Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Nixon Gambit

Let's forget for a moment about right and wrong.

Forget about injustices, perceived and real; forget about amnesties, forget about morality.

If one wanted to remain in power at all costs, what would one do?

Fearmongering about Cambodia worked pretty well for Nixon.  I don't know if it was the factor that got him reelected despite the Watergate scandal, but it probably didn't hurt.  A little Christmas bombing, a little misdirection that turns a lush, fertile, friendly little country into a den of evil, and you can have a ready-made bogeyman.

I've been told by several active yellowshirts that if Abhisit were to declare war on Cambodia, they'd come over in droves.   I don't know how many droves there really are, but while I was having my weekly ultrasonic fat cell reduction treatment this morning I happen to catch the yellow shirt channel while channel-surfing and was amazed at how similar their rhetoric was to that of the redshirts.   My author's paranoia began to smell an unholy alliance.

Walking out on the Cambodian talks in a huff is probably not enough to reverse the polls.  It might behoove them to remind people that Mr. Thaksin once worked for Thailand's arch-enemy.  I guess Montenegrins don't need a work permit in Cambodia.  Then there's the simple, tried-and-true tactic of invasion.

And why stop at one little temple on a hill?  Why not announce that Thailand's "territorial integrity" doesn't recognize the land grab of the dastardly European powers, and unilaterally declare that the 1904 border is Thailand?  You'd get more than one temple ... you'd get Angkor Wat, and Laos, Northern Burma, Tenasserim, and Northern Malaysia for dessert.  Nationalists will cheer.

Not advocating any of this, mind ... I seem to remember that the last person to do something of the sort started a world war.  Just pointing out that when one is at war, one rarely votes out an incumbent.

He wouldn't would he?

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