Why Thailand is Buying Russian Helicopters

November 17, 2019 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Beginning in 2011, the Kingdom of Thailand began replacing aging US helicopters not with newer US-built models, but with Russian and Italian systems instead.

This includes Russian Mi-17 medium twin-turbine transport helicopters and several AgustaWestland AW149's and AW139's (for transporting VIPs).

According to a January 2019 article in Jane's 360:

The RTA [Royal Thai Army] already operates five Mi-17V-5 platforms. In March 2008 the service ordered the first three such rotorcraft from Russia, which were delivered in March 2011, followed by the remaining two in November 2015 under a contract signed in July 2014. 

The article also noted that 2 more have recently arrived in Thailand, bringing the total number up to 7:

The Royal Thai Army (RTA) has received two more Russian-made Mil Mi-17V-5 ‘Hip-H’ medium transport helicopters, an RTA source told Jane’s on 8 January.

Russia's embassy in Bangkok would note during the delivery of several Mi-17's in 2015 that:

This model of the famous Russian MI-17 helicopter can be used not only for transportation purposes but also in combat circumstances as well as for civil needs, in particular for rescue operations and forest fire extinguishing.

Indeed, far from just new toys resulting from a military spending spree as US-backed opposition figures in Thailand claim, Russian-built Mi-17s have already been seen in action, most notably during the spectacular cave rescue incident last year where 12 children and their football coach made it out of flooded caves alive.

Mi-17's could be seen bringing in heavy equipment and other supplies to aid in search and rescue operations, just as Russian representatives had promised they could. The rescued children were also in fact flown to safety on Thailand's Mi-17's.



While these initial 7 Mi-17's sound insignificant, it should be noted that Thailand operates only 12 US-built UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. While it has a much larger number of much older US-built UH-1 and UH-212 Huey helicopters (78 and 51 respectively) only 20 UH-1's are being modernised along with 48 UH-212's.

Interestingly enough, the resources needed to upgrade Thailand's aging US helicopter fleet was so extensive it prompted Thai policymakers to look into and eventually decide to begin transitioning over to Russia's Mi-17, using funds from the upgrade programme to do so.

Thailand: Big Hopes for New Economic Ties with Russia

May 20, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - During the upcoming Russia-ASEAN Summit (May 19-20) to be held in Sochi, Russia, additional talks will be held with Southeast Asian nations seeking to bolster ties with Russia, who has until recently played a disproportionately minor role in Asia relative to the United States.

Diversifying Economic Ties 

It should be understood that Western special interests seeking global hegemony are driven first and foremost by economic ambitions. Political and military operations augment and run parallel to attempts to expand and dominate nations and regions of the planet economically. Such ambitions are meticulously planned out by policy think-tanks underwritten by corporate-financier interests, and sold to the public by corporate-dominated media campaigns.

In other words, the realm of economics is simply another dimension these special interests wage their war of hegemony within.

Therefore, for smaller nations like Southeast Asia's Thailand, operating in contradiction to US interests both in the region and within Thailand itself incurs predictable punitive measures from Wall Street and Washington - including coordinated media campaigns to undermine the nation politically, US-funded nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) undermining the nation socially, and various forms of economic warfare to target the nation financially. Over-dependence on economic ties with the West are easily used as leverage over what should otherwise be a sovereign, independent nation.

Russia-ASEAN Summit: Posturing or Power Play?

May 17, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Earlier this year, despite immense fanfare, the US-ASEAN Summit held in Sunnylands, California ended in a fizzle rather than a bang. Little of substance emerged from and admittedly "symbolic" summit, and the US even went as far as criticizing guests as they departed - lecturing them regarding "democracy" and "human rights."

Coupled with this send-off designed to humiliate, was the US State Department's various funded media fronts operating in each respective ASEAN state, mocking and denigrating ASEAN leaders who have fallen from Washington's favor.

Far from another step toward fostering better relations between Washington and Asia as prescribed by the US "pivot to Asia," it was instead a transparent attempt to empty out the resources of the region via compromising and coercive free trade agreements - more specifically, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - and line up an unwilling Southeast Asia as an adversarial proxy against Beijing - a notion none save for Washington attending the summit found appealing.

In reality, a summit can only bear equitable outcomes for all involved when a balance of power and leverage exists between all parties in attendance, thus making concessions possible, even desirable and above all beneficial to all.

Washington represents special interests with an enormous, lopsided amount of power and influence, backed in turn, by networks set up in each respective ASEAN member by US special interests to undermine and coerce each government to capitulate to US demands. Entire political fronts underwritten by Washington through the US State Department and an extensive network of faux-nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) exist to pressure and eventually overrun each state, creating for all intents and purposes a region of client regimes representing Washington, not the people they actually rule over.

Under such conditions, events like the US-ASEAN Summit represents a bully lining up his victims in an uncomfortable public display designed to make coercion look like cooperation.

Could a Russia-ASEAN Summit Provide an Alternative?

Later this month Russia is to host its own version of a joint ASEAN summit. In addition to the Russia-ASEAN Summit, there will be various bilateral meetings between Russian leaders and respective ASEAN states, including Thailand.

