The Sky’s no limit

 

The air force came out with the statement that they kicked out the BG because he was incompetent. Therefore the BG is not our Ali.

Why are there conflicting news coming out from the government? The defence ministers appeared to be suggesting that this ex BG and 40 other people were involved in the theft. Now, the RMAF appeared to contradict their minister by saying the BG was sacked because of incompetency. Are they referring to the same BG? Could it be possible there were two generals involved? One known or be made known to minister Zahid, the other known to RMAF? The IGP says, the police are questioning a few generals.

The air force may be doing an exercise in damage control. Military debriefing, they say. There was only one BG involved. The BG may be the prime suspect. But the