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."
An open letter to Najib's daughter on transparency By R Nadeswaran
Saturday, December 10, 2022
Malaysiakini : You are now claiming that your father had always wished for his court
hearings to be broadcast live. But shouldnāt it have started during his
time when he controlled almost everything?
Each time these ideas
of openness and transparency were presented, the then government (under
his watch) and the spin doctors dismissed them summarily as if they were
illegal.
This openness should have been started by your father
when details of the 1MDB scandal emerged seven years ago. Even when
there was overwhelming evidence presented by various jurisdictions
around the world, your father went into a cocoon and refused to answer
questions ā conflicting with the very same concepts he is now
advocating.
Where was the openness when he booted out two
ministers and removed the then attorney-general and three top officers
of the MACC were removed without assigning any reasons?
Media muzzled
The local media was muzzled and
those who chose to continue to question various issues on the 1MDB issue
either lost their jobs or were consigned to a desk in the corner to
twiddle their thumbs.
Wasnāt it under your fatherās watch that publishing permits of The Edge and The Edge Financial Daily
were suspended? Why? Because they chose to ignore the threats made and
continued to publish sordid details of how the peopleās money was
siphoned by individuals.
Ex-PM Najib Abdul Razak
Wasnāt
it also during his tenure that three journalists were detained and
subsequently released without any charges or conditions? When asked for
an explanation in the name of openness, only an unconvincing answer was
afforded.
The Home Ministry claimed that the two publicationsā
reporting of 1MDB was āprejudicial or likely to be prejudicial to public
order, security or likely to alarm public opinion or is likely to be
prejudicial to public and national interest.ā
But which article or
articles? Both publications have been subsequently vindicated by the
publication of various facts and figures provided by law enforcement
authorities in Singapore, the United States and Switzerland.
(The
saving grace is that the courts found that the suspension was illegal
and now, the government will have to pay costs and damages but the
company did not pursue the issue.)
Truth suppressed
In an open letter to your father in October 2017, I wrote: āThe PM,
his ministers and the government must stop treating Malaysians as fools
by making all kinds of statements which more often than not, appear like
a page from Grimmās Fairy Tales. The continued blabbering of untruths
and half-truths will further erode whatever is left of the peopleās
confidence in the system.ā
Did your father pay heed? Instead, he
and his cabinet colleagues spewed out one lie after another to prevent
the truth from emerging. Even the auditor-generalās report was altered
with certain portions redacted.
Where was the openness then and is
this not an example of how the system was used to prevent the concept
of openness from being exercised?
Nooryana, openness is not a
ready-to-use right or magic wand exclusive to the well-heeled, the
movers and shakers and glitterati, or even a former prime minister. You
cannot get it in a jiffy or at the snap of your fingers.
