GE13: Quote of the Day 2

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(Well it was a big surprise to know that MACC had actually been “fingering” Taib on the allegations of corruption, at least not in the open and at least to a point where Taib is forced to make arrogant statement in the media but it was an even bigger surprise if the Government & MACC comes hard on Taib after this – after all, we have not see any “big fish” spending his / her last days in prison. Image source: http://fz.com)

When one is talking about “winnable candidates” and coming down clean for the voters to make the right decision, one cannot be far from dealing with the issue of corruption as well.

With the rather damaging revelations of broad-daylight corruption in Sarawak (now dubbed as the Shadow State) by the Global Witness and the growing call for MACC to make its investigations based on this revelation, we have this:-

Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud said that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) does not deserve his cooperation in regard to the exposé made by Global Witness.

“They [MACC] don’t deserve my cooperation because they have been naughty and dishonest with me. “Let them investigate if they want to victimise me,” Taib said after attending the Barisan Nasional presidential council meeting at the PWTC here today. Last month, foreign-based NGO Global Witness made a shocking exposé on the alleged corrupt practices involving those linked to Taib pertaining to the sale of native customary land in Sarawak.

Asked whether the video had tarnished his image in Sarawak, Taib replied in the negative, saying that the exposé was not in tune with what Sarawakians wanted.

(Source)

Is he really above the law as many have claimed it to be?

Can Taib afford not to cooperate with MACC at a time when Najib desperately need to show that BN are far from the taint of any corruption? Does he has a choice in the first place? Does this means enforcement agencies like MACC is under the thumb and rule of such arrogant politicians? If the expose of corruption, tax evasion and gross abuse of government assets is not what the “Sarawakians wanted”, what else is then? That few can continue to enrich themselves with tax-payers money and native land whilst leaving the rest to remain under the poverty line but when investigations starts, turn around and claim that they have been victimised?

If Najib and MACC do not come hard (without the end result of Teoh Beng Hock of course) on this kind arrogance by politicians with shady background, then it is clear that a change of Government is grossly needed. Despite the past misgiving of MACC that resulted in people turning up dead and the lack of bite to go after the big fish in corruption, unfortunately it is still the only corruption agency in the country that was entrusted of fighting corruption on all levels.

So with Taib telling MACC off, does this means we have closed MACC down? Some seems to think so:-

What is the MACC to do now? All eyes are on the MACC, again.

After all, two people have died in the course of their investigations since they were set up in 2009. Will it back down and keep quiet after this brazen response from Taib? Won’t this kind of snub embolden others to thumb their nose at the MACC and refuse to cooperate too?

If the MACC doesn’t do anything about this response from Taib, it might as well close shop. It is already working on a trust deficit basis and this snub from Taib has just shown how powerless the commission can be when it comes head-to-head with the powerful.

(Source)

Just because Taib had won the state seats for Najib, does it means Najib had to hold back any action on wrongdoings (some even borders high treason) in sheer gratitude? Otherwise corruption and mismanagement of funds will continue without any prosecutions and the nation bled to death and the same politicians will claim that they have done the best for the nation. Remember and vote wisely when the time comes even if you are not in Malaysia’s shadow state.

Meantime, in the Bolehland…

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(It does not matter if they are from BN or from PR – whoever is corrupted to the core, wasteful and lives on the culture of fear and unreasonableness should not be rewarded but instead to be shown the exit from public office. Image source: Lim Kit Siang)

Despite the well known tragedy of William Yau, we still have dumb-ass buffaloes masquerading as parents and putting their innocent young children at great danger.

Please read this first:-

A mother watched in horror as a stranger got into the family car and drove off with her six-year-old daughter sleeping in the back seat, near here. She and her husband had earlier got out of the car, leaving the engine still running, to fetch their younger daughter at a daycare centre at Taman Kosas in Ampang at around 11.30pm on Saturday.

The stolen car and the young girl were found abandoned hours later at a restaurant in Setapak, about 10km away. The girl was unhurt.

(Source)

After a numerous incidents of missing children, all hell broke loose with the disappearance of the young William Yau who later was found dead. No one knows how he died. No amount of regrets and apologies by his parents can ever bring him back. And after this tragic incident that shook the whole nation, we had expected parents to be extra careful with their children. These 2 buffaloes however proved all of us dead wrong. All the necessary recipe for another tragedy were all there:-

  • Both parents out of the car – they must be one heck of dumb ass to have 2 of them to fetch one young kid and why so late at 11.30 pm on a Saturday night (The parents were out busy partying?)
  • Engine running and presumably the car was unlocked
  • Another kid was still in the car sleeping and unattended.

