Joshua Kurlantzick for the Council for Foreign Relations states that the government has the right to enforce the law, but then notes:

But the nature of the crackdown and the underlying political tensions show that the crisis is far from resolved, even if security forces succeed in ending the protests.

For one, the violent tactics of the security forces reveal real weakness. The army has been unable to prevent leaks in its planning, probably because some of its officers are sympathetic to the red shirts. In the April 10 clashes, the military’s movements seemed to be known in advance by armed men among the protesters. Unable to trust its forces for a commando raid or a thorough nonviolent removal of demonstrators, the military has turned to brute force, which is actually easier to apply than sophisticated crowd control.

The red shirt protesters, pushing for the devolution of economic and political power to average Thais, also have made mistakes. Though they originally presented their demonstrations as a nonviolent populist protest, by allowing armed men to infiltrate the demonstrations and attack the security forces and civilians, the red shirts ceded some of the moral high ground and made it easier for the government to claim they were “terrorists.”

BP: Can’t really understand how it so quickly went from a blockade to the soldiers firing indiscriminately. As Joshua notes the reds should also be criticized as the protests can no longer claim to be peaceful. It is like two persons going into a fight and both them get dirty in the mud. No one is going to come out this looking good.*

*Although, the coalition partners by the lack of link to either the protesters or the security forces may well emerge out of this relatively unscathed.