Disaster disinformation (Wayne Madsen Report)

September 10, 2005 -- Disaster disinformation. How the United States lied about its military casualties from the Indian Ocean tsumani. According to informed sources in Thailand, the Bush administration largely succeeded in covering up at least 300 U.S. military and paramilitary deaths from last December's Indian Ocean tsunami. The American deaths resulted from the destruction by the surging sea of a joint U.S.-Thai Naval Intelligence Command on Phi Phi island, just north of Phuket on the Indian Ocean coast. A focus of the joint command was Thailand's indigeneous population of Chao Le ("sea gypsies') who are about 90 percent Muslim. The Chao Le, a Malay people, ply the Andaman Sea and maintain commerce with fellow Chao Le along the coasts of Malaysia and Myanmar (Burma). The intelligence command also provided protection for increased (and secretive) U.S. and British oil and gas exploration activity in the Andaman Sea off Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, and east India. A number of private military contractors (PMCs) working with the U.S.-Thai command and oil companies, were also killed by the tsunami but there are no hard figures on their total death count.