This could have easily turned to tragic by the seconds. What happens if the carjacker had decided to kidnap the girl and sold her to child trafficking syndicate? Or decided to kill the kid off as how it happened in China? It is sad that some idiots never learn from other’s mistakes and if things goes dreadfully wrong; they ought to be held up for gross criminal negligence and their kids taken away for their own safety. The nation cannot afford to have another William Yau tragedy.

Ok, let’s leave that for a moment – I just wanted to get that out in the open and hope all parents out there will be more careful on the aspect of safety of their kids. Don’t be like the above 2 dumb buffaloes who almost lost their kid to a stranger.

General elections are around the corner – there has been an increased obsession with Anwar’s so-called videos tying him on unnatural relationships with girls and boys. Before this, other than Sodomy 2, they had nothing much to gain on to paint the oppositions in bad light other than the loose alliance between DAP-PKR-PAS (you just need one clown to be unhappy and make statements on the mainstream media and immediately the rest of them jumps to a conclusion that Pakatan Rakyat is breaking away, unstable and will be a great danger to stability of the country if they were voted in). Now they are back on the alleged Anwar’s interest in another’s butt – with new videos and indirect assumptions (even the lovely Nurul Izzah was not spared). More is expected, of course.

But then if sex is the only overriding criteria to kick unworthy politicians from running for office in the coming elections, then what about this, this, this and this? Didn’t we were able to move over this rather sensitive issue and looked at politicians (so we think) who can get the job done in the past? If BN insists on this issue, then shouldn’t the same politicians (who now hold prominent positions) implicated in the past, should not be left to run for or hold any position to this date?

On a state level, they had tried hard with the water issue in Selangor but it did not really work there, not after it was proven that the cause of the water problem was due to maintenance and not lack of treated water (earlier they were so bent on the lack of raw water in the state which in the end was proven to be untrue) and after the Selangor Government made the offer to buy off the water concessions & their debts. And now the attack has focused against the proposed underground tunnel in Penang (read the Open Letter from Lim Guan Eng here and CAP’s reply here who seems to be whacking BN more than PR). Don’t tell me that no one in the world had done a similar underground tunnel but got screwed left, right and centre? Then what about the SMART tunnel?

That’s fine – we had already expected that the events leading to the general elections will be as tense as possible. And blaming each other on problems, mismanagement and abuse is nothing new of course – Pakatan fellows are doing the same, fair and square. At the end of the day, what is more important is not whether the leaders are involved in some abnormal relationships but rather whether they are smart, unbiased, not corrupted & hard-working enough to bring this country up to developed & corruption-free country status.

But then on the other side of the spectrum, just make sure that you are not losing sight of other main issues in the midst of general election campaigns, propagandas and stories in the mainstream media – there has been only silence on the rather uncontrolled and mismanagement of public funds in form of BRIM (1.0 & 2.0 & more coming up soon), pay increases to civil servants and one-off gifts such as this:-

Putrajaya awarded 1,000 individual permits to taxi drivers today and promised more soon with Datuk Seri Najib Razak saying it was proof that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government fulfills its promises. The announcement comes as part of the administration’s move to ward off potential voter backlash from some 80,000 registered taxi drivers nationwide, who have been angered by delayed reforms in the industry.

“What did I promise? I had promised individual permits to taxi drivers. Even though there are many companies that gave jobs to you, some had exploited tantamount to a slavery system of the past. “Ini satu lagi janji ditepati kerajaan (This is one more of the promises fulfilled by the government),” Najib told some 5,000 taxi drivers at the permit distribution event held at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre here.

(Source)

They must have been paid good money for the taxi-drivers to show up for the event. After all these years of ignoring the taxi-drivers’ pleas for individual permits, there is no secret why Najib decides to give them now not without a catch to this deal of course – it is only available for a specific Proton model which may not be cost effective to some struggling taxi drivers and apparently 1,000 permits given away is actually owned by taxi companies, which are “giving up them as part of their corporate social responsibility”.

