OPINION

Shameful ineptitude

Re: "Debate heats up over fire helicopters", (BP, July 4).

Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda wants 1.8 billion baht to buy six wildfire-fighting helicopters, saying his Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation picked the helicopter supplier via a transparent and accountable bidding process, and "as long as the company that won the bid had strictly followed the law, there was no problem".

In 2010, the Royal Thai Army bought GT200 bomb detectors at a cost of more than 1 million baht each. Our National Science and Technology Development Agency tested them and found them to be less effective than flipping a coin -- yet no army officer has been charged or held accountable for the fiasco.

Gen Anupong obviously knew something was wrong: so, why haven't the army officers who perpetrated this fraud on us been held accountable? How do we know that the government will deliver this time?

A wise man said, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me once, shame on me." Should we be ashamed?

I see The New York Times recently published a story about the nine Thai dissidents who disappeared or who were found dead.

I can just imagine what those rich investors the government always seems to be trying to woo might think after reading this story: "Hmm ... sounds like Thailand has a death squad or is protecting a death squad that takes care of troublesome dissidents. Yes, just the country I want to invest in."

It seems to me that rather than being an attractive place to invest in, this government's failure to protect or even care about its dissidents is more likely to make it a pariah state that no one wants to visit, let alone invest in.

It is reported that 50 Thai ridgeback dogs, or lang ahn, were rescued from a dog breeder in Chiang Mai. The 73-year old American man has been at it for more years than I can remember.

He advertises, sells his dogs for export, overprices, and runs the most abominable breeding farm under deplorable conditions.

I own many Thai ridgebacks and have, on occasion, spoken to this so-called breeder on the phone.

The conditions on his "farm" were well known to dog breeders all over Thailand and other groups seeking to protect these wonderful animals.

Why has it taken so long for any action to be taken?

It took little time for government agencies to swoop on the tiger temple in Kanchanaburi.

But then, I suppose tigers merit more attention than ridgebacks, Thailand's national dogs.

Recently the term "euphemism" has recurred in PostBag, specifically and accurately with regard to soapy massage parlours and "bath time". However, the term has a much more generic application to life in Thailand.

Your former columnist Andrew Biggs, who is well-informed, in some exasperation once opted for "mischief" in an article which somewhat mordantly understated the irregularities that are commonplace on a daily basis and appear to be condoned, with some exceptions, as the status quo.

This situation has been rampant here and elsewhere since time immemorial and has no particular ethnic bias, despite farang laments.