Russia, unlike the US, does not possess extensive extraterritorial networks of NGOs dedicated to subverting and coercing foreign governments. It has no historical or current presence in Asia militarily, unlike the US who is permanently occupying Japan, building bases in the Philippines, and regularly provokes security crises in the South China Sea. Russia spends a fraction of what the US does on its military overall, and cultivates a multipolar, non-interventionist worldview in direct contrast to America's "intentional order" it places itself atop.

In reality, Russia represents for ASEAN a much more equitable partner to deal with, not only directly for mutual economic and political benefit, but also as a means of balancing stronger relations and alternative economic opportunities against uncompromising hegemony imposed by Washington.

Stronger ties with Russia could offer ASEAN the ability to leverage more from the US, if not offer an exit to inequitable impositions altogether.

Russian President Vladimir Putin Speaks Out Against US "Exceptionalism" (Thai Subtitles)

A Tale of Two Protests: Ukraine & Thailand

Western hypocrisy on full display as it backs pro-EU protesters in Ukraine, condemn Thai protests against US-backed regime in Thailand.

December 2, 2013 (Tony Cartalucci) - When is a protest good, just, progressive, and defensible? One might think there was a single answer to this question based on an objective set of metrics. But in reality, according to the West, protests are only good so long as they serve their interests.

Ongoing protests in Ukraine and Thailand have both featured protesters attempting to storm and hold government buildings. Both appear to be preparing lengthy sieges of buildings they are unable to take, and both have the goal of ousting the governments in their respective nations. However, the West finds one of these noble, the other not.

The "Noble" Ukrainian Protests

Images: The three-fingered salute of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party can be seen in the pro-EU protest (photo via CNN). The actual constitution of the mobs are never mentioned in the Western media because it would lead curious readers to sites like, "Unity of Nobility - De-Kosherized News & Research Material" which feature Svoboda in articles like, "Ukrainian Nationalist have the Jewish rats shrieking." 

....

CNN gives us a transparent display of this hypocrisy. In their article, "Ukraine police accused of violent crackdown on pro-EU protests," CNN claims:

Some 10,000 demonstrators against the Ukraine's decision to not sign a landmark trade deal with the European Union descended on a square outside a monastery early Saturday in response to a police crackdown on the earlier protests. 

The emboldened demonstrators waved Ukrainian and EU flags and sang the national anthem outside the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, where groups of protesters retreated earlier after a sweep by riot police left seven people hospitalized and dozens under arrest at Independence Square. 

Three top opposition leaders called for resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych as well as new presidential and parliamentary elections, according to a statement released by Vitaliy Klitchko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Oleg Tyagnybok.

As for the "violent crackdown" CNN leads in its title with:

"...riot police stepped in early Saturday and "brutally dispersed" several hundred people who were demonstrating peacefully in support of Ukraine's European integration, according to a statement from Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

"Forceful dispersion of peaceful demonstrations does not help the cause of Ukraine's integration with Europe," ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski said. "We caution Ukrainian authorities against using force as it may carry unpredictable and irrevocable consequences."

The United States condemned what it called "violence against protesters" in a statement posted online by the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. 

A statement released Saturday by the U.S. State Department said, "We urge Ukraine's leaders to respect their people's right to freedom of expression and assembly... We call on the Government of Ukraine to foster a positive environment for civil society and to protect the rights of all Ukrainians to express their views on their country's future in a constructive and peaceful manner in [Kiev] and in other parts of the country. Violence and intimidation should have no place in today's Ukraine.""

Globalist Page: Robert Amsterdam

A lesson in intellectual dishonesty and international meddling.
by Tony Cartalucci

Contrary to many's beliefs, the men described by the Economist as "globocrats" are not invincible. They fail more often then they would care to admit, and along the wake of chaos they leave behind them in pursuit of their agenda, lies a horizon of complete, unmitigated wreckage. Following in the wake are men like Toronto/London based international lawyer Robert Amsterdam who attempt to salvage this wreckage.

The story of Robert Amsterdam sheds light on yet another cog in the "globocrat" machine, one rarely noticed or reported upon because, like the US funded NGOs, its role is one meant to feed back into localized unrest fomented by the globalists from afar. Amsterdam's job is to rehabilitate failed color revolutions, failed puppets, fallen thorns from the sides of the globalists' enemies, and to ensure that no matter how deep and dark the hole is a foreign country puts the globalists' operatives, they remain a burden and concern upon them indefinitely.

Robert Amsterdam isn't just any lawyer. He is co-founder of Amsterdam & Peroff, a major corporate member of the globalist nexus Chatham House, an organization that represents the collective interests of the largest corporations and banks on earth. He boasts support from the Economist, a fellow member of the Chatham House, and is afforded an entire page on the Huffington Post to pass off his pedantic legal drivel as "commentary." Then there is the fact that nearly all of his clients are either exiled, on the run, or rotting in prison, yet he is still able to find more "high profile" cases.

