I refer to the post
here.
A colonel going to jail? Wow. You'd learn a lesson here huh?
But what type of lesson did you learn, and what conclusions did you
come up with?
A man violated the law. The rules and regulations that bind us,
make us.
He's on trial. Through the legal channels of our country.
What do we say?
"Cream of my cock."
"What a disgrace.... In his case, the MPs should strip him of his
rank in front of the CDF and Minister of Defence...humiliate
him...
Whether or not he ran outta steam, its another matter. He took an
oath to serve this country...he broke his oath "
Wow.
I'm sure that, when we decide to slay the officer - spit on the
accused, we keep in mind that they are innocent until proven guilty
- and at the very least, should we fail that, keep in mind that the
man might have a reason to do what he did outside of self-benefit,
"corruption" if you will.
I mean, right, Colonels - officers - they're good, but there's got
to be those bad ones right? To hell, and to jail they go.
And I'm sure that when criticisms are put on and forward about
someone - tagged with a picture to boot - we make sure we look it
up, make sure we don't slam the wrong person - or at least, that we
consider the possibility there may be another side to the
story.
Right
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:IxIXY-_VOGIJ:www.straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/story/0,4386,237067-1077832740,00.html+%22ong+beng+leong%22&hl=en
It's a cached copy of a ST article, and none-too-discriminating at
that. It tells more of the story, though again it doesn't yell
"he's innocent".
Still, if you read, you'd find that his position was that what he
did benefitted the SAF. You could argue that, but the question is -
did you consider it?
What if - what if what he saw in front of him to getting the job
done would make for a huge amount of red tape? What if he was
right? That the contractor had prices no one could beat, and to go
by protocol would require more time and effort to plough through
expensive, unfearsible alternatives?
And what if, due to the nature of the military and the training
areas - these places *need* to be fixed quickly for the safety of
the troops utilising them? What then?
I'm sure we all thought of that before we put his face up online
and started mocking a man. We looked at the facts, and we
considered the possibilities.
Right.
Look. I'm not saying its right to bypass the law outright,
especially if someone should and probably does know the rules. I'm
not saying the justification provided necessarily outweighs
breaking the codes. It's against the law.
But there is a difference between someone breaking the law
intentionally for his own benefit against someone who wanted to cut
through red tape to get the job done faster and present the areas
(and therefore the military) as a more professional force.
It's the assumption that the headlines are telling us something -
concrete, the full picture, and enough to convict someone else of
corruption or something worse - that I find disturbing. Generally,
there's a story behind each story, and to those ends, while most of
us will never know the truth, I'm saying - consider the
possibilities, and hold your judgements.
Why do I say this? I happen to know the man myself - and if you
knew him or anyone who knew him - you'd know that one of the things
he does is give. A confident, strong man who's big on family (yes,
he does have one - and therefore, yes, he is human like us). I've
had the opportunity to work with him before and he's the type of
guy you'd want to be with when under pressure. Calm, collected and
thoughtful of those around him.
So it'll be fair to say that I personally find it offending to see
his picture up on a forum and have people demonising him without
hearing more of the story than beyond one headline or two.
When a good man goes to court, I think too many people conclude
guilt - and in a bad manner at that.
I've learnt something else from this, I suppose. I hope some of you
will too. We need to be more open and not claim short texts as our
Bible of facts - because by doing so, we'd be putting ourselves up
for milking.