One has to wonder how much of arm twisting and carrots were dangled for these taxi companies to “give up” the profitable permits. Or perhaps 1.000 taxi permits were nothing but chicken feed to this people – so giving up would not be nothing big. In the end the problem is still there but apparently the long term solution will only come in if the taxi drivers are “grateful” to the government:-

Najib made this clear when he said today the decision to award the direct licences reflected the ruling coalition’s seriousness in safeguarding the welfare of taxi drivers.

“Let’s create this bai’ah (co-operation) among us. We can give more licences apart from this one. You have to bai’ah with the government. “Do not forget the government’s goodwill,” he said.

Another case of you scratch my back, I will scratch yours?

If you have missed reading in between the lines, whatever money being dished out by Najib to keep the voters happy (and ask them to be grateful) actually comes from tax-payers. It is a matter of taking out from the right pocket and putting it in the left pocket. So why should we be grateful? Does this is part and parcel of the Government’s job to collect taxes and distribute accordingly?

To keep throwing money just because the election is around the corner does not really help the country in the long run and asking the people to be grateful for the money they received is nothing but a salt rub on a wound with a smile. But other than the opposition, no one else seemed to be bothered to ask the Government on how they managing the sudden influx of money and where it is being scrapped from? The question that everyone should be asking is whether Malaysia is really flushing with money?

Then there has been only silence on the infamous Global Witness video evidence on wrongdoing in Sarawak.

Yes, everyone’s agrees that Taib is not in the video (one that the pro-BN blogs is arguing to compare to Anwar’s so-called sex videos). Then again, those who were videoed and admitted to acts of corruption, tax-evasion and crony-ism are not ordinary people. They are not the road side char keow teow seller or the man in sarong manning the small mamak stall. They are tightly tied to Taib and the circles of power and business magnates in Sarawak. Two of them are even well-known lawyers. And their admission of wrongdoing on camera should have been more than enough to slam them with criminal charges. So much so Taib need not be in the video to be implicated with serious accusations.

But then it seems like no one seemed to be interested on this case – not the PM (he is too busy giving away gifts to voters and pacifying the security forces in Sabah with pay rise and motivation talks). In times of general elections, understandably he may not want to mess up his “fixed deposit” in Sarawak. But he loses even more by keeping silent and passing the buck to the MACC. By now, everyone knows how MACC have limited powers and how they have operated in the past and many does not have confidence that MACC will get to the bottom of things.

MACC todate have only mentioned that they are “looking” into it and will “act accordingly” (of course, it does not strike anyone as being serious, not when there has been earlier reports and nothing had happened). But not all is lost – at least the Advocates Association of Sarawak (AAS) will be referring the two Sarawak lawyers implicated in the video to the Advocates Inquiry Committee, an independent disciplinary body separate from the AAS, to conduct its inquiry into possible instances of professional misconduct under laws and regulations governing the legal profession in Sarawak. But then again, it is a matter of going after the small fish whilst the bigger predators are still free to suck dry the wealth of the country.

There has been just plain denial from the Chief Minister implicated in the said video and any damage control from pro-BN sites came in this form:-

But was it really a sting operation? Could it be a well crafted conspiracy against Taib by his own kin who have the coveted Chief Minister’s seat at sight? I’m sure those who know what happened during Ming Court 1987 won’t be surprised with Norlia & Fatimah’s latest tune, would they?

(Source)

And

A source has revealed to The Mole that Global Witness, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) responsible for the recent video that allegedly incriminates Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud in questionable land deals, has received funding from an organisation founded by currency speculator George Soros.

(Source)

Ok fine, but why Taib have not sued those who implicated him in the video for criminal defamation? Why he has not called for a press conference and had set the records right on the accusations. Why the denial in the passing? After all, the accusations and admissions on video are very serious in nature where in some countries like China, if they are found guilty, faces the firing squad! If there is a so-called conspiracy against him, what more a better way to put away the competition / conspirators with defamation law suits and injunctions and help Najib with good PR along the way?

After all anyone can deny wrongdoing – it is a matter of one man’s say against another (yes, even if you are a Chief Minister) but if there is hard evidence that suggest otherwise, a mere denial is simply not enough. Those pro-BN sites should know better – they been whacking Anwar the same despite the numerous denials and multi-million ringgit lawsuits by Anwar. And they have always insisted that even very blurry video evidence is the hard proof of wrong-doing. The same should apply to Taib even though he is not in the video. And who really cares who funds Global Witness, what is more important is what was investigated and brought to the attention of common public – something that will never see the light of the day in BN funded media.

