Russel was misguided, wrong on criminal indictment

The branding from US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel was blunt, partially valid but in substance misguided.
Mr Russel should have recalled the Watergate scandal in which his late President Richard Nixon resigned to escape Congress’ impeachment and yet Congress thereafter still wanted Nixon to be impeached. So, what’s wrong with Khun Yingluck being impeached after her loss of office? If the gibe came from many of Yingluck’s lieutenants I could understand but coming from a high US official, it was incredible.
Without full pardon from Nixon’s successor, former Republican Vice President Gerald Ford, for certain, Nixon would have gone to jail. Luckily for him, Ford was not a Democrat. Was that pardon ‘political driven’? Once one is a political leader, not only laws that prevail but also political rules, fair or unfair, override all rules otherwise there won’t be such words as ‘political games’.
Mr Russel’s bluntness reminded me of the words of China’s UN delegate in response to the United States UN delegate lambasting China over its Tianamen affairs:
“Different value should be permitted today. You cannot use one world’s standard and demand that everyone adhere to it. You use a knife and fork in the West. We have more than 2,000 years of history. Let us use chopsticks.”
Mr Russel’s slight on the five-year ban from the biased “jury” is fair but his challenge to the criminal charge was uncalled for. The charge was made by an independent agency against corruption and public prosecutors and not from bodies that the coup leaders have appointed. In an Anglo-Saxon legal world, it is enough to charge a leader for dereliction of duty in allowing her subordinates to incur huge losses. They were all under her watch. So, again, Mr. Russel was on the wrong footing on this count.
It is good to have this continuous check from the United States. However, it should be based on facts rather than swallowing the whole bait from one side like a hired lawyer or lobbyist in Washington.
Songdej Praditsmanont