Other charges, though more indirect, could involve his policy directives in the massacres of Krue Sae and Tak Bai. Homicide does not have a statute of limitations and a court can refuse to grant bail. If proven, the killings are no different than those that convicted and sentenced Saddam Hussein to death in Iraq.

Veharachan

Bangkok

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Concentrating on studies reduces chance of confusion

Re: "Senator Kerry's comment was a reference to Bush", Letters, November 7.

You know, in education, if you make the most of it, study hard, do your homework and make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Bangkok as an idiotic apologist defending left-wing American politicians.

 The comment was intended not as a critique of farangs living in Bangkok, but of Kelly Nuxoll.

Max

Rayong

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US voters' chance to overturn the destructive status quo

As the results of the US midterm elections pour in, the political left in America - the opposition party Democrats, along with all the others who have had enough of President Bush and his rubber-stamp Congress, are primed for an important electoral victory.

Once again the opportunity to dismantle the corrupt and radical movement that glorified Bush and bolstered him for so many years is at hand.

This road has been travelled before, in 2000 and 2004, and with a stunning setback in each instance. Of course the Republican Party would scoff at any hint of election impropriety such as vote tampering, voter suppression or vote-machine manipulation. "Their man Bush won fair and square." However, research and investigation over the last six years has strongly suggested quite the contrary.

In this election, according to Election Data Services, over 39 per cent of the electorate will cast their votes on direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines and nearly 41 per cent will have their votes counted by computerised scanners.

That indicates 80 per cent of the vote will be counted by the machines of private vendors whose political leanings are certainly open to question. This is to say nothing of the machine glitches, irresponsible technicians and key passwords for the machines that have already been passed around. Arguably I would think a legitimate caveat and concern for millions of voters.

However, those who are optimistic must not let such matters or any other last-minute allegations cloud it. There is reason to believe the election will be fairly honest and the vote so overwhelming that it will bring an end to the dishonest and inept six-year reign of an arrogant Congress that has done so much to shame and discredit the nation.

Should the election bring about the anticipated result, the new Congress then would be charged with a task similar to that of the CNS here in Thailand: bring about a change. That means root out the causes of corruption and, as regards Iraq, to especially challenge the military and foreign policy makers who led the nation to invade and occupy that hapless country and find a solution for ending the death and destruction that constantly gets worse.

Otherwise they too will become just a political party in office not for the people who elected it, but for its own sake; interested solely in power and holding on to it.

Mr Bill

Bangkok

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Americans may argue but will unite in defence

After the Second World War, the United States adopted a Policy of Containment of Communism, also referred to as the 1947 Truman Doctrine. Politicians of both major American parties followed the Policy of Containment until 1991 when the Soviet Union, with an estimated 5,380 operational nuclear warheads, collapsed and a Policy of Peaceful Co-existence, détente, was adopted. 

The United States presently has an estimated 700 bases throughout the world to prevent the sale of nuclear weapons and to prevent weapons of mass destruction technological transfers (of such items as triggers and guidance systems). President Bush, in cooperation with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, has prevented such weapons sales and technological transfers.

Yes, Americans argue politics. Don't underestimate the American public and their vigilance against attacks as stated in the Gadsen Flag, "Don't Tread on Me". 

John Wagner

Los Angeles

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Thais arriving in S Korea do face discrimination

Re: "Genuine Thai travellers will face no problem in S Korea", Letters, November 5.

I have Mr Tony Jung's reply to my letter about how Thais are being treated at Incheon International airport up on my screen here in Korea. He's basically saying that the incident I witnessed from not more than two metres away at passport control in Incheon was an "isolated incident". Well, I can think of a word for that, but you can't print it. I have seen this on almost every one of the 17 occasions I have made the trip from Korea to Thailand and back in the last two and a half years.

I can't say that all those people in the interrogation room after a flight arrives from Bangkok are Thais. Many look like Filipinas or maybe Indonesians or Malaysians. One thing I can say is that the interrogation room is always full after every flight from Bangkok and I've never seen a white person in there waiting with a look of apprehension and fear, wondering what is happening and what is going to happen to them. I didn't know myself, except that the first time I bailed my Thai girlfriend out of the interrogation room (and have since done four times), a Korean immigration officer told me that all the others were going to be sent immediately back to Thailand. So who's telling the truth?

My letter was just to advise Thais that if they think they can go to Korea on a tourist visa, which is supposed to be automatic for three months upon arrival, that it isn't going to happen. So what kind of proof do Thais need to supply at passport control if they want to go to Korea for a vacation? Mr Jung doesn't say. All I know from Korean Immigration is that a Thai cannot enter Korea without some authorisation or a sponsor. I have to do it every time for my girlfriend by going to Thailand to get her. She cannot come here on her own.

Sure, I see more Thais now in Korea than ever before in my eight years here, but an increase of 16 per cent is negligible compared to the dramatic increase in Koreans going to Thailand. The way Koreans are welcomed by Thais at Suvarnabhumi Airport compared to the way Thais are treated at Incheon couldn't be more different. Of course, the basis of this is money. Thais are welcoming to Koreans because they want them to spend their tourist dollars or Korean won. Foreign tourism is a major part of the Thai economy. But most Thais coming to Korea are not tourists. They are hoping to work and take money home. If you were to ask anyone on the street, anywhere in the world, where he would rather go for a vacation, South Korea or Thailand, what do you think the answer would be in the majority of cases? All of us foreigners are here to work except in special cases. I have met a lot of foreigners and not one was a tourist. The Thais are no different.

All I have to do is ask some Thais down at the railway station, where they hang out, about their experiences getting into Korea. I do know that my girlfriend asked some Thais at Incheon on the way back to Bangkok about their lives here. They had literally spent a month living in a dumpster in Seoul in the winter, waiting to get the money to go home. They had been in Korea for two years.

The real issue here is one of respect. The way the Thai woman was treated, being shouted at in English and poked in the ribs when she didn't move, was disgraceful. If she had been a white woman, they wouldn't have done that. It's just that Koreans have no respect for other Asians from "poorer" countries. It's a sort of inferiority complex they have acquired from being dominated by other foreign powers, most recently the Japanese. It is well known that those who are oppressed become the worst oppressors when they have the chance. The Koreans think this is their chance to make life more difficult for their poorer neighbours.

Once Mr Jung stops living in denial, as most Koreans do about such things, nothing is going to change. So who are you going to believe, me or the manager of the Korea Tourism Organisation? It's like a famous Groucho Marx line: "Who are you going to believe. Me or your own eyes?" It's also a matter of who has the motivation to uncover the truth, me or Mr Jung?

Brian Elkey

South Korea

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Hypocrisy at work in show-trials of corrupt leaders

A five-judge court has found Saddam Hussein guilty of executing 148 Shi'ite men and boys from the town of Dujail in 1982. These killings occurred one year before US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

No mention of this has been made in the mainstream press. No mention has been made during the trial, either, of the chemical attacks on civilians, ordered by the Ba'athist regime in 1986 - chemicals supplied by those nations now illegally occupying Iraq and overseeing this sham trial.

There are echoes here of the so-say trials of the Indonesian military several years back for its crimes against humanity in East Timor.

A few people get the chop, yet the crimes of the geo-political strategists safely back home in the West, who sat by and silently watched when it suited their interests, go unpunished.

James Martin

Bangkok