Until this whole issue blew up in the last couple of weeks, I bet the Washington Post had never even heard of the Rohingya Muslims.   Now, the recent controversy over Thailand’s handling of the Rohingya boat-men-illegal-aliens has the WaPo declaring Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva is a patsy of the rightwing military.

Now, I don’t know enough about Thai politics so I shouldn’t be wading in here, and I am not defending any abuse of illegal aliens, but I do believe a country has the right and duty to its own citizens to control illegal entry into the country.  Is it considered ‘right wing’ (with the implication that right wing is BAD) to protect your people from an expanding and demanding Muslim insurgency?  The flip side, according to the WaPo’s view of the world, is that leftwingers would open the doors to the country because they are NICE people.

In a nutshell, everyone dances around the real issue—Muslim immigration and dominance.  By the way, today the Burmese (Myanmar) government declared that the Rohingya Muslims are not their citizens.  They insist they are a Buddhist country.  Bottomline, everyone is afraid of what an expanding Muslim population will do to their countries.   They fear that the Rohingya Muslims will not assimilate and will ultimately demand an Islamic government—immigration is a key element in Islamic doctrine.   But no one says it, especially not the Washington Post.

BANGKOK — When Abhisit Vejjajiva became Thailand’s prime minister last month, he promised to bridge the country’s deep political divisions, but recent challenges have seen his administration move sharply to the right.

Abhisit’s unquestioning support for the Thai military in the face of allegations that it recently towed hundreds of Burmese refugees out to sea on engineless barges and left them there with little food or water has convinced many people that the new leader’s reformist agenda has been compromised. More than 500 refugees, all members of the Rohingya ethnic minority, reportedly died.

Political analysts say the government is paying the price for a Faustian bargain it made to get into power: It finds itself in thrall to an invigorated military, and its continued ability to run the country is dependent on placating the far-right groups that occupied Thailand’s two main airports last year, with catastrophic economic consequences.

The Rohingya have been agitating for years to be resettled in the west.  These boat men are economic migrants (illegal aliens) yet the WaPo, in characterizing them as “refugees,” is thus helping set in motion demands that we take them to a town near you.

To the Washington Post, it’s a simple story—poor refugees abused by the bad military and the bad (rightwing) government.   This is the type of story template that caused me to cancel my decades-long subscription to the Washington Post.

For everything you ever wanted to know about the Rohingya go to our category Rohingya Reports here.