Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
MP SPEAKS | Which defence minister is responsible for the LCS scandal? - Lim Kit Siang
Monday, August 15, 2022
Malaysiakini : Is he putting the blame on Hishamuddin, who was defence Minister after him from May 2013 to May 2018?
Hishamuddin
has yet to disclose what he did as defence minister until May 2018 to
ensure that the largest procurement in the history of the Defence
Ministry did not end up as a disaster and a scandal, but he had a second
opportunity to put right the wrongs to ensure that Malaysia can take
delivery of the six LCS. Even then, no single LCS has been completed
although the taxpayers have paid more than RM6 billion.
Who else,
in Zahidās opinion, should the PAC call to understand the intricacies of
the LCS scandal which the PAC had not already called?
But the
Umno president cannot deny the undeniable - that as defence minister in
July 2011, he overturned the decision as recommended by the Royal
Malaysian Navy to contract six Dutch-made Sigma LCS and chose the
Scorpene manufacturerās six French-made Gowind LCS within three days
without consulting the navy, the end-user.
Why the design switch?
The letter of intent for the procurement was issued on Oct 16, 2010, and the letter of award was issued on Dec 16, 2011.
In
fact, the RM9 billion LCS was so contractor-centric instead of
end-user-driven, that the navy never knew that the decision to switch
designs had been made on July 11, 2011, and was only informed by the
contractor.
No wonder the then navy chief, Admiral Abdul Aziz
Jaafar, said in one of his 10 letters of protest - five to the defence
minister and two to the prime minister, which were all ignored - that
āthere is no precedent of the design being decided by the main
contractor and not the end-userā.
Aziz said āsomething was gravely
wrongā as the end-user and not the contractor should be setting the
terms of the LCS contract but the navy was āfighting a losing battleā.
That
Zahid as defence minister in 2011 took three days to overturn the
navyās choice of LCS design is the greatest mystery of Umno/BN
government in six decades.
A Sigma-class frigate
Going
through the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report and the testimonies
given by the various witnesses during its proceedings, I can think of
three possible scenarios why Zahid made the decision to change to the
Gowind design:
(i) Firstly, Zahid was a very bad minister who did
not bother to get the views of the Royal Malaysian Navy, the end-user of
the RM9 billion LCS procurement, and unilaterally and arbitrarily
decided to change from the Dutch-made Sigma design to the French-made
Gowind design without understanding what he was doing.
(ii) Secondly, Zahid was instructed by the then prime minister, Najib
Abdul Razak, to go for the Gowind design, and he had to execute the
PMās instruction regardless of the views and needs of the navy.
(iii)
Thirdly, the decision to procure the Gowind LCS was decided by the
prime minister, Najib, from the very beginning, going back probably to
2009, and this with Zahidās knowledge. This meant that the six meetings
between the navy and the Defence Ministry on the navyās recommendation
for the Sigma LCS from October 2009 to May 2010, leading to Zahidās
final approval on May 26, 2011, to procure the Sigma LCS, were pure
charade and the navyās views were utterly irrelevant and
inconsequential.
It is most ridiculous to blame Mohamad Sabu, who
became the defence minister in May 2018 for the LCS scandal, when in
April 2018, a month before the Umno/BN government was toppled by Pakatan
Harapan, the original equipment manufacturers including Naval Group
(former manufacturer of the Scorpene submarines) had stopped work
because they had not been paid by the contractor Boustead Naval Shipyard
Berhad (BNS).
This information was found in the testimony of Muez
Abdul Aziz, the Defence Ministryās chief secretary, before the PAC on
Nov 18, 2020.
Najib cannot wash hands off
The
most incriminating evidence against PM Najib in the RM9 billion LCS
scandal is his failure to deny that he was the āhidden handā behind it,
and his challenge towards critics to show proof that he had interfered
with the shipsā design.
There is strong circumstantial evidence
that Najib was the āhidden handā behind the LCS scandal. He was both the
prime minister and finance minister, as well as former defence minister
twice, his āFrench connectionā, and he made the most noise after the
publication of the PAC report.
However, the most challenging issue
now is whether Hishamuddin can redeem himself for his failure in his
first tenure as Defence Minister from 2013 - 2018 to avert the LCS
scandal and to ensure the achievement of four objectives:
(i) Completion of the six LCS;
(ii) Fight corruption in defence procurement;
(iii) Protect the welfare of military and ex-military personnelā; and
(iv) Safeguard the nationās security and sovereignty.