At end of the day, it does not matter if one supports BN or PR but if there is serious wrong-doings and whoever stands for public office is immoral, wasteful, corrupt, lazy, biased, and fully against a united Malaysia, they do not need our support and certainly our precious votes. They should be made answerable for all the things that they have done. So keep on top of the fairy tales, grandfather stories, grand fiction that are flying from both camps (trust me it will get a lot more worse and weird as we near the voting date) and vote wisely.

Inside Malaysia’s Shadow State

It is not hearsay; it is direct from the horse’s mouth. It is hard evidence of corruption and breach of trusts, tax-evasion by the millions, illegal land grab and the downright shaming of the ordinary citizen deep in the jungles of Sarawak. The video is not hazy – it is crystal clear.

Sarawak Report writes:-

There can have been few more devastating secret filming exposes than the confessions made by Taib’s closest family, a close lawyer and his cronies as they set about trying to sell the land handed to them by the Chief Minister in his capacity as the man who controls the Land and Survey Department and indeed the whole of Sarawak.

The territory they are selling off is described at ‘state land’, but in fact as Global Witness has established both the Hiis and the daughters of Tun Ya’kub have got hold of titles to Native Customary Rights (NCR) Lands, where indigenous people were granted rights many years ago and now face being driven from their homes.

They all make clear that it is Taib who makes all the decisions to give out the NCR lands.

They also make clear that he gave it to them because they are close cronies and that in return the greedy dictator expects a large slice of the profits.

Not only that, the entire gang of thieves conspire together to cheat the country of tax in the process. These are the tax rules made by the very government that Taib is part of and which he enforces against everyone else!

The question is what Najib, the AG and the MACC intends to do about this?

You cannot get a better admission of wrong-doing, corruption and tax-evasion than this?

This is a film that will have Malaysia talking. But, Malaysia will see that BN and Najib Razak will do nothing to move against this corrupted state leader, because they think that Taib can deliver them a ‘fixed deposit” of votes in the coming General Election. Is it time to prove them wrong?

Yes, can Najib prove us wrong? Will these wrong-doers be allowed a similar “23 days grace” before any action is taken?

Redefining Enemy of the State

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(Still remember this ‘enemy of the state’ from Australia. Thanks to the armed intruders in Lahad Datu, Malaysian Government is made a laughing stock when they immediately arrested and deported this ‘enemy of the state’ at the entry point but missed the 200 odd intruders from Sulu and gave 23 days of grace for these intruders to claim a part of Malaysia)

Read these first:-

PKR vice-president Chua Tian Chang has been charged with sedition in a Sessions Court here for making statements linking the Government to the Lahad Datu shootings.

He was charged with making the statements claiming the shootings in Lahad Datu was a planned conspiracy by Umno to divert attention and frighten the people. He also said it was a “drama” by the Government to scare the people and divert their attention in Sabah, particularly away from the RCI into the state’s immigrants issue.

Tian Chua said from the dock: “This is a political allegation. I will answer this defamation to clear my name”.

(Source)

And

In the last stretch before GE13, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad dropped all pretense for a Bangsa Malaysia and has gone for the Malay vote and slammed the Opposition for listening and accommodating the views and needs of the non-Malays.

State news agency Bernama quoted the country’s longest-serving prime minister as saying that Selangor must be saved from the opposition to ensure the rights and position of the Malays and Bumiputras are maintained in the state.

Dr Mahathir said the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) had taken over Selangor’s economy and now had great ambition to control politics in the state.

(Source)

And

Police have busted a Nigerian drug trafficking syndicate, using women’s shoes, to ship drugs. The ‘unique’ modus operandi is the first of its kind, catering to customers overseas but the packing of the drugs is done in Gombak, said Selangor Narcotics chief Asst Comm Nordin Kadir on Thursday.

Three Nigerian men, who are students of private colleges were detained on Tuesday, along with the seizure of more than RM380,000 worth of heroin. The syndicate has been active for six months, gaining entry to the country using student passes.