To be fair, Amsterdam's clients are hopeless causes, guilty of such overt criminality there really is no defense. And while it may be noble to defend such men, adhering to the best traditions and values of the West, Robert Amsterdam goes well beyond this, abusing this responsibility in order to carry out specific political objectives on behalf of the globalists with whom he consorts.

His two most recent and perhaps most notorious cases involve one a Russian oligarch named Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and a Thai police colonel-turned-billionaire tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra. Khodorkovsky is guilty and indeed sitting in a Siberian prison for embezzling billions. His Thai counterpart, Thaksin, also has two years coming to him for immense fraud. And while both are being defended by Amsterdam as "political victims" what is never mentioned, indeed buried deeply are the extra-legal, meddling affiliations both men have with the globocratic elite that undermine their political aspirations with megalithic, even treasonous conflicts of interest.

Accomplished researcher, William Engdahl, points out some very alarming connections and trends that served as the real basis for Khodorkovsky's current Siberian lodging. It seems that Khodorkovsky wasn't just embezzling money or involved in breathtaking displays of corruption, such was the nature of the times he came into power. It was rather his connections with the West, in particular Henry Kissinger and "Lord" Jacob Rothschild who were sitting on what Engdahl calls a George Soros Open Society-styled "Open Russian Foundation."

Worth repeating indefinitely, is the role these "foundations" and the networks of meddlesome NGOs they maintain play as the next greatest threat to national sovereignty behind invading armies and the IMF's economic hitmen.

Using both his wealth and his Western organized NGO networks, Khodorkovsky set out on an ambitious political campaign to seize for himself the Russian presidency from which he would undoubtedly repay his foreign backers with the economic liberalization (read: sellout) of the Russian Federation.

With uncanny exactitude, Thaksin Shinwatra attempted the same "soft-coup" in Thailand. He was a Carlyle Group adviser while holding office in then PM Chavalit's New Aspiration Party which oversaw the 1997 IMF's intrusion and controlled economic implosion of the Thai economy. He would later become PM himself in 2001 and through wealth procured through similarly fraudulent, though not unprecedented means, he began consolidating power, eliminating checks and balances, and preparing the liberalization of the Thai economy on behalf of his foreign backers. On the eve of the military coup that overthrew his government, he was literally standing in New York City giving a progress report to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Since his ouster from power, he has been backed by fellow Carlyle man James Baker and his Baker Botts law firm, International Crisis Group's Kenneth Adelman and his Edelman Public Relations firm, and now Robert Amsterdam's Amsterdam & Peroff. His proxy political party maintains a "people's power" organization supported by several National Endowment for Democracy NGOs including "Prachatai," an "independent media organization" that coordinates the "people's power" propaganda efforts.

In both Khordovsky's and Thaksin's case we come back to Robert Amsterdam, who now concurrently meddles in both Russian and Thai affairs using these two overtly mired convicted criminals as leverage to push not only the legal cases for which he is responsible, but the continuation of his clients' political objectives of undermining Russia's and Thailand's establishments, which in turn represent the continuation of the "globocrats'" agenda.

While Russia possesses the intelligence and military apparatuses to suppress significant internal unrest caused by Western backed NGOs and the continued and now lost cause of Khordovsky, the perceived "injustice" Robert Amsterdam accuses Russia of gives the West the moral high-ground to meddle in Russia's surrounding geography, notably color revolutions, NATO expansion, and political destabilization in Eastern Europe.

Robert Amsterdam is also attempting to lend Thaksin Shinawatra and his organized mob* the same credibility and moral high-ground ahead of yet another attempted overthrow of the Thai government this coming spring. While even Thaksin's mob leaders themselves have admitted on numerous occasions to having armed men involved in the bloodbath that ensued in 2010, Robert Amsterdam is now releasing a report that retroactively rewrites history and absolves them of their admissions. He also misses no opportunity to not only defend his "clients" (he also concurrently defends Thaksin's "red" mob) but calls on the Thai government to resign, as per the globocrat's aspirations of regime change and the subsequent economic liberalization under the re-installed Thaksin regime.

Yes, that is confessed Marxist, exiled red-shirt leader Giles 'Jai' Ungpakorn standing beside Robert Amsterdam, while he calls for regime change on behalf of his globalist masters.

Robert Amsterdam openly admits the Khodorkovsky trial is a political one, and seeks to not defend his client against his crimes, but to attack Moscow, a familiar theme amongst his globalist masters. It should be noted that BBC is also a major corporate member of the Chatham House.

Recognizing and exposing these ploys to manufacture non-existent legitimacy and to build up contrived moral high-ground takes yet another tool away from the "globocrat" elite. It forces them to fight their opponents more directly affording people on both sides a more honest representation of their true intentions and the opportunity to honestly choose for themselves whether or not to join their self-serving crusades.

*It must be noted that while Thaksin and his proxy political party are maliciously undermining Thai sovereignty via street mobs, many of the protesters duped into following them into the streets are well-intentioned, decent people. A clear delineation must be made between the perpetrators of the unrest, and the victims being exploited to carry it out.