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."
Who's in charge - Anwar, Zahid, or Najib? By Mariam Mokhtar
Saturday, April 08, 2023
Malaysiakini : If Najib were granted a royal pardon, it must surely count as one of the darkest days in the history of Malaysia.
If the worldās worst kleptocrat were granted a royal pardon, how do you think the rakyat would react?
A
royal pardon for Najib will be an insult to law-abiding Malaysians. It
will open the floodgates to anger and anarchy. If people in authority
can get away with stealing billions of ringgit of taxpayersā money, then
what does it say about the country?
How will it reflect on its
governance, its laws, and the judiciary? Granting the royal pardon will
make a mockery of our judiciary which tried its best to project a clean
image of fairness and sound judgement ever since the Constitutional
Crisis of 1988, when Dr Mahathir Mohamad destroyed the independence of the judiciary.
If a royal pardon were to be granted, the rakyat will start to
question the efficacy and role of the institution involved in granting
Najib this pardon. The dynamics of the nation may take a different
trajectory.
The royal pardon should not be about the freedom of
one criminal because, more importantly, the honour and reputation of a
nation are at stake.
Delay tactics
Why
should Najib be freed after barely spending eight months in jail? He was
sentenced in July 2020 and only went to prison after his final appeal
fell through in August 2022. He is supposed to spend the next 12 years
behind bars and pay an RM210 million fine, a sentence which many have
described as extremely lenient, considering the damage he has done to
Malaysia.
We were subjected to a lengthy wait before Najibās trial
could commence because it was alleged that it was time-consuming to
collate all the evidence and there was a shortage of men with the
necessary expertise to compile the relevant information. The evidence
had to be watertight so that Najibās legal team could not find any
technical glitches.
Even the trial appeared to drag on as all sorts of tactics, including the intervention of the lawyerās dog and the wedding of his son, were employed by Najib and his lawyer to allow the trial to linger.
Lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah
Najib has not paid his fine, and he has also struck a deal about the income tax which he owes the Inland Revenue Board. How many people are accorded such luxuries and leeway?
We
waited patiently for five years for justice to happen but before that,
we were lied to by Najib and his then cabinet. Many of his critics were
also silenced.
The former cabinet members swore allegiance to Najib then and spun
lies to try to convince us about the āArab prince donation of RM2.6
billionā, but it is ironic that today, some of these Najib loyalists are
installed in Anwar Ibrahimās government. They lack principles and their
overarching need is to remain in power.
All part of the plan?
How do members of the Umno supreme council fail to realise the seriousness of the crimes which Najib has committed?
Perhaps,
this was Umno-Baruās plan all along and the signs were there for all of
us to see. The following events do not look like a casual coincidence.
Najibās
legal team had tried to cast doubt on judge Nazlan by claiming that he
had a conflict of interest in the 1MDB case. It referred to the time
when Nazlan was part of Maybank before he became a judicial
commissioner. As a High Court judge, Nazlan had sentenced Najib to 12
years in prison and fined him RM210 million for corruption, abuse of
power, and money laundering.
In February this year, Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, ruled that the MACC probe against Nazlan had not followed protocol. She noted the ācuriousā timing of the publicising of the probe done before Najibās SRC appeal before the apex court last year.
Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat
On
March 31, we had the lone dissenting verdict by judge Rahman in Najibās
failed judicial review bid of the SRC International case.
On April 2, Najibās daughter Nooryana Najwa posted an excerpt of a letter, purportedly from the MACC to the Chief Justice, stating that Nazlan had violated the Judgesā Code of Ethics.
On
April 6, Minister in the Prime Ministerās Department (Law and
Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said appeared to have gone out of
her way to update Najibās lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, about the MACC probe into Nazlan.
Was all of this meticulously planned?
It looks very much like Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his Umno cohorts are in control.
Suddenly,
Najibās terrible crimes pale into insignificance by that one dissenting
judgement, and the hugely anticipated but repugnant royal pardon.
So, who is in charge? Anwar? Zahid? Or are they all being manipulated by Najib from his control room at Kajang HQ?
