***Dear Rudin, thank you for taking time to reading and replying
to my humble opinion. Here is my reply.
>Totaldefense, I shall first assume that you do not or have not
serve your national service. If you had serve it and yet created
such a post, I am extremely disappointed in you writing such
words.
*** I think you misunderstood my post. My main point was actually
talking about pride and the need of some people to raise their own
self esteem by looking down on our neighbor. (Cockiness of the few
Singaporean)
>Totaldefense, we must differentiate between wanting a wanton
war and protecting ourselves by one. Your ideas can be interpreted
at best ideals. Who doesn't want peace? Who here in this forum be
them Malaysians or Singaporeans want to live in harmony with each
other? All of course who won't want to spend more money on the ill,
to treat our own citizens?
*** Yes, same things most of the analyst said about the chances we
have in building an independent prosperous Singapore after the
break up with Malaysia, and have not we proven them wrong?
>All very nicely put but sadly the situation here does not
permit us to do so or to the extent we want. Look at the
geopolitical climax here, which day goes by without hearing people
wanting to cut off or poisoning our water supplies, calling us an
irritating pimple in the south, treating relationships between
nations akin to one being subordinate to the other when we are more
or less on equal footing?
*** Please note theses are vocal minorities. You see, news paper in
Malaysia wants sale. Whipping up an emotional issue (condoned by
their government) is a sure win. If most Malaysian hate us so much
(like poisoning our water) I here by announce that all
Singaporean should start to worry about eating in Johor, you might
just be slowly being poison by hateful Malaysian without you
knowing.
>If you are thinking of giving way to them on certain issues,
what makes you think that they will give way to us on others?
Appeasement policies do not and would never work. One good example
is that of Neville Chamberlain who up help such notions. In the
end, not only did Germany not abide by the treaties but instead
became more voracious in their appetite. The same principle applies
in our situation here.
*** Totally agree on that point. Why do you think the USA nuked
Japan? (The big stick frighten both Stalin and the Japanese Emperor
into peace.) We should not appease but neither should we provoke.
Hitler gain power because of the festering anger the German people
have over their unfair treatment by the other major powers. Have we
taken a good look at ourselves? We have people feeling unfairly
treated by our northern neighbor. We produced a rapidly deployable
army and air force that a mobilized Germany in 1939 would have been
proud. How do you think Malaysian feel?
>As history has shown, we need a strong arm to deter them.
Currently, it is because of the existance of SAF that our dear
neighbours have not taken the step beyond empty talk. If every
Singaporean politician subscribes to your notion of peace and
reduced spending, can you ensure that our neighbour's up north, who
are getting more militant per day, subscribe to your notions as
well?
*** I am comfortable with the current spending we have. We are at
the limit where we either hold current spending, raise taxes or go
into deficit. What I do not want is Singapore being tricked like
the USSR and spend itself to ruins due to its perpetual paranoid
insecurity. There is never enough money you can spend to make you
feel totally safe. However, there are a lot of things you can to
make war less likely. Educate some of the less enlighten posters we
have here whom has slam all Malaysian over the views of a very
selected minority who wants to poison our water. Most Malaysian and
Singaporean are honest friendly people. If we can get this message
through , there will be less anger. With less anger, our South East
Asian version of Hitler is far less likely to emerge. The road to
the gas chambers for the Jews started with people saying hateful
lies about them.FIGHT the lies by shining light on who said what
and make them responsible. Rather then condemning all Malaysian.
(it just works the opposite) . We need smart rebuke, just as much
as we need smart bombs.
>If you want an analogy, all these purchase of weapons can be
viewed as a form of "Cold War" between these two nations. Each side
would at least respect the capabilities of the other and would
think twice before attempting to attack. It is the best form of
preventive measure we have against war.
*** Only works if you do not have a mad man on the button. Anger
generated by stupid flames only encourages more mad men to come out
and support even 'madder' man.
>Until the day Malaysian politicians and their press learn to
respect us for who we are and whom we are and stop making all these
these baseless remarks, there will be no end to these upgrading of
weapons.
*** Yes....and we all should work towards that by not encourage
these people. First by trying to be less cocky ourselves. Secondly,
find out who said what and make them come to light.
