2. CelluloidReality also seems to suggest that LIE KY LHL PAP sending soldiers to Iraq is a good [only] way to gain ‘combat’ experience. This is stupid. American prostitutes like BLAIR and LIE KY LHL PAP send soldiers NOT to gain combat experience or to support a fair and just cause, but to suck up to Bush so that, in the case of BLAIR, he got a 1-minute standing ovation when invited to a joint session of Congress to give a speech.

3. Britain is an island fortress with probably the biggest military in the EU, so no threats to its security. BLAIR sent British soldiers to die so that he gets invited to speak to Congress. Plus his now being given millions by American companies and universities, plus paid speaking engagements to American audiences. When leaders prostitute, we die, while they get applause and nice phone calls from BUSH.

4. To gain combat experience is the stupidest excuse when our soldiers operate only on the fringes of the illegal Occupation in Iraq.

It seems to me that Singaporeans by and large are truly a patriotic lot and are ready to be deployed anywhere, anytime as the Regime dictates.

I am ashame of myself for suggesting the Referendum.

Don’t you think that the JI’s plans to bomb Singapore had a lot to do with our naked and VERY LOUD pro-US stance?!!! If we had been more neutral with the US, we cld have save ourselves a lot of trouble. Now we have also to spend so much resources unnecessarily and incur economic downtime (lorries spending 15hrs at the causeway to be searched..) to capture the escaped JI convict! And who is paying? You and me – the taxpayers!

I disagree with you. You conceded that S’pore is a small country so needs the leverage..etc. Switzerland is also a small country, so what happened to your syllogism? As I remembered it, when it suited LKY to be neutral, he always had some convincing arguments for it,and would button up the ground to any opposition. He was once anti-US and he could “tell the US to pack up within 24 hrs anytime he wanted to..” Those days, he had to balance between Mao’s China, Russia and the US. These days, Russia is no more, China is a progressive nation with capitalist tendencies, but the U.S. is now more dangerous and exhibits aggressive hegemonistic policies under the guise of democracy but in reality, oil politics. There is no reason to be pro-US; in fact, because of our strategic position, the US needs us more than we need them politically. If anything, S’pore can use China as a hedge to balance off strong US pressures. After all, China’s rulers have a lot of trust and confidence in LKY and S’pore. China moreover shows a more acceptable face in the ME and has a more agreeable foreign policy towards the ME problem because it supports action thru the UN. US is so pro-Israel that Singapore supporting it has actually courted more suspicions and distrust in SE Asia if not committing suicide for a future generation.

Unfortunately, we are in no position to play the Switzerland role.

It has always been a balance of power game. This is why we’re always trying to make ourselves economically attractive to some nations, and militarily attractive to others.

Actually, our foreign policy is fairly in sync with the international order.

However, being a small state, you need to leverage on preponderous power and influence of your allies.

What has happened to our non-aligned policy when we first became independent? Seems to have been chucked aside because it was not pragmatic enough? In a region like SE Asia, surely that is a better approach? Sure, in a brutal world, better to gang up with the stronger guy and ring yrself with his interests (US navalbase, etc) so in case you are attacked, your protector’s interests are also attacked so that would guarantee you will be protected too! A neutral guy can always be thought of as no-backbone and fair-weather, so might be left high and dry when the crunch comes.

As long as the US plays the world policeman, LKY is happy as he can run S’pore w/o having to deal with the mess otherwise that can come his way when he is surrounded by his Muslim neighbours! Who knows how long his neighbours can hold on to moderate Muslim governments? To him, the US/Uk axis is the lesser of two evils, the more benign power, hence his preference for the status quo in Iraq.

However, in the first place, the US should not have been in Iraq and instead of LKY telling Bush so, he supported neocons like Cheney/Rumsfeld and continues to do so. As a citizen of SIN, I am utterly disappointed that my world statesman leader did not stand up for peace and for stopping the violence in the war over there and condemn the hypocrisy and evil US policy of “regime change”.

Perhaps, the man condones this because it is in his nature too – to squash his opposition whenever they are a nuisance!

Our boys are sent to the ME for our own interests. Maybe our national interest is not cuddly-wuddly, but you want greater democracy, greater freedom and a better standard of living?

You better hope the situation in this region doesn’t go knees up like our friends in the Gulf.

Look beyond the mere hatred, dude. This is not about kindergarten domestic politics anymore.. It’s larger than the PAP itself.

