Insurgency boils up in Thailand

[dArKeR]

By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY

Asaha Dajing, 19, appeared to be thriving at an Islamic college in Yala, 20 miles north of this remote village. He had just won a $125 creative writing scholarship, big money in these parts. His family was proud.

But Asaha had friends his parents didn't know about: Islamic radicals who were recruiting impressionable young men for a mysterious holy war here in the jungles of southern Thailand.

Asaha's secret life was exposed only by his death. He was killed by police along with 13 other militants April 28 when they staged a suicidal assault on a government office near this village. Most were armed only with machetes.

"They used my son because he was young," says his father, rubber farmer Tama Dajing, 49. "He could be fooled very easily. ... I blame myself because I just worked. I went out in the morning and I came home at night, and I didn't know what was going on."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=2&u=/usatoday/20040621/ts_usatoday/insurgencyboilsupinthailand

I've been posting Thailand stories for 3 months in the FA but now it seems to be hitting mainer stream.

It will be the collapse of America if nothing more is said than 'kill all terrorists'. If the American Media Whores don't start asking why human beings are taking other human beings hostage and then killing them or asking what is wrong to make human beings fight to kill other human beings... Are people stealing their land? Are people stealing their money? Are people keeping them out of rights to vote? I think if everyone had to exchange 1 year of their life with a person from an under developed country, and they could live your life too for one year, what do you think the result would be?

[shockingelk]

1. CIA factbook says

3.8% of Thais are Muslim ... what does everybody else think of the insurgency? My impression of Thiland is that the king is very well liked.

[AndyTiedye]

2. How Would You Get That To Work?

> if everyone had to exchange 1 year of their life with a person from an
> under developed country, and they could live your life too for one
> year, what do you think the result would be?

the environments are sufficiently different that neither person would
have the skills they would need to survive in the other's world.