
This is remarkable because Thailand and the US have been natural friends for a very long time. About 180 years of relations, arguably with a short bad stretch during World War II. A King of Thailand even offered a US President war elephants during the Civil War. Our cooperation has been tight for many years.
What went wrong? In a nutshell, a tyrannical government under Thaksin Shinawatra began to pillage the country and murder thousands of people. Eventually he was ousted in a military coup and has been operating a government in exile for some of the years since that time. His supporters have orchestrated a serious terror campaign leaving thousands of casualties. (Killed and wounded.) The US has openly sided with Thaksin, even granting him a visa to enter the USA after he became a convicted criminal on the run.
Today, our Ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney, is a lunatic. This word is not used lightly. Check her Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube videos, made by the US Embassy at our expense under her reign. Ambassador Kenney is painfully narcissistic.
Yet her narcissism and immaturity is not what is causing normal Thai to hate her. Thai are disgusted with her narcissism, but that does not bring anger towards Kenney.
Anger from millions of Thai derives from her openly supporting the criminal enterprise that serves US interests, but not Thai interests.
The formula for creating hatred is simple: Disgust + Anger = Hatred.
Hatred is a compound emotion derived from mixing the basic emotions of disgust and anger. Among millions of Thai, Kenney has reached the level of creating extreme disgust and extreme anger. There have been only limited, peaceful demonstrations at our Embassy to date.
The growing hatred towards Kenney and now John Kerry openly supporting a criminal enterprise, could cause a landslide. This provides a start to what is going wrong with US-Thai relations.
Do not take my word for it. These things can be rediscovered by anyone with enough due diligence.
Our relations are not gone or destroyed...yet. There is high friction but there is still time to turn this around. For starters, we need a new Ambassador. At this time, the hatred is mainly towards Kenney as an Ambassador, and our policies, not towards Americans in general, who are still very welcome and safe here.
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