Re: ''THAI mishap blocks airport runway'' (Post Online, Sept 9).
Would someone please explain the object of the silly exercise of removing both the Thai Airways logo and the national flag on the tail of the incoming flight from China that skidded on the runway at Suvarnabhumi airport? The logo and flag will have to be repainted again. Why blot them out in the first place?
If other national carriers around the world practised such stupidity at every mishap, there would be a lot of raised questions.
No wonder THAI needs to replace its CEOs every few months.
CHARCOAL RIDGEBACK
Not a proxy warI read with great interest
Jeffrey Sachs' ''US must end dangerous policy of Middle East meddling,'' (BP, Sept 5) and was disappointed. Criticism of the US is welcome, but the logic that the US interest in supporting the rebels is to fight a proxy war with Iran does not fit with the fact that Nato and the US also supported rebels in Libya and indirectly in Egypt.
Yes, it is tempting to call it a proxy war, but the logic does not hold in this argument. Most of the world has supported the rebels in their grievances against the brutal regime.
Furthermore, the US did not have to work very hard to organise a large group of countries to support the rebellion, halfway through the civil war. That large group could pretty well work it out for themselves. And they could work out for themselves that Bashar al-Assad was not going to negotiate, and so yes, the only avenue likely to bring about change was for him to step down.
It was at this time, Sachs writes (with some qualification), that Russia was playing a constructive role. I did not any time see a situation where Vladimir Putin was playing a constructive role. My view is that Mr Putin is probably the only individual who could have brought Mr Assad to the negotiating table but he was too pathetic to get involved, because he is for Iran and against the US and does not mind seeing Muslims die. How many Chechens has he killed?
Russia, as an ally of Mr Assad, could have played a far more significant role.
I think Mr Putin has far more blood on his hands than Mr Obama, which seems to be Sachs' thesis.
WATSON
Breaking with tradition
I was surprised to see a farang explain that Buddhism is not a religion. (JC Wilcox's ''Radicalism feeding fears,'' BP, Sept 7).
I used to think the same. But Mr Wilcox presented an academic definition of Buddhism. Consider the expression: ''If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck''. I have a girlfriend who says she will pray to Buddha for me. I see beautiful buildings and thoughtful monks. This to me is a huge expenditure in resources and intellectual abilities, maybe wasted, maybe not. But it surely looks and sounds like the trappings of religion. I suggest many fine Buddhists would be surprised to hear that Buddhism is not a religion.
Yes, we should be pleased that Buddhism is not one of the aggressive, proselytising religions that earn so much of the world's fear. But that could change.
For example, I see Christian NGOs at work in Bangkok ''helping'' victims of sex trafficking. They use this issue as a wedge to proselytise in largely non-Christian countries. They dare not do that in Muslim countries, but do in Thailand. Buddhist monks in Myanmar react violently to this kind of challenge even when most of their people are Buddhist.
All religions have people under a spell that defies common sense. If we have hope for peace in the future, breaking that spell is the larger challenge religion presents.
JOHN KANE
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