More than a Blame Game

The lapdogs of the Ruling Elite are busy again... And this time, they are trying to turn the tables and chastise netizens for daring to make fun of the government over the Limping Terrorist's Houdini style escape from the ISD detention centre. Just read this article in Insight Section of 15 March Straits Times "Mas Selamat wins in blame game".

This was how the minion who actually had a nice sounding and officious designation "Deputy Political Editor" (why not "Political Commissar"?, the things he has been saying sound more like the type of propaganda that a communist political commissar in old Soviet Union would say) opened his article.

"Given the way that some people here are braying for blood in the aftermath of Mas Selamat Kastari's escape from custody, you'd think that they also believe that Cabinet ministers and security chiefs are personally on guard at the Whitley Road facility where Jemaah Islamiah detainees are being held..."

Good shot. I am sure that was meant to make netizens, bloggers and any other person who blamed the authorities for the Limping Terrorist's escape look like juveniles. Then sometime later in the article, the Political Commissar went on to suggest that detractors of the government are trouble-makers and unpatriotic in excerpts below.

"The detractors who indulge in spurious finger-pointing are not just blunting, but also sullying the spirit and effort of every policeman, Gurkha, national serviceman, immigration officer and the numerous others who have been out there since day one, making a huge contribution to the manhunt and assuring the safety and well-being of Singaporeans..."

Strange, I wonder how the calls on the internet for the Minister of Home Affairs to resign sully the "spirit and effort" of all these good men and women out there hunting down a terrorist that has only escaped due to the blunder of the ministry.

"This is an occasion when society needs to be pulling together. This is not a time when others should be given room to take potshots, sow seeds that, in some cases appear designed to cause discord and to cast doubt on and undermine the work and reputation of individuals and institutions."

Anyway, let's address the points made by the Political Commissar and Minion in the article. The reason why people are calling for the resignation and firing of some of the people at the top ranks in charge of security is not because these big wigs have directly through their inactions or lapses allowed the Limping Terrorist to escape. It is simply a matter of accountability.

We, the citizens and taxpayers have been told that we have to pay millions of dollars to our ministers because of the heavy responsibilities they have to shoulder and they are like the equivalent of top CEOs and top professionals in the private sector. Ok, so let us accept this to be true. Now, in the private sector, when people pay you top dollars, they expect you to be accountable which means that if the company you are running blunders, you cannot just say that this is the fault of a particular manager and I, the CEO has nothing to do with it. In the corporate world out there, if a company takes a very bad hit to its reputation or makes huge losses, we expect the board to fire the CEO. If our ministers want fat pay checks because they see themselves to be CEOs of sort, then we should expect them to be subjected to the same kind of brutal competitive environment that CEOs thrive in. In other words, they should be asked to leave in an unambiguous way if they fail to deliver their targets or the organization they are in charge of makes a serious blunder. Letting the head of a terrorist organization escape and as a result making Singapore's reputation take a hit and worse endangering the lives of innocent people certainly qualifies as a serious blunder. This is not just a "blame game" and to be trivialized as such as the Political Commissar and Minion makes it to be.