(Source)

The intrusion in Sabah in one way or another have forced us to relook into how we enforce the security of our national borders and how things have been taken for granted when it comes to foreigners in the country. It is a good thing. We cannot to keep things at status quo if we do not want another armed intrusion at our borders and our security forces suffering unnecessary causalities.

In that sense, let’s look at Tian Chua’s case. He questioned the Government’s inaction against the armed intruders and may have said 1-2 things more about this but it did not take long for a number of police reports to be made against him – some claiming that he belittled the integrity of the armed forces dealing with the intrusion in Sabah. But then again, did he intend to do so? In the initial massive confusion of the whole intrusion, I believe Tian Chua was not alone in questioning the passive action by the Government in dealing with the armed intruder for 23 days before the first shot was fired.

So much so, Mariam Mokhtar writes:-

The rakyat has every right to question our leaders for spending billions of ringgit on armaments, which appear to be overpriced and ineffective. We certainly must question our leaders when it appears that the purchase price includes a heavy commission. A sum of RM1 billion was allegedly paid to the Defence Minister who purchased the Scorpene submarines.

We have a right to criticise our leaders for neglecting the Suluk threat and waiting 23 days before taking action. We condemn our leaders for depriving us of news when family and friends live and work in the area. We condemn Najib’s tactic of locking up opposition politicians who ask questions on our behalf. When we criticise the failure of our leaders to handle the Suluk threat, we are not questioning the bravery of the security forces. A prime minister who resorts to silencing the rakyat with lies and obfuscation, does not deserve our vote.

(Source)

Can you imagine if armed men had rushed into the Petronas Twin Towers, held no hostages and claim that the building belongs to them? Would they be allowed 23 days to evacuate the building? At the most, they would have given a couple of hours before they would have been flushed out one way or another by the police commandos. Same case in Lahad Datu and given the sensitivity of the place, a longer extension of 1-2 days may have been given but certainly not up to 23 days and after final deadlines went unheeded. If you want to find faults with politicians like Tian Chua, he probably is guilty in picking the wrong choice of words and the wrong expression in addressing this concern but certainly not guilty of questioning the integrity of our armed forces. However since he has been charged in the courts, let’s wait for the trial for the final outcome.

And then we have aged politicians like Dr M who claim that a rule under the oppositions means eradication of the rights and privileges of the Malays. Apparently the state of Selangor is in “great danger” due to the accessions to the Non-Malays and must be saved at all cost. This is despite the fact that both the Malays and Non-Malays are Malaysians at the end of the day and the rights and privileges of the Malays are entrenched in the constitution. At this point, one need to wonder what this is so different with the Sulu bandits in Sabah threatening the security of the country? Why there are no barrage of police reports made then? After all, such irresponsible statements (despite coming from a retired old man) are grossly untrue and can cause unnecessary animosity between the various races in the country. Doesn’t a threat to national unity is a threat to the national security? Doesn’t this borders the same Sedition Act that Tian Chua is facing now?

We can understand and tolerate to an extent, the dirty politics and personal attacks on certain individuals or political parties – we had already expected it, from the various instances of Pakatan claiming that BN is corrupt and wasteful with tax-payers money and BN claiming undesirable needs of an Opposition Leader and some opposition politics corrupt as well. If there is proof, we highly welcome it – it will allow us to make an informed decision on who to vote for in the coming general elections. But causing hatred on the basis of Malays are loosing out to the Non-Malays just because BN is not ruling the State should not be tolerated and entertained at all. It should not be allowed to continue as well. Dr M may have done things in the past that gained some respect from Malaysians but at this point of time, he is nowhere at that level. Not when he continues to make statements that only causes disunity between Malaysians.

And whilst we seem to have defined the threat to national security in the wrong way in the past, we seem to be heading at the right direction by looking at the existence of 800,000 Filipinos in Sabah and re-looking at the tightening of the border security. It is a good start but we still have foreigners in this country and some of them determined to be a menace and threatens the good name and the security of the country. We still have Nigerians “students” caught for drug related crimes on a regular basis when we have seen and experienced the same in the past. So why we are still allowing student visas for these Nigerians and how well we did the background check and verifications before we granted them access into this country? We have South Americans doing ATM robbery jobs (I don’t think they have been caught) and Iranians, Indians, Pakistanis and others caught for drug related crimes.

