...So you pick up a history book to figure out US's angle
From Peter Dale Scotts: American War Machine-Deep Politics, The Cia and the Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan
TL:DR the US turned Burma-Laos and Thailand into a heroin growing triangle (The Golden Triangle) much like they did with the Mafia in Sicily and Marseilles.
The Drug traffickers and drug money became a huge way of CIA to implant bourgeois ideology and suppress communists and the growing popularity of the PRC. They even used ex-Nazis as agents for drug smuggling. It also gave US unfettered access to Myanmars tungsten reserves.
This enitre coalition was directed at China of course.
Your comment made it sound like these two types of NED operations were distinct from one another. The response highlighted that these are not distinct. It is two features of the same operation.
I found that important to highlight because it matches with the revolving door of state agents & humanitarian operations in my city.
It's not a dig at you or anything, but the clarification was helpful.
Yeah I mean that’s fine, we have different reads on this and maybe I’m not expressing myself very well. To be clear I do not think most of the organizations where NED has money are “NED operations” in and of themselves. They opportunistically and parasitically extends their claws everywhere, yeah, but receiving some NED money (note: some money, not being entirely funded that way) in itself doesn’t tell me that the organization is what the CIA needs them to be.
Whether that’s the case with this specific Thai group, I have no idea, I had never heard of them before this thread and I think it’s fine to be suspicious.