Transcript of the above video: 

The thumbnail to this video, "what is it good for? absolutely nothing." is a quote from that famous song - I will put the link in the description below - "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing." And yeah that is kind of how I feel about this whole thing, but I thought that was self-evident. Nobody here in Thailand really disputes that. That said, apparently it is not or something, I don't know. This was a weird article, I should say maybe the article isn't weird, but the exchange in the Senate confirmation hearing involving the presumably putative or soon to be Ambassador to Thailand was an odd exchange. Let me get into it here. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Thai PBS World, that is world.thaipbs.org.th. odd title: Trump's Thailand pick to tell Bangkok border conflicts don't help alliance. Quoting directly: "United States President Donald Trump's nominee for US Ambassador to Thailand said on Tuesday (July 29) he would tell Bangkok, if confirmed in the post, that conflicts like Thailand's recent border skirmish with Cambodia do nothing to help the Thai people or the country’s alliance with Washington." Well yeah, we know. Nobody wants this. I mean we don't think, we're not doing this for our health or something. And meanwhile, let me keep going here. Quoting further: "Sean O'Neill, a career foreign service officer who has served twice before as a diplomat in Thailand, made the comment at his Senate confirmation hearing when asked about five days of clashes between Thailand and Cambodia that killed at least 43 people and displaced over 300,000." Yeah, first of all it has killed 43 people and displaced over 300,000. No one here in Thailand thinks any of this is helping anything, so let me disabuse anyone in America or elsewhere of that notion.

Meanwhile, I will say first off to some degree, I am going to kind of reserve final judgment on what all this meant if anything. Senate confirmation hearings are an odd thing and folks that are not from the US and sort of don't understand the dynamic of these things; things get said and they are basically for domestic consumption, the things that are said in Senate confirmation hearings. So I'm going to reserve final judgment on what I think because this stuff can get kind of taken out of context. There's a great scene in that series Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. There's a scene where her like Chief of staff or whatever, is going to get called in to a Senate Committee hearing and he calls his lawyer, and his lawyer is telling him how it's just a bizarre experience. You just go through a kind of bizarre experience when you are going through any kind of hearing before the US Congress. So again, maybe this was said for sort of domestic consumption, and I guess the American public maybe has some issue understanding that over here in Thailand, we fully understand that displacing 300,000 people and having missiles flying across the border and 43 people being dead is not “helping’ anything, so I'll reserve judgment, okay. Fair enough. He said what he said to the Senate because not be, or maybe for edification that needed to be clarified in that context. But yeah, over here we have no misconceptions about the helpfulness of this dispute. 

Quoting further: "Asked what he would do to ensure that the ceasefire became a long-term peace agreement, O'Neill said:  "I think the first thing I would do is to point out to Thailand, which is one of our only Treaty allies in Asia," yeah thanks for pointing that out sir. Thank you. I have said this many, many times. Thailand is our oldest ally, continuous ally in Asia; has been our ally through thick and thin. I liken it to the relationship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. It's a little odd at times, but as the scene in Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner - Kevin Costner's Wyatt Earp, talking to Dennis Quaid's Doc Holiday - Doc Holliday says to Wyatt Earp, "I know sometimes it's not easy being my friend, but I'll be there when you need me." That's how I have always looked at the alliance between Thailand and the US. It is sometimes a little bit odd but at the end of the day we're there for each other; we're Treaty allies. Thailand has been there for America when it has counted. People forget, Thailand was involved with Korea; it was involved with the coalition of the willing; it was involved with multiple different American initiatives throughout the past 75 years. We have a 200 year, nearly 200-year Treaty relationship and a 200-year relationship of dialogue. Another 10 years before we actually had a formal Treaty, we were talking at the Thais, so I do appreciate that he pointed that out. Quoting further: "That wars like this, conflicts like this, do nothing to help their people." Yeah, we know, okay? And the other thing is, hey a ceasefire was attempted here. Our acting Prime Minister went down and talked to the Prime Minister of Cambodia in Malaysia. They agreed to a ceasefire, but the firing didn't cease. Quoting further: "They do nothing to strengthen our alliance; they do nothing to address the challenges that both of our countries face. They are just a needless waste of life and treasure." No doubt and I would argue that the Thais have shown a degree of forbearance that I am not really sure we would see in the West under these current circumstances. Look, this is kind of the tragedy of the whole thing. Thailand and Cambodia are deeply Buddhist nations; they don't believe in needless loss of life. That is just the tragedy in all of this, and I don't think anybody wants this. 

Now again, I can understand that his comments were made again for domestic audience consumption in a Senate confirmation hearing back in the United States, so you have to do it through that prism and understand that it is not going to be like somebody just making statements at a dinner table or something, it's not the same thing. But yeah, nobody here has any doubts about that, but the fundamental problem is when munitions are being lobbed at the country, what is Thailand supposed to do about it? I mean we all know that this isn't helping. It's not good for anyone but Thailand has to defend herself, she has to defend her sovereignty. I mean if munitions were flying across the border with Canada or Mexico or something, I mean how would we in America feel about that?

So again, just to clarify, nobody here in Thailand thinks any of this is helping much of anything. It's like, "War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing." That's the general philosophy here in Thailand and I think it is probably a similar philosophy throughout Buddhist Southeast Asia. So I don't know what to say other than that.