He has set up a website, www.usaforinnovation.org, to defend US intellectual-property rights. If you visit the website, you'll find all the wonderful things he has to say about Thailand, from the country's alleged violation of US intellectual-property rights to his campaign against the Thai military regime.

Adelman urges readers to sign a prepared letter addressed to US President George W Bush to protest what he calls the "attack on American jobs".

"The removal of election provisions, the threatened kidnapping of American tourists, the abrogation of American assets and the latest compulsory licenses of American medical innovations are proof that Thailand's government is going in the wrong direction," read the letter.

He also urged those visiting his site to call upon the US ambassador to Thailand and tell him to "stop the Thai theft and censorship of American innovation".

This kind of stuff makes you raise your eyebrows. Has anybody heard about a Thai threat to kidnap American tourists? You need to phone the Tourism Authority of Thailand to ask about the existence of a covert operation to kidnap American tourists in exchange for free US medical innovations. Then you also have to ask Krirk-krai Jirapaet, the Thai commerce minister, about his dark plot to abrogate American assets through his attempt to pass amendments to the Foreign Business Act.

You have to pinch yourself to make sure that you're not watching "Spiderman 3".

So who is Kenneth L Adelman? He is the executive director for USA for Innovation. He currently serves as a member of the Defence Policy Board. Under president Reagan, he was director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1983 to 1987. He served as deputy US representative to the United Nations in the early 1980s, and as assistant to former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 1976 to 1977.

Since his background has been in the field of defence, with close ties to hardcore American conservatives, you must wonder why he dislikes the Thai military regime so much. Don't they belong to the same species - more power and higher military budgets?

But wait a minute, his bio says that he is senior counsellor at Edelman Public Relations. Do you know why now?

Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted prime minister, hired Edelman Public Relations to represent him and to help prop up his international image. The Nation earlier reported that he signed a public-relations contract with Edelman in a deal worth US$300,000 (Bt10.3 million).

Edelman Public Relations was responsible for most of Thaksin's media exposure with CNN, Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal and the like earlier this year when he launched a PR blitz to boost his international image.

When Edelman wrote an article to attack Thailand in the Washington Times earlier this month, charging that the country was on the verge of becoming another Burmese-style regime, Korbsak Sabhavasu, a senior member of the Democrat Party, came out to expose the sinister link. He charged that Thaksin was behind the campaign to tarnish the image of the Thai government at a time when Thailand was having problems with the US over trade issues, particularly patent coverage of US pharmaceutical products.

Afterward, on Sunday, Noppadol Pattama, Thaksin's lawyer, came out to reveal that Thaksin had decided to terminate his contract with Edelman.

But a US official told me that USA for Innovation's campaign has nothing to do with the US government. "It is just a private warning group [that represents US pharmaceutical companies]," she said. She did not believe that Thaksin was behind USA for Innovation's campaign.

That's fine. On second thought, you may not want to link the ousted prime minister with every attack against Thailand from abroad as that might not be fair to him.

However, since the beginning of this year US for Innovation has been issuing a series of press releases to denounce Thailand's stance on intellectual-property rights. It has also launched ThaiMyth.com to publicise the alleged deceit of the Thai Public Health Ministry's policy on patent protection.

Eventually, Thailand had to pay the price, as the US government finally downgraded its trade relations with Thailand by placing the Kingdom on its Priority Watch-List. In doing so, the US cited its concerns over Thailand's lack of progress on intellectual-property rights protection, as well as the impending amendment of the Foreign Business Act, the impending introduction of the Retail Business Act, the capital control measures [to limit speculation on the baht] and the compulsory licensing of US pharmaceutical products.

If you read between the lines, the downgrade of Thailand's trade status has more to do with the Thai Public Health Ministry's move to enforce compulsory licensing on drugs to deal with Aids. By the way, former US President Bill Clinton applauded Thailand's stance on compulsory licensing on drugs to treat Aids.

However, I am not defending the Thai Public Health Ministry's position on compulsory licensing nor do I try to protect the poor track record of the military regime. Those issues would require more space than afforded by this small column.

But at the moment, the campaign against Thailand, which is coming from overseas, is harsher than the country's sins. We have not only faced a war in the South and the spectre of civil war arising from political turmoil, but we have also faced a larger battle from the outside.

We are at loss over how to deal with YouTube, the US drug firm Abbott, or a dubious organisation like the USA for Innovation. We are very innocent in the New World Order, which calls for us to embrace free trade and to open up our country without any restrictions. It also tells us to abide strictly to protect intellectual and patent properties.

The outsiders set the rules - freedom of expression by YouTube, free trade by the US, high drug costs by pharmaceutical companies - we only have to follow.

Increasingly, we'll face more and more people like Ken Edelman, who has hardly ever set foot in Thailand, but who is willing to crush us to the ground with his black heart.

Thanong Khanthong

The Nation