Declan Hayes
Thailand and Bangladesh are the latest pawns in NATO's attempt to checkmate China
Before zeroing in on the work of former U.S. marine Brian Berletic to see how both Thailand and Bangladesh are the latest pawns in NATO's attempt to checkmate China, all we need do is zoom out to see that Bangladesh borders Myanmar to its west and Thailand borders Myanmar to its east. With NATO ruling the roost in both Thailand and Bangladesh, China would find itself considerably corralled from the seas surrounding Sri Lanka, right up by the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, and round by Vietnam into the South China Sea that I have written about time and again.
Next, recall America's long held wish to turn Bangladesh' St Martin's Island into a NATO military base to control the Bay of Bengal and, through it, Chinese trade and shipping through the Strait of Malacca, and NATO's plans to continue to rule the Asian waves looks very viable indeed. Given that Bangladesh and Myanmar have frequent clashes over fishing rights around St Martin's Island, we can chalk that up as another club for NATO to bash Myanmar with.
Although the fishermen of Myanmar and Bangladesh don't want to ply their trade in the middle of endless NATO naval wars, their concerns are of no account. NATO wants that island to destroy Myanmar and to emasculate China and that is all that matters and, if it takes rigging an election in Bangladesh to get what NATO wants, then so be it.
Although ousted Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina was undoubtedly corrupt, that is as irrelevant as the 19 assassination attempts she previously survived and that almost her entire family were murdered during Bangladesh's 15 August 1975 coup. All that is important is that, with Sheikh Hasina's Awami League (AL) booted out of office, the CIA will be more easily able to manipulate Begum Khaled Zia, the widow of former coup leader General Ziaur Rahman, who heads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), to serve NATO's ends.
Although the pro-Pakistani Islamic Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), which is closely linked to the BNP, theoretically complicates matters, that is not the case. They are simply a handy, ready and eager stick to beat India and the 20 million or so Hindu, Sikh, Christian and sundry other Bangladeshi minorities with. Although that is not an optimal state of affairs, the CIA would argue that, if it helps to destroy Myanmar, put pressure on India and corral China, then, as war criminal Madeline Albright said about slaughtering a few million innocent Iraqi children, it is Madeleine Albright justifies the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as "worth it" .
Although Indian analyst Amitabh Mathur would like to believe that things will work out for the best, Americans Exposing US gov't role in Bangladesh regime change: Why PM Sheikh Hasina was overthrown and US Regime Change in Bangladesh: The Danger of Ignoring US Interference put up a very strong case that the CIA, together with the National Endowment for Democracy and the Yanks' various other front groups, are behind the CIA moving Bangladesh towards the Islamic camp and away from East Pakistan imitating West Pakistan's Imran Khan's strategy of being neighbourly to all and beholden to none, least of all the CIA. Although both their videos go through why Bangladesh exhibits all the characteristics of a standard CIA coup, they both mention that Nobel Laureate and out-and-out CIA lackey Muhammad Yunis has been selected as Bangladesh's Orwellian sounding Chief Advisor. Yunis is an ass wipe, not only because of all the reasons Berletic cites, but because his microfinance bank is a meaningless goodwill exercise, leveraged to make him look like another well-meaning Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's MI6 Nobel Peace Laureate, another plastic Jesus come back from the dead to save the CIA's suckers.
Although Iran's PressTV have given their account of events here and here, my problem is that Sultan Mohammed Zakaria (he/him) and Mushfiq Mobarak, their American-based experts, tell us "that this was truly a student-led protest and it was organic", as if the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy were innocent bystanders. Although the Muslim Brotherhood's Al Jazeera network gives a good account of how toppling Sheikh Hasina will impact India and they balance it with sugar coating Bangladesh's new Islamic-leaning overlords, for my money Berletic's analysis holds its own against any of theirs.
Brian Berletic: The King and I
I have been sporadically following Brian Berletic's work for very many years now and I find him a pretty solid analyst and I also like that he is a yellow shirter opposed to Thailand's red shirts.
Let's first dispense with the Academy winning The King and I, which is quite rightly banned in Thailand because, superficially harmless though it is, it breaks Thailand's strict lèse-majesté laws. Thai civil society rests on the three pillars of the Thai monarchy, Thai Buddhism and the Royal Thai Army and any NATO stooge, who attacks any of those three foundational pillars is an enemy of the Thai people, who will pay the price if Thailand keels over. It was to support those pillars that Brian Berletic, who speaks passable Thai, ฝรั่งหัวใจไทยใส่เสื้อเหลือง Tony Cartalucci , and good on him and all yellow shirters for that.
This is not to say that all of those in Isan and the Golden Triangle, who support Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck Shinawatra and Paetongtarn Shinawatra are as corrupt as that odious bunch of Hakka gangsters, but it is to say that, as many of Berletic's New Atlas videos have explained, they are being used by the same CIA forces we have already alluded to in Bangladesh's case.
It is through Berletic's yellow shirt lenses we must look at this Sex, drugs, money and murder in Thailand’s Monkhood | Foreign Correspondent , these BBC and CNN puff pieces on the Shinawatra crew, as well as this disgusting diatribe, written by by Pavin Chachavalpongpun in his safe bolthole of Kyoto, hatcheting the Thai Royal Family, Thai Buddhism and the Royal Thai Army in the New York Times. Far from there being anything new or novel in Chachavalpongpun's rant, he and his fellow bums have been singing that same tune for half his life to appease his Yankee masters. Hopefully, Japan will one day grow a pair and kick that rabble rouser bag and baggage not only out of beautiful Kyoto, but out of all of Japan as well.
Cobra Gold
Berletic's love affair with Thailand began in Japan, when he was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, which continues to occupy Okinawa (and rape the locals) to this day. Having visited Thailand as part of the annual Cobra Gold exercises, Berletic later settled there and started producing his high quality analyses, which meets with my approval, but which rubs others up the wrong way we will soon meet after we deal with Cobra Gold.
Although Cobra Gold was first held in 1982 with only Thailand and the United States participating, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, and Malaysia now also join in the fun, with Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, Israel, Vietnam, Germany, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Brazil and Sweden observing, and Australia, Canada, France, Britain, Nepal, the Philippines, Fiji, and New Zealand being involved in the planning. Although Berletic has expressed concern about U.S., Thailand Begin Cobra Gold Military Drill , as well as US-Funded "NGOs" Panic as Thailand Prepares New NGO Transparency Law and the US Proxies Win Thai 2023 General Elections - Thai-Chinese Relations at Risk, Instability Looms… , his critics, who have done their research into him and his work, question his credibility here and here.
And even though this Chinese site mentions him and fellow American Max Blumenthal in dispatches for bringing the National Endowment for Democracy's subversive meddling in Hong Kong, Thailand and all of South East Asia to our attention, there is the bigger issue of what China and allied powers will do with the information, the mis-information and the dis-information Berletic and his critics give them regarding Bangladesh, Thailand and all of South Asia and SouthEast Asia,. Though it could well be a case that the United States, for the first time in its history, is going to act benignly in Bangladesh, Thailand and environs, the far more likely scenario is the one of encirclement, containment and war against Myanmar, China and God knows who else that Berletic envisages. Time, methinks, to Tom Lehrer - Send the Marines .