Pardon me , but what is hard to swallow ?
You have already given 2 good examples of what SAF is
capable of doing to protect S'pore citizens to
substantiate extent of S'pore's commitment
in "incidents " involving "exceptional set of
circumstances".
no issues or hard feelings here at work bro.
those were FLAWED PRECDENTS not good examples. i dont contest
the means and manpower to carry out such ops. but i challenge the
definition that it was willpower to do so. i think its more of
circumstances that forced SAF's hand.
for instance.
cambodia was in a state of anarchy. meaning no government ,
no body of power or party of power was in control or
substantiative control of the country at that time. there was a
COUP going on.
airport wasnt manned or controlled. our charlie 130s landed
without APPROVAL.
SAF could only act because there wasnt anybody in charge in
cambodia at that point. remember's asean treaty of non-interference
? the circumstances of
nobody in control allowed SAF to intervene. it wasnt exactly some
kind of entebbe raid where they went in facing hostile opposition
to rescue "hostages" . present threats but unlikely to be
challenged or shot at. there's a difference between a "envisaged
threat scenario" and a "actual operation situation"
good chance that the coup might go on a bit longer and grow into
a civil war. but that didnt happen. i guessed the SAF was taking
the pessimistic view of things and intervene in the event of worst
case scenario and evacuate because of civil war possibly breaking
out.
you dont see the same thing happening in bangkok in the 80s
junta / student demonstration thing or even as recently as myanmmar
and the 1997 jarkata post suharto racial riots.
SQ 93 hijack incident wasnt exactly a perfect example of SAF
being very gung ho and wanting to take action. it was again, a
circumstancial response. if
you noticed, sending in commandos was pretty much the last
resort.
IIRC, the terrorists gradually escalated the seriousness of
their threats right ? they first pushed a steward out of the
aircraft and subsequently a stewardess. we neogotiated with them first.
they grew bolder and bolder and even asked for more ridiculous
requests such as the freeing of 2000 palestinians from israeli
jails. like we had any connection or ability to do that.
when that was refused, it was then they threatened to "blow up
the aircraft". at that point, it was known that they were armed
with BUTTER KNIVES and the
information about the bombs could not be ascertained. no one knew
if they were serious and whether they really had bombs, hence the
red berets/SOF went in. the circumstances of us being unable to
confirm the bomb threat lead to the action.
now for a quick comparison, remember the hostage incident at the
iranian embassy (iirc, not too sure which embassy) during the
margret tatcher era.
margret tatcher simply refused to neogotiate with the
terrorists. she simply ordered the SAS in and they did their job.
dont mean to paint the SOF/red berets in any bad way (all credit to
them), but it simply isnt the same case in sq93 incident.
even in the asean tsunami response, it all hinged on the
circumstances again. we
were the only nation whose fleets were less than 3 days sailing
time away who could provide the heavy lift assets and supplies to
the area. the US navy assets and ships only came in after us as
they required transit time from yokohoma IIRC
it depended alot on the receptivity of the host nations. the
Indons , lacking in heavy and medium lift choppers appreciated our
LST's carrying aid and our choppers flying in stuff in meluaboh.
Thailand, on the other hand, had alot of personnel of its own in
the area. after a week (or two, cant remember) , they told us they
they had shifted from disaster search and rescue to recovery and
rehabilitation. Our Super P's then flew home. in comparison, our
boys in indonesia stayed for nearly 2 months and the drawdown was
singaporean initiated, as we felt the NGOs were doing a good enough
job and didnt need us there anymore.
now look at cyclone nurgis and our response. no action taken
because the junta was not receptive and circumstances didnt allow
for us to project or deliver aid.
