OPINION

Professionalise army

Re: "Poor security worsened toll: PM", (BP, Feb 10, 2020).

I fully agree with PM Prayut, who said, "If we had fully followed [standard security procedures], we would have been able to mitigate the degree of violence [where one soldier went on a shooting rampage that left 30 dead]."

A single rogue shoots dead two people, arrives at an army camp an hour later, shoots dead a guard, steals war weapons and a Humvee, then goes to a shopping mall an hour away, where he kills and takes hostages -- without being killed en route. Was there nobody near the first killing, who could have warned the police? Was there only one armed guard in the entire armoury? Why were the gun bolts and ammunition so readily available, evidently unsecured? Why didn't the police and soldiers block him as he fled the armoury for the mall? This sounds like an operation from a James Bond movie, with a superman and inept authorities.

We have more army and police generals than all 28 Nato nations combined. Is this the best that they can do? The relevant House of Representatives committee should thoroughly, transparently, and quickly investigate their actions/inactions, and hold them accountable.

Also, our army's noble mission is to be Thailand's fence, defending us from foreign enemies -- yet Nakorn Ratchasima's far from our borders; our "fence" shouldn't run through our living room, so to speak. Does the army have any military reason for being in that city -- other than to participate in a coup d'etat, which by definition is highly illegal?

Let's learn from this massacre, and professionalise our military and police.

Re: "Virus-induced racism does no one any good", (Opinion, Feb 10).

So your columnist, Paritta Wangkiat accuses some US and Australians of racism when accusing the Chinese of having "weird and dirty eating habits". Well, to quote a Chinese public health expert, "They love to eat anything alive". Well, isn't that "weird"?

And even more weird is the state of the wet markets in Wuhan where water is flushed onto the floor to wash away every kind of animal waste including animal faeces, urine, blood and various animal parts leaving behind all kinds of viruses and bacteria. If that's not weird, I don't know what is!

And, just to remind readers that the HIV virus most likely emanated from the consumption of wild primate meat in Africa, and Muslims won't eat pork because of the fear of trichinosis from poorly cooked pig meat. Now that's weird too isn't it? But it's not racist!

I'm sending my utmost condolences, through the Bangkok Post, to the families of those innocent victims who were killed, injured and hospitalised by the senseless military gunman in Nakhon Ratchasima.

This shooting massacre must be remembered and its causes scrutinised without impunity.

I would like to humbly recommend to the government authorities to seriously consider and apply the concepts of "accountability" and "conflict of interests" in their investigation. The Prayut government ought to genuinely pursue and turn the aftermath of this unprecedented crisis into an opportunity to "clean up" those government agencies and officials involved.