Thailand Needs Domestic IT Infrastructure

It is not only a matter of sound economic development, but also a matter of national security. 

March 26, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - ATN) - Russia has VK. China has Baidu, Weibo, and many others. What about Thailand? Facebook. Google. Twitter.  

Many seemed to understand the potential danger of a "single gateway," but do these same activists and organizations realize that there is already a "single gateway" of sorts in Thailand - run by foreigners and more specifically the US State Department and special interests in Washington and on Wall Street?

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's leaked e-mails reveal, among many other things, the close relationship between Google and the US State Department and the role the tech giant played in trying to take down nations - most notably during the so-called "Arab Spring" - using its vast control over global IT infrastructure.

The UK Independent's article, "Google planned to help Syrian rebels bring down Assad regime, leaked Hillary Clinton emails claim," would report (emphasis added):

An interactive tool created by Google was designed to encourage Syrian rebels and help bring down the Assad regime, Hillary Clinton's leaked emails have reportedly revealed....

...Thousands of Clinton's personal emails have been published and indexed by WikiLeaks, and some reveal interesting details about the relationship between the State Department and major corporations. 

The email detailing Google's defection tracker purportedly came from Jared Cohen, a Clinton advisor until 2010 and now-President of Jigsaw, formerly known as Google Ideas, the company's New York-based policy think tank.

More than that even, then Secretary Clinton would, in the 2 years before the "Arab Spring," participate in US-based seminars training, equipping, and funding agitators who would then be sent back to their respective countries and attempt to overthrow their respective governments before replacing them with one of Washington's choosing. These seminars were co-sponsored not only by the US State Department, but also by US tech giants like Google, Facebook, and YouTube.

Clearly Google is more than just a search engine, Facebook more than a social network, and YouTube more than just a platform for sharing videos.

More information about the relationship between the US State Department and Google in particular, including Secretary Clinton's role in the targeting and overthrow of foreign nations can be found in Julian Assange's article titled, "Google Is Not What It Seems," on Wikileaks.org. 

Image: Between 2009-2010, Secretary Clinton would literally oversee the training, funding, and equipping of agitators from multiple countries in preparations for the 2011 "Arab Spring." Many of those who attended these conferences in New York and Washington, would turn out to be leaders of respective US-backed uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East. 

But Google can't do much if each nation has its own domestic social networks, search engines, blogging and micro-blogging services. The amount of unwarranted power, influence, and reach corporations like Google enjoy now is because of a lack of competition. 

Much of the backlash against murmurs of a "single gateway" in Thailand came in fact from US State Department-funded NGOs who are not really interested in protecting free speech and human rights as they are interested in protecting Google, Facebook, and Twitter's monopolies over access to Thai audiences. 

While critics of "single gateways" focus only on their potential abuse - they fail to recognize their role in neutralizing the very real weaponization of information technology like that admittedly carried out by the US State Department and corporations like Google and Facebook. And what the Independent article won't say, is that many of these "tools" Google and others are developing, post false information to create panic among targeted demographics - much like traditional military psychological operations have done for decades. 

To Each Nation, Their Own IT Infrastructure
It will be up to the people of each nation to determine the freedom and use of these networks, but one thing will be sure, foreign interests will have no say in the matter - nor should they. You wouldn't give your nation's road, electricity, and water infrastructure over to another nation to maintain, why your IT infrastructure? 

Image: Russia's VK Facebook alternative.

Thailand must use existing government technology agencies and initiatives to set up state enterprises that begin developing this. It will pay for itself as anyone looking at Baidu, VK, Facebook, or Google's bottom line can attest to, and it will strengthen an area of national security that is incredibly vulnerable right now.

More over, it will give Thai graduates high profile careers right here in the Kingdom, rather than leaving the nation to work for foreign corporations, resulting in a local "brain-drain." 

Creating a pool of talent through improved education, innovation centers where startups can be created and added into the Thai economy, and recruiting talent to create economically beneficial IT infrastructure for Thailand as well as address many serious national security issues, could be one way of achieving this.

However the Thai government decides to go about it, one thing should be considered carefully - warfare does not just happen on battlefields. It happens within economies, across telecommunications, in the media, and within the halls of education. IT has been used to create new and highly effective "weapons" for this new "battlefield." Failure to match the capabilities of these weapons and it will be like fighting an M1 Abrams tank on horseback with a spear.