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."
Indira and Ong are reminders of why we need IPCMC By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, June 03, 2024
Malaysiakini : For over a decade, the police have done everything in their power by their inaction to keep Indiraās child away from her and have legitimised the action of a child kidnapper through their own action or inaction.
Think
about this for a moment. The state security apparatus has ignored
judgments from the judicial branch and has let a child kidnapper escape
the course of justice.
M Indira Gandhi
And
why do you think this is? Well, because they understand that the only
people who could sanction such behaviour, the political class, would do
no such thing.
In other words, they understand that they are free
from the repercussions that the ordinary rakyat are subject to if they
break the law. It is as simple as that.
Harapanāsbroken promise
Ongās
case, on the other hand, is a flashpoint for the ordinary rakyat
because not only does it involve an alleged cover-up by the police but
it also implies the complicity of various state actors and the royal
institution, which of course has a rich history when it comes to the tension between the royalty and political class of this country.
Of
course, the rakyat are told not to speculate when it comes to this
issue and everything else for that matter but as former MACC
commissioner Latheefa Koya said in the Ong presser - āThere are too many
contradictory statements coming out claiming that the matter is settled
at one point, saying that he wants to move on.
But you can hear directly from him today that he wants justice. Heās not happy with what has happened to him.ā
Ong Ing Keong
But
I do not blame Umno/BN for this failure of not establishing an IPCMC.
The failure is squarely on the shoulders of the Pakatan Harapan regime
because they have campaigned on this issue and have made it an important
principle in their supposed quest for a more just Malaysia Baru.
Nobody
expects this to be an Umno/BN issue (and it never was) because as
demonstrated by none other than the current Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad
Zahid Hamidi when it comes to the malfeasances of the state security
apparatus, he is willing to whitewash even the most egregious of offences.
And
forget about the opposition Perikatan Nasional. What we now know of the
leader of the opposition, is that he is ever willing to stack the deck
with our boys, hence any form of independent oversight and institutional transparency would be anathema to him and his cohorts.
Keeping tabs on the royals
However,
if you are looking for a reason from a prominent personality as to why
we need an IPCMC we have to look no further than Johor Regent Tunku
Ismail Sultan Ibrahim.
In 2018, when Harapan came into power, the
Johor crown prince claimed that he and his father were being monitored
by the state security apparatus.
He claimed that his phone was
tapped and his movements were monitored. Not to mention cyber troopers
stationed at his social media outlets to act when necessary.
āI donāt understand why my phone is bugged.
I donāt understand why my movements are monitored by the Special
Branch. I don't understand why they need a file about me or my father in
Bukit Aman,ā as reported in the press.
Johor Regent Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim
He
also said that - āI know the former government used this but this is
supposed to be āMalaysia Baruā - it is no place for such practices any
longer. It is not nice when officials come to me saying that my father,
the Johor sultan and I are being monitored.ā
Now, these of course are serious allegations, as serious as those made by the ordinary rakyat like Indira and Ong.
The
best avenue to express those grievances besides the press, that is,
would be an independent IPCMC, donāt you think? This way there would be
transparency and accountability for every citizen including the state
security apparatus.
But yet the political class does not want to carry out the peopleās mandate. Why?
The
political class, when in power, chooses to endorse the decades-long
victimhood narrative of the state security apparatus when it comes to
oversight, which should tell us everything we need to know about efforts
to reform the police.
This is because having any kind of independent oversight would hamper the way how the state security apparatus and the political class interact.
We need an IPCMC and we may never get it but this does not mean we stop advocating for it.