We have a sizeable number of foreigners in this country and we need them for the growth of the nation. We appreciate their hard work, investment and participation but at the same time, the Government should be very mindful on who comes in and out of the country. The Lahad Datu armed intrusion could just be a rare incident and we may not see any further escalation once the on-going clean-up by our security forces ends but then again, it also happened because we took things for granted and swept the issue of foreigners in Sabah under the carpet for far too long. Malaysia is a peaceful country but we should not sit on our laurels – we need to be mindful on who are the real enemy of the state.

So It Ends at Lahad Datu? Part 2

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Ops-Daulat

(Now it is a whole different ball game in Lahad Datu once the military steps in with its might with surgical air strike and armoured infantry mopping and search exercise – Photo sources: the Net)

The number of our fallen heroes went up to 8 before the Government decided to end their passive approach to the whole situation and came to their senses and finally brought in the might of our trained military power as how it should have been probably after the first 24 hours deadline to surrender unconditionally.

The fact that the Government pushed the military to be second liner to the situation perhaps caused more confusion and suspicion (one that Tian Chua accidentally got entangled for the wrong reasons when he questioned the passive action by the Government) and even ex-military men started to ask questions. First from Capt (Rtd) Hussaini Abdul Karim (http://hak55.blogspot.com/):-

News photographs show some troops in bullet-proof vests but no helmets; others in T-shirts and “soft” headgear; and many not wearing bullet-proof vests. This is wrong. However, soldiers guarding the area were wearing helmets and bullet-proof vests. There didn’t seem to be any trenches or bunkers with sandbags to protect troops keeping watch.

Some of the militants have SLRs using 7.62 mm bullets and 81mm mortars. These are deadly. A hit on the arm from as far as 600m, because of its sheer power, can kill. This is unlike the bullets used by our troops which are the 5.56 mm type where sometimes even a direct hit to the body may only injure and is not strong enough to kill. If I were the commander, I wouldn’t want to position my men anywhere nearer than 200m of the enemy.

Malaysian troops, police and the army, with our strength and superiority in numbers, equipment and logistics support, should be fully ready. Strafing from the air, harassing fire using high explosive ammunition from mortars, the light and even the medium guns of the artillery regiment should have been carried out. Tanks should have been deployed.

And another from Major (Rtd) D.Swami (http://7rangers.blogspot.com/)

We should have struck using the Malaysian Armed Forces with great audacity and at will to bring terror into the hearts of these Sulu pirates who think themselves hardy warriors.

The Police did not have the assets to destroy them. Those Sulu pirates were with automatic weapons and mortars, which killed two of our people. They had frigging mortars, for f***sake!! Najib and company were handling these terrorists with kid gloves, using the Police who are trained to handle internal security situations like the Bersih or Hindraf rally.

The Police are not trained to launch attacks on enemy locations, where the enemy fires back. It is not a Bersih rally. They do not have Mortars, Artillery, Infantry Fighting Vehicles or Special Forces skilled in Reconnaissance, Air Force and Navy. One of the principles of attack is, “the momentum of the attack must be maintained”. There will be more casualties as they did not observe this principle. I doubt the Police have any inkling of that. I guess more Policeman have to die before the sheep calls in the Military.

The Military knows that. It should be their job, as it is an external threat, they are equipped and trained for this. I am sure any soldier worth his salt is raring to go. This should be handled by the 5th Brigade Commander without sparing all the niceties. In fact there is a Tank Regiment in Kota Belud, that would make it all the more easier, minimizing the Malaysian casualties and maximizing casualties amongst the Sulu pirates. We can even use the FGA’s located in Labuan. A couple of sorties with them, followed by a mortar and artillery barrage, would be nice. After which the Infantry mounted in Stormers, accompanied by tanks can finish the job. We should use these assets which are there, instead of throwing away the lives of our brave Malaysian men.

But thankfully all that nonsense that went on for 3-odd weeks (which was way too long to be dealing with a foreign force claiming a stake of the country and asking everyone to buzz off) ended when Najib called in the military and told the intruders that there is only one way out for them – unconditional surrender.

