seats to control Parliament." Interesting. Everybody keeps saying that, "Oh yeah, Bhumjaithai and Anutin, they just can't do anything, they're so little", and yet they keep forming Government's and keep being in Government's and getting things done. Quoting further: "The two biggest contenders in the snap election are Anutin's relatively conservative and pro-military Bhumjaithai Party and the more progressive People's Party formerly known as Move Forward." Fair enough. Yeah, I think that it will come down to those two Parties in this election but this coverage, this way of what's happening is completely overlooking the Pheu Thai Party, the role they had to play in all of this. They were the impetus behind this dissolution because they were the ones pushing hard for a no-confidence vote, and again let's quote this again, Bangkok Post, title: PT defies threat of early election. "Former Pheu Thai Spokesman Prompong Nopparit criticized the PP for signalling it would not support a no-confidence motion". So I'm not saying that People's Party is just like enamoured of Bhumjaithai, or there somehow is some political romance; I don't think that's the case at all. Do I think that probably there has been discussions within their ranks regarding dissolution? Yes, but they were walking this fine line regarding Charter referendums and things. They weren't the impetus behind the no-confidence motion. It was Pheu Thai. That's been recorded, again here, bangkokpost.com.

Now that said, there's another nuance to this that I think is worth pointing out; I commented on this going back in September right after this government was formed. I mentioned this to a friend and I immediately thought of it when I read the CFR piece. From Thai PBS World, world.thaipbs.or.th. The article is titled: Bhumjaithai's "ambitions" and People's Party’s "aspirations". Quoting directly: "Under the current national circumstances, with border affairs intertwining with Parliamentary politics, "it's certainly risky for Thailand's biggest party, he said." And we are talking about the former Head of Move Forward there who's sort of, I don't know how you would put it, he's kind of a like moral inspiration or something for the present People's Party iteration, that's the way to look at it. But I mentioned this at the time. Thanathorn actually brought up the fact that said it was possible that elections could even be delayed as a result of this military stuff and this was going on at the border back in September. It was noted, “well we might not even have elections in the 120 days”, I remember reading that in Bangkok Post. I could not find the exact site, that's why I went back over here to Thai PBS. It could be because from time-to-time, Bangkok Post will change things on their site, and you can't go back and find it. But that being said, I do remember Thanathorn at the time, commenting that “hey it might go longer than 120 days, because of the stuff happening at the border”. To my mind that denotes a People's Party who very much in the same vein as Bhumjaithai, does care about the country and things and understands that sometimes politics have to be set aside, and they commented on that at the time noting that well it could happen. The point being they placed some level of trust in Anutin. That's why they voted for him and put him in the Prime Ministership let's say over other parties and actors in the political sphere and in the Parliament here in Thailand and that comment from Thanathorn at the time, that “well you never know with this border stuff, it might go longer,” I think was also indicative of at least some level of friendly working relationship between those two Parties that again is just being completely ignored in this CFR coverage let alone the fact that Pheu Thai being the impetus behind the possibility of a no-confidence vote being ignored, which is really I don't know how that can be ignored, it's like the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room. That's the important point to take away, it's not so much People's Party. And to be clear, I'm not saying they are not rivals in certain ways, and now that we're in election mode they are certainly going to be, but it's important to point out what really happened in lead up to this dissolution, because clearly folks outside of this country don't fully understand what's going on here.