Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
I refer to the letter Dr was firm but fair. First of all, has Mr Perdana Global Peace Organisation the moral standing to talk about brutality or about the war in Iraq?
Remember the brutalisation of Anwar Ibrahim? Just a quick recap; this was the excuse given: Dr Mahathir told reporters that Mr Anwar might have hurt himself to gain public sympathy. ‘It's not impossible because he will get plenty of mileage if he showed he was abused by police,’ Dr Mahathir was quoted as saying by the national news agency Bernama.
The best part is we were not at war and nobody was getting killed. This might have slipped the minds of bloggers who were attending the recent Perdana Global Peace Forum. Does anyone remember this cold-blooded Mr Global Peace? This was what he did to the Vietnamese boat people. In 1979, Malaysia’s then deputy prime minister Mahathir declared that Malaysia would expel all 76,000 boat people in the country and shoot new arrivals on sight.
Other than clinching him an outside chance at the Nobel, Dr M's latest assault on the world's patience and credulity - the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission - looks like just the first shot in another battle of his career-long war against the West, whose leaders did far more than he ever did in putting a stop to ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.
The victims of war on whose behalf Mahathir claims to be seeking redress are all, it seems, from places like Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon. And the war criminals he's targeting seem to be largely or even exclusively leaders of the so-called 'coalition of the willing', like George W Bush and Tony Blair.
It's also fair and timely to remind Dr M and his fellow pacifist poseurs that it was the US warmongers who liberated Muslim victim Kuwait from Muslim invader Iraq, and who have since, albeit in their typically wasteful, wayward and wrong-headed manner, fought hard with the help of the UK and other nations to free the Muslim people of Iraq and Afghanistan from the murderous tyrannies of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.
And there was a genocide taking place in Malaysia's backyard which Mr Global Peace choose to ignore. This, of course, was done by his good buddy Suharto. Many tens of thousands of Timorese died as a result of this 'generalised warfare’ constituting the bulk of the estimated 200,000 victims of Indonesia's genocidal occupation policies between 1975 and 1999.
Mahathir actually supported the Indonesians. Mahathir, who often lectures Western countries for their ‘hypocrisy and double standards’ has been a staunch defender of Indonesian behaviour in East Timor. Asked in Singapore to explain his opposition to East Timor's independence in light of his outspoken support for the right of Kosovo, which has a Muslim majority, to break away from Serbia, Mahathir said Indonesia was entitled to integrate the territory.
'The difference between East Timor and Kosovo is that East Timor has been with Indonesia for 25 years, and during that time there were no massacres,’ Mahathir said. ‘'The Indonesians were not behaving like Serbs,’ he added, conveniently forgetting Indonesia eventually killed over 200,000 Timorese - one-third of the population - in one of the worst genocides since World War II.
Oh yes, it affected one of our own too. Any one with a bit of conscience would remember the poor lad Kamal Bamadhaj a 20-year-old student, who was shot and killed by Indonesian soldiers on Tuesday, Nov 12, 1991.
Instead of wasting time and resources, we Malaysians should set up a tribunal and try Mr Perdana Global Peace for the grave injustices inflicted upon the rakyat of Malaysia which are too numerous to list here. It will be a sad day for a lot of us if he ever does get the Nobel Peace Prize. Malaysiakini