First there was the surgical bombing using laser guided bombs using the F/A 18 jet fighters and BAe 200 Hawks and then pounding of the area with artillery to clear the area for the police and the armed forces to move in and do their mopping and search mission and with that managed to stop further casualties and in the same process managed to kill off up to 52 of the armed intruders and x number of arrested/caught. More battalions were moved up to Sabah and the naval blockade tighten to prevent more intrusion from taking place. And more recently Najib also issued orders the set up of special security areas to maintain high military presence – it makes a lot of sense, we do not want another wave of intrusion taking place soon after we had finished with the clean up of the current intrusion.

The fact that we are getting more of the intruders dead or caught whilst at the same time suffering no causalities of our own simply points that we are doing the right thing at the moment. But there is still room for improvement and lesson to be learned when it comes to dealing with foreign armed intrusion.

The obvious one would be the role of the military and the police in dealing with such armed intrusion? Semantics aside (one may argue that it is still considered as an internal affair and that is why we have the police in the lead), we would not seem a positive improvement to the armed intrusion stand-off if the military (with all due respect to the brave & skilled police commandos who had endangered themselves for the country and still fighting in the front-line) have not move in with their powerful assets in land, sky and sea. It is clear that there is a confusion as who to take the lead when such incidents happened (which may have explained the 3 weeks delay nonsense) – on whether the Home Ministry or the Defence Ministry should take charge.

In this instance, the answer is crystal clear – the police may come in to cordon the area and negotiate with the intruders to surrender themselves but once the order has been issued to wipe the Sulu terrorists, they should have fallen back and leave the military to do their job. Press releases thereafter should only come from the Chief of the Armed Forces, Gen Tan Sri Zulkifeli Mohd Zin or in some instances from the Defence Minister or the Prime Minister. The police will still have vital role to play with maintaining rule of order in other areas (they still have their normal policing work to do), with forensics of the dead bodies and to interrogate & process those who have been caught (and already cleared as not holding any vital information to the on-going military mission) by the military.

It will be even better if politicians with limited knowledge of military tactics and skills stay clear from the on-going military exercise and leave it to the experts to get the job done. This kind of confusion needs to be cleared before we face a similar intrusion in the future (although we hope this would be the last one). The amount of confusion (and unfounded rumours) generated at the first 3 weeks of the intrusion (and no thanks to strict media blackout) is simply astonishing.

Then we have this – one that well observed by Capt (Rtd) Hussaini Abdul Karim above and another by Singaporean former defence correspondent:-

During the three-week long standoff against a force which claims has 200 gunmen and even after blood was shed, Malaysians deployed for security duty do not seem to care much for their personal protection. Body amour is rarely seen.

When worn by some officers, the body amour appears to be of the soft body amour type which is not designed to withstand full metal jacket projectiles discharged from firearms or mortar rounds. Headgear in the form of ballistic helmets is almost never worn. And let’s not even go into protective eye wear like goggles.

(Source)

The American foot soldier in the Iraq and Afghanistan theatre of war complained the same thing at the initial start of the battle – the lack of body amour when facing a more determined insurgents and when the body counts started to rise, it took some time for the Government to act before the troops on the ground getting the right body armour. Coming back to the scenario in Lahad Datu, due to the media blackout and lack of details on the actual mission on the ground, it is possible that those in the front-line are actually have the right body armor but then if what we see on the news and media is reflective of what is our troops are using to face the heavily armed intruders, we need to revisit this if we are going to face a more sophisticated and trained foreign troops (remember, everyone with military interest in the region is looking at us on our tactics and state of readiness).

And finally there is a small incident of the media in Philippines (quoting their military intelligence) tying the culprits behind the armed intrusion with an opposition party in Malaysia. Utusan and TV3 (given this sweetener) wasted little time and jumped the gun and named Anwar was the one. I don’t think any Malaysian in their right mind (more so a leading politician at the time of general elections) would be dared to do that because it meant high treason and rightfully Anwar have denied the same and is now suing Utusan & TV3 for RM100 million for gross defamation. He should now raise the same concern to the same Philippines media and should demand them to name the opposition politicians. After all, Anwar is the Opposition Leader in the Parliament and any implication of the opposition with the armed intrusion (even if the media there did not name any names) is the last thing that the Pakatan wants at the moment. He should get this thing done and over now instead of just waiting out for the defamation suit trial date which will come over after the general elections.

In the meantime, whilst the rest of us would be looking forward to spend our time with our families on the weekend, our prayers and hopes remains entrenched with our security forces in Sabah to bring the armed intrusion to a swift end and without any casualities.