LHL used to say:"we don't identify our enemies, they identify
themselves."
Who are our "real" enemies, against whom we all kenna 2 and a half
years NS?? the people who occupied us for 2 n 1/2 yrs and killed
50,000 people? those from whom we were "painfully separated"? or
the big country which just woke up ?? What do OUR history tell us?
We should not live with heavy historical baggage but it would be
stupid to ignore history as if it never happened!!
Who are those militaristic countries? how do we define militaristic
countries? Without prejudice, statistics show that USA spend US$420
billion in its military budget, and japan, who is supposed to have
only "self defence force" is spending 41.4 billion US$ on military
expenses, while China, who is way behind in military technology but
with a land size similar to US, is spending US$30 billion. Who is
more militaristic?
Malaysia spend US 2 billion, protecting an area of 329,000 km2
while singapore spend US 6 billion, protecting 4 million people on
an island of 637 km2. Even Israel's 10 billion, to protect a
population of 6 million on an area of 20,000 km2, against all the
arab nations, who are known enemies, become relatively small money
compared to singapore military budget. Countries around us should
be happy if we just do verbal bashing. Is Singapore
militaristic?
While I do not dispute the necessity for the higher military
budget, I believe we must not lose sight of the real threats to our
nation, and plan our hardware purchases based on realistic
assumptions. Otherwise some military enthusiasts may want to play
around with the US theatre missiles defence system.
I also pay a lot of income tax, you know.
