Defence, not corruption
Re: "Future Forward Party wants to 'reform' military", (BP, Feb 1).
Future Forward is to be commended for openly identifying a root cause, admittedly among others, of persistent social and political ills besetting Thailand. Consistent with the recent Transparency International report's explicit recognition of the correlation between it and autocracy, this must include the endemic corruption going back decades.
What Thailand needs is a small, professional military of women and men, duty-bound to defend the nation. What it has never needed is an army of generals plotting their political careers at the expense of the nation.
Felix Qui
Reform armed forces
Re: "Watchgate scandal", (BP, Feb 1).
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's remark, in referring to Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon's watchgate scandal as "a trivial matter" shows how Thai society is overwhelmed and influenced by uniform culture (armed forces and police). Accountability and conflicts of interest mean nothing to those in uniform, particularly under the military junta.
This is even more evident in the provinces and the rural areas.
My proposal for all parties and the "new" government: thoroughly reform the armed forces and the police.
CK
Freedom suits humanity
According to the World Bank, global measures of extreme poverty fell from 42.2% of the world's population in 1981 to 8.6% in 2018. Two other metrics of less severe poverty have also fallen significantly during the same time period.
Thus we are faced with the dilemma of capitalism in a similar way to which we must come to terms with democracy. Both have their faults but both are far superior to the alternatives.
Democracy is a messy, contentious mechanism that somehow preserves human dignity and happiness demonstrably better than Marxist socialism or communism. Capitalism distributes wealth inequitably, but nevertheless makes everyone wealthier. Again the aforementioned alternatives fail miserably, Venezuela being the latest example.
To put it succinctly, freedom suits humanity perfectly well. And that is why Thailand's government is not popular, despite the image in their own minds and the shine from all those colourful silk jackets. Let us hope the picture show will reveal its first unseemly cracks after the upcoming election.
Michael Setter
Praying to clouds
Re: "PM says 'abandon cars'", (BP, Feb 1).
Asking people to abandon their cars is like praying to the clouds to make the haze disappear. Wishful thinking can not help in dealing with deadly issues of environmental pollution. To solve the haze crisis the government needs to examine the measures taken by Singapore.
Few steps, such as, stopping manufacturing of all cars and trucks in Thailand, imposing high tariffs and taxes, high vehicle registration fees, high insurance for single occupancy, limiting car access to downtown Bangkok areas where BTS and trains are available, carpooling and impounding cars that fail the emissions test will go a long way in dealing with the PM2.5 air pollution.
Beware that air pollution and haze will continue to increase unless Bangkokians are educated about environmental protection.
The government should promote policies to stop turning Bangkok into a concrete jungle, or the people sleeping in those high-rises will be consumed by the foul air.
When the air is fouled, it is the end of life, period.
Kuldeep Nagi
Stubborn Trump
Re: "Trump lashes 'naive' intel officials", (BP, Feb 1).
Only a truly stupid person thinks they are smarter than everyone else on all subjects. It seems US President Donald Trump, with his colossal ego and narcissism, falls into that category.
Mr Trump's assertions that he knows better than the combined analyses of his own intelligence agencies on issues related to Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, North Korea, the IS and climate change are only the latest in the string of "my-gut-instincts-are-smarter-than-the-experts" follies advanced by the president.
The 16th century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne is generally credited with remarking that, "Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity."
We could hope that Mr Trump would recognise himself in that quote and remedy his ways.
Unfortunately, it seems he subscribes to a different view put forth by another Frenchman, Napoleon Bonaparte, who famously noted, "In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
Samanea Saman
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