2. For example, in all the decades up till say, the last [when the Internet became mainstream], LIE KY had the advantage over all of us, over most of the region and even most of Asia, because he had access to satellite tv broadcasts [still banned for all Singaporeans except the rich and elites -- when it would be so technically easy and cheap to fix a S$300 dish on every HDB block -- in which 86% of us live, to deliver the thousands of tv channels, most free, to us]. Not only did LIE KY have satellite tv when all of us do not, he also had videos recorded and mailed to him from his ambassadors and agents in all the major countries. Most importantly, unlike other Asian leaders, he can view/read it all in English — and finding the loads of time to do so due to a very undemanding 1-sided totalitarian rule over a tiny 42km x 23km islet all of 617 sq km. In which every single opposition, dissident or troublemaker had long been wiped out using a mix of legal and criminal methods — Rule By Decree aided by a very sophisticated secret police machine.

3. Not just satellite tv, but also American journals and think tank reports. Even books. Hence LIE KY’s avid following of the latest American intellectual fads like quoting Samuel Huntington when the latter was in fashion. He has the time. And the industry that got him his Cambridge firsts when Cambridge, recovering from WW2, was low in standards both in content and academic rigour and an industrious student could really score. A standard then that is even lower than the bottom-most university in Britain today.

4. That was how he did it. That is, appear wise. He had the time and the industry to read American journals and theories [like the Domino Theory which he subscribed to and believed and pushed for, still, as in this latest W.P. regurgitation] AND REGURGITATE THEM TO AMERICAN LEADERS WHO DID NOT READ THEM due to lack of time or interest. So he seemed wise even to the Americans, when all along, he was just quoting American journals. Thus, this latest W.P. regurgitation is just a rehash of the Vietnam Domino Theory, long discredited and abandoned.

5. Like any small prostitute, LIE KY tried to ingratiate into the American circles, avidly cultivating Congressmen and other politicians. Even donning an expensive, beautifully tailored black tie tuxedo to deliver a very expensively and beautifully ghostwritten keynote speech for a Kissinger fundraiser [for free, all expenses borne by us taxpayers, because it would have cost Kissinger big money to hire the usual clown or comedian].

6. This latest ghostwritten Washington Post ‘article’ of his is just more of the same. The old, old, Domino Theory. That if 1 falls, others will fall, ha, ha, ha.

7. I have said that I used to lap up all his ‘wisecracks’ but not now. Not after I discover how he did all this. And the reason is the Internet.

8. Today, LIE KY has no advantage over us except in free time. In place of his satellite tv, we have CNN, BBC, etc, on StarHub cable. Even internet videos from every major American tv network. I have watched OBAMA several times already. And as for books and journals, the Internet is rife with not only the originals but also summaries, commentaries, and excerpts in online newspapers. There is hardly an important theory or idea that is not instantly internetised to a potentially worldwide audience.

9. This internetisation of ideas, theories, strategies, has filtered down to every layer of the intelligentsia. So we have all become vastly more intelligent. A great mind is nothing if it is not filled with the intellectual food to nourish and grow and develop. In the Internet, we have more than we can ever need. We have all become more intelligent. That is, those of us who internet. Aged minds like LIE KY do not spend whole days or hours in front of a pc like us. He actually disdains the pc in favour of the established news streams and advisory reports that he has always had for decades. He does not know that we are now as smart or smarter than him thanks to the Internet. He has long lost his advantage, and with it, his seeming ‘wisdom’. Today, what he writes is trash and trite. We of the Internet are exposed daily to beautiful minds and beautiful thoughts and ideas. We dip daily into a stupendous wealth of intellectual feasts LIE KY cannot imagine. So, while he sticks to his decades-long advisories, we have leapfrogged him and mind-travel anywhere and everywhere we please, in seconds, daily. The difference is profound. In general, even leaders of countries have little advantage over their citizens by way of information. And since information is the basis of almost all public policy, a Mr LEONG Sze Hian can and has consistently shown up the failings in thinking and practice of so many LIEgime policies that in just this 1 TOC writer alone, we can see how the Internet has wiped out any advantage our Lords and Masters had previously.

10. Coming back to LIE KY’s pathetic rehash of the Domino Theory, as Daniel has pointed out, LIE KY is patently trying to campaign for McCAIN over OBAMA. This is not surprising. All the power holders and power brokers in America are White, so this is a very safe bet. [For example, how many Blacks are there on the Boards of say, Morgan Stanley, Exxon, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Boeing, General Motors, etc? More pointedly, how many Blacks are there in the entire Military-Industrial Complex?]

11. Thus, it is very safe for LIE KY to play the Race Card, like the local Race Cards he has played from Day 1 after he seized power by betraying his PAP leader LIM Chin Siong to treacherously make deals with MacMillan to be made party chief and PM. By campaigning for McCAIN over OBAMA, LIE KY is playing to the audience [like he has always done all his career] BUT A WHITE POWER ELITE THAT HOLDS ALL THE POWER IN AMERICA.

12. LIE KY has clearly discerned that all the power elites in America are White and he will better endear himself if he plays White rather than Black. LIE KY has clearly calculated that OBAMA’s power is with the PEOPLE of America but that America is run by White power elites, not ordinary Americans or voters. Cynical? As always.

13. Further, LIE KY has also calculated that if OBAMA wins, OBAMA is too principled, honest and upright — everything LIE KY is not, [another reason for LIE KY's antagonism against him] to exact revenge on LIE KY for campaigning for McCAIN over OBAMA. Simply, it is not like OBAMA to hit back at LIE KY for supporting his opponent. So, LIE KY has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Hence his quickly dusted off and rehashed Domino Theory. LIE KY never had an original idea in his head and never will. This Washington Post article is just another political exercise to burnish his credentials to the real, White, power elites in America and a cynical, contemptuous disregard for America’s interests or its peoples’ interests, just like our interests have never factored into his thinking. LIE KY has, shortly after seizing power, already ceased to think and make policy on the basis of the peoples’ good and did so only on the basis of what he wants. He once said “… who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.” – Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 20 April 1987. He has never thought of the people, for the people, or with the people. He had always thought of “I” and “I decide” and “What I want”. The result has been tragic for Singapore and even for himself. A tragedy in slow motion that foreigners may not understand especially if they come from failed states like America where violence, abuse, rape, murder, random shootings are daily news. But when Singapore is compared with its creative, inventive, innovative and culturally rich twin Hongkong, then it is clear what LIE KY has done to his people. All because he has never thought of or for the people, only for himself.

Suppossing Regulars have agreed to be deployed elsewhere other than Singapore in their contracts with the State, that does not negate the need for a referendum. THE CITIZENS OF SINGAPORE may not see the needs for such missions. How many singaporeans support the US Aggressions in Irag and Afganistan? The answer is hard to tell but we know many don’t, that is just supports in spirit. IF THE QUESTION IS; SHOULD WE SEND OUR SOLDIERS TO THE WAR ZONES IN AFGANISTAN AND MIDDLE EAST? I am confident the MAJORITY will say NAY. And no matter how we look at it, it is HARDLY DEFENDING OUR OWN COUNTRY.

My suggestion and call for a referendum is a subject I wish Singaporeans will seriously look into. Singapore is so small and the few soldiers that we have are too precious to be deployed in disputes that hardly affect our safety and worse when the disputes are not supported by World Organization such United Nation. I am in full support of missions for rescue and food/logistic supply.

Most of the people going are regulars, and if NSFs wish to go, they have to volunteer.

You put on a uniform and sign the forms, you better love the military. If not, get out.

Medical aid is what the contingent in Bamiyan and Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan are there for. Incidentally, Tarin Kowt is run by the Australian and Dutch forces, we’re providing them with combat field hospital support as there is a resurgent Taliban presence in that province.

The RSN contingent in Iraq patrols Basra’s oil terminals, does shipboarding to root out arms smuggling and serves as coalition task force coordinator in the southern naval region.

If you look at it, all these contribute to the training of our guys.

CR

Nature is going after those who promote pornography, sodomy, lesbianism, sexual immorality etc etc. Radical Islamists are created to deal with these people.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702429_Comments.html

I know personally some of the chappies who’ve gone to the Gulf.

They are unencumbered by politics and have done a fairly good job in training for diverse situations.

Politics and MHA incomptenency aside, perhaps you should try to understand that the real work is done on the ground and not by political appointees.

Speaking strictly from a strategic point of view, I can choose to care bugger all about the opinions of the US troops in Mosul, Fallujah, Bagram etc.

For what it’s worth, from a security complex point of view, every SAF element that goes to the Middle East for humanitarian relief or coalition support naval operations learns valuable lessons in PKOs and PSOs, things that fighting in Sungei Gedong or Pengkang Hill will not teach our lads in a hundred years.

I’m a liberal, but I place security as a key fundamental value to ensure this liberty is sustainable. Just my two cents, we all have different opinions about our military contribution to the Middle East. We’re a small state, we don’t have the luxury to subtly ignite conflicts to test our doctrines and platform efficacies, so we take whatever chances we have to practise for our own national interest.

Oh, don’t mistake national for party interest here. They should never ever have been lumped together.