I watched a show on Australian televison this week and heard the song, Dear Mr. President, by the artist Pink for the first time. It is a powerful song that ask the current US President some fundemental questions. He will probably never answer them, and luckily his term is soon up, but I believe its good that artists get involved in the important questions in the way that Pink did.

Some more information about the song from Wikipedia: “Dear Mr. President” is a song by Pink featuring the Indigo Girls, and was recorded for Pink’s fourth album, I’m Not Dead. Pink said that the song is an open letter to the President of the United States, George W. Bush, and that it is one of the most important songs she had written. She stated that it would never be released as a single because it was too important to be perceived as a publicity stunt. It has since been released in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the UK. The video of her performance live from Wembley Arena has also been added to the VH1 line-up of videos.

The song was written by Pink and Billymann. Pink came up with the idea to ask the Indigo Girls to join the recording of the song. According to an interview, they “believe in the song. An open letter to the president, that’s what we needed.” During an interview with an Australian radio station, the Australian girl group Young Divas asked Pink what she was thinking when she wrote “Dear Mr. President”. Pink stated that she wrote the song on Martin Luther King Day in 2005. “I read The New York Times every day, and watch the news. And I was completely disgusted with it. I just felt like….I just needed to write a song.”

When I’m Not Dead was released on April 5, 2006, “Dear Mr. President” attracted considerable attention. Most of the discussion concerned Pink’s statement that the song was intended for United States President George W. Bush. The song’s format is a series of questions for the President, specifically pertaining to how he really feels about controversial issues such as war (“Let me tell you about hard work/Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away”), homosexuality (“What kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?”) –this can also be viewed as Vice President Dick Cheney not accepting gay rights when his own daughter is gay,– The homeless (“What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street”), the Patriot Act (“What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away?”) and drug abuse (“You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine”), and asks “when you look in the mirror are you proud?”.

In an interview with MTV News Pink stated she hoped Bush heard the song and that “[he] is proud of the fact that we live in a country where we can do things like that, where we can have dissent, talk, communicate and share our opinions.”

Text source: Wikipedia.com

In the early stages of the Second World War (1939-1945) Thailand continued receiving its opium from countries like Iran and Turkey, but after the Thais sided with the Japanese Empire late in 1941, these markets were quickly cut off. In May 1942 the Thai Northern Army, commanded by General Phin Choonhaven, moved into the Shan States of northeastern Burma in support of the overall Japanese invasion of that country, establishing its headquarters in the town of Kengtung and thereby gaining access to the locally grown product as well as Chinese opium.

By virtue of their alliance with the Japanese, Thailand was granted permission to annex the Shan States, becoming known as the United Thai State. Within a few months, nearly 37,000 kilos of opium had been exported to Bangkok. The war had little effect on Chinese opium exports into the the Southeast Asian region. The nationalist Chinese, or Kuomintang (KMT), controlled southern China and although they were engaged in a bitter war the Chinese continued to sell large quantities to the Japanese.

For the first time, the Golden Triangle region became a significant opium producer, increasing output from just over 15,000 kilos in 1940 to 98,000 kilos in 1944.

As the war began to go badly for Japan- and consequently Thailand as well, the Northern Army was ordered to quit the Shan States. A number of key Thai military figures who dominated the opium trade after the Second World War saw service in the Shan States. With the surrender of Japan and the end of the war in 1945, the number of opium addicts in Thailand remained virtually unchanged from pre-war levels.

Considering the size and proximity of the market, is is somewhat surprising there was very little poppy cultivation in Thailand prior to the 1940s. However, from 1945 on wards, the Golden Triangle region continued its massive expansion. The region became the number one producer of opium and its derivative, heroin, in less than three decades.

In December 1946, the United Nations sponsored Commission on Narcotic Drugs passed a resolution calling for the abolition of ‘opium-smoking in the Far East’, invoking an article in the international drug convention signed at The Hague in January 1912. The Commission criticized Thailand for being the only country in the Southeast Asian region where a legal government monopoly still operated.

The Commission also passed a resolution calling for an end to non-medical opium exports as soon as possible. Iran, a major exporter Thailand, had passed a ban on opium production in April 1946 thereby forcing the Thai government to authorize poppy cultivation in the northern hills.

In November 1947, a coup returned Marshal Pibulsongkram to power in Thailand. The coup saw the rise of two powerful army cliques, one controlled by Colonel Sarit Thanarat and the other led by the Army Commander, General Phin and his son-in-law Colonel Phao Sriyanonda.

In 1948, the Thai government announced the introduction of an anti-opium campaign designed to end smoking of the substance by 1953. Yet it became clear to the two controlling cliques the opium trade was very lucrative and the anti-opium campaign was quietly abandoned. They recognized the enormous profits to be made from opium and both harbored desires to control it.

In 1949, when Mao Zedong (Mao Tse Tung) led his communist forces to victory over the Kuomintang in China, the bulk of the KMT forces fled to Taiwan while elements crossed the southern Chinese border and set up camps in the Shan States of northern Burma, as well as parts of Laos and Thailand.

Within a decade, mainland China ceased to be the world’s major opium market as the new government instituted harsh measures to eradicate drug addiction. Shanghai’s narcotics syndicates fled to British-controlled Hong Kong, opening heroin factories and expanding into Southeast Asia.

During the early 1950′s, the KMT-controlled areas of northern Burma turned to opium trading to finance their military incursions into southern China. Through a mixture of incentives and coercion, the KMT compelled local hill tribes to markedly expand their production of opium. The opium caravans then trekked south into Thailand and were sold to brokers who distributed the drug around the world.

Although ostensibly opposed to the growing of opium and production of heroin, forces within the United States government were prepared to turn a blind eye in favor of the bigger picture: the war against communism.

The growth of opium production in the Golden Triangle region was spurred by two factors. The first was the abolition of legal or government-controlled opium monopolies, thereby creating a demand for the now illegal substance. The second was the Cold War, which brought together an unholy alliance of right-wing forces opposed to the spread of communism.

Thus, the American, French and Thai intelligence services became loosely allied and supported KMT operations in northern Burma, Laos and Thailand, turning a blind eye to opium production and using the profits as a source of revenue to wage the Cold War against communist China.