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."
Malaysiakini : It is part of the same strategy behind the push for early elections
in the hope of fore-stalling the ongoing trials of those same leaders.
A
closer examination of the allegations will quickly confirm that they
are frivolous, malicious and mischievous and cannot and should not be
taken seriously at all.
Take, for example, the supposedly leaked
minutes of a PAS meeting in which its leaders talked about conspiring
with the judiciary to expedite the ongoing trials of Umno leaders.
Who in their right mind will believe that PAS can exert that kind of influence over the highest levels of our judiciary?
I
have made no secret of my disdain for PAS – they are capable of doing
many insidious things – but this is simply too far-fetched to be
believed.
In any event, I will take the word of the courts – that
“the chief justice has never communicated with, and/or been contacted
by, any political leaders in relation to court cases involving Najib
Abdul Razak and Ahmad Zahid Hamidi” – over anything that corrupt,
dishonest and self-serving politicians have to say.
Justice Nazlan Mohd Ghazali
And
as for the scandalous allegations against Justice Nazlan Mohd Ghazali –
an upright and honest judge as ever there was – by a hired scoundrel
dishing out slander from the safety of a foreign land, what I have to
say cannot be printed.
Many will, no doubt, find it equally
outrageous that Azam Baki, the MACC chief, would even lend credence to
such egregious and malicious allegations by initiating investigations
against Nazlan.
Unscrupulous politicians
You
can bet that nothing will come out of it, but the damage to Nazlan’s
reputation would have been done. And perhaps that is the point of the
whole exercise.
Instead of investigating the judge, Azam should
step down and allow a full, transparent and credible investigation into
his own unexplained wealth arising out of his share ownership case a few
months ago.
More than anything else, the allegations against the
judiciary show just how far desperate men are willing to go to destroy
one of the last credible institutions left in our nation.
When the
judiciary stood in Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s way, he had some of the finest
judges in the land unceremoniously removed from office on trumped-up
charges. It has taken the judiciary a long time to recover from that
body blow.
Now unscrupulous politicians are at it again – smearing our judges for their own nefarious ends.
It is a new low even for a country accustomed to dishonourable behaviour.
Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad
Surprisingly,
the reaction of the Bar Council has been disappointing. Instead of a
forthright defence of the integrity of the judiciary and Nazlan, they
are quibbling with words.
Judges are constrained by their own code
of ethics from defending themselves or speaking out publicly; it falls
to the Bar Council, therefore, to speak out whenever judges are defamed
and slandered.
Instead of merely issuing a tepid and pro forma
statement, the Bar Council should immediately organise another march for
justice to protest the slanderous allegations against the judiciary, as
they did in September 2007.
Let’s be clear about what is really happening here. As the chief justice warned,
the allegations about collusion with politicians are aimed at
subverting the administration of justice and undermining public faith in
it.
It is a targeted campaign by desperate and unscrupulous men
working in the shadows to smear our judges in order to distract
attention from their own crimes.
We have allowed so many of our
national institutions to become compromised, to end up servile minions
to corrupt and dishonourable politicians; we must not allow the same
fate to befall our judiciary.
If our judiciary is compromised and
tarnished by these unscrupulous politicians and their henchmen with
their scurrilous allegations, Malaysia’s future itself will be further
jeopardised.
Instead of investigating the judge or casting
aspersions against a venerable institution, the authorities should go
after all those who make those vile and malicious allegations.
