Rudyard Kipling"
“When 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 soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It 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."
When ex-PMs become ‘interfering fools’ By Francis Paul Siah
Friday, September 23, 2022
Malaysiakini : What an extraordinary feat for a 97-year-old! A lesser man would have
called it quits a long time ago. But not Mahathir. We have to salute
him for the man he is; that, we owe him.
Mahathir lives and
breathes politics, or to be more precise, he genuinely believes that his
job is to put things right by interfering in the sitting prime
minister’s decisions. If the sitting PM does not heed his advice,
chances are there will be trouble.
Ask PM5 Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,
or PM6 Najib Abdul Razak of the 1MBD fame. They were directly on the
receiving end of Mahathir’s wrath.
Dr Mahathir Mohamad
Abdullah
crumbled under intense pressure from Mahathir after he led BN to a
disastrous 12th general election in 2008. He resigned as prime minister
the following year and his deputy, Najib, took over.
Dark horse Muhyiddin
It must be mentioned that
PM8 Muhyiddin Yassin also played a pivotal role in the downfall of
Abdullah. This was possibly the first time Muhyiddin also played the
role of an “interfering fool” in the ouster of a prime minister, albeit
as an errand boy for Mahathir then.
Fast-forward 13 years later,
Muhyiddin himself is now an ex-prime minister himself, trying to tell
the sitting PM, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, what to do and how to run his
government.
Rightly, Ismail Sabri would have none of the nonsense
from an interfering fool. He fought back. (We will come back to that
later.)
Muhyiddin was clearly the “runner” for Mahathir when they
executed their plan to oust Abdullah and replace him with Najib. Oh yes,
Muhyiddin had a personal stake too – he was in line to be Number Two.
Malaysians
will never forgive Muhyiddin and his band of bad boys in Bersatu for
their treachery in the Sheraton Move. After becoming prime minister, he
declared that he harbours no such craving for the coveted post.
Talk
about a man lying through his teeth! This is one. Every political
manoeuvre Muhyiddin was involved in, he had a personal interest in. This
is why voters do not trust Muhyiddin. Rightly, none of us should.
Bersatu leaders during the Sheraton Move
I
feel duty-bound to repeat this again and again. Come GE15, the first
priority for Malaysians is to ensure that the Sheraton traitors,
especially Muhyiddin and his ex-Umno parasites plus Azmin Ali and his 10
ex-PKR leeches, including three from Sarawak, are voted out.
Their political opponents, either from Pakatan Harapan, BN, Pejuang,
Warisan, and other groups must consistently harp on this objective. I
feel it is the only target worth going out to vote on come polling day.
The
contesting coalitions should spare Malaysians the usual ideological or
philosophical crap and not waste their time producing a noble-sounding
manifesto, most of which is meaningless garbage anyway. Just tell the
voters why they must get rid of treacherous scumbags in Malaysian
politics.
Ismail Sabri’s resistance
Muhyiddin’s first salvo as an “interfering fool” against Ismail Sabri was fired on Sept 19 when he suggested that “if the prime minister continues to fail to properly manage the economy and nation, it is best for a general election to be called so a new, more efficient, caring and corruption-free government can be chosen by the people”.
Wow,
now it seems that the Perikatan Nasional chairperson has joined the
bandwagon to pressure Ismail Sabri to call for early elections.
What
we understand in Muhyiddin’s criticism is not his desire for a
corruption-free government but that the prime minister did not accede to
his (Muhyiddin’s) demands to sack Bersatu turncoat Zuraida Kamaruddin
from the cabinet as well as to appoint Azmin as deputy prime minister.
The
“interfering fool” is furious that the prime minister did not meet his
requests, even after he had supported Ismail Sabri to be PM.
Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob
Good for Ismail Sabri on Azmin. He must be aware that Azmin is not a suitable candidate for the DPM’s post.
One up too for the PM as he hit back
at Muyhiddin by saying that if the government had failed to manage the
economy, Muhyiddin and his party should shoulder some blame too, given
they are also part of the administration.
This should put Muhyiddin in his place and perhaps remind him to stop being an interfering fool.
I agree with Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi for describing Muhyiddin’s salvo against Ismail Sabri as an “act of sabotage” against the prime minister.
Finally,
to put my notion of an “interfering fool” in social science studies, I
would liken it to two archetypes - the competent jerk and the lovable
fool.
The competent jerk knows a lot but is unpleasant to deal
with; the lovable fool, who doesn’t know much but, is a delight to have
around. Both are liabilities to a sitting prime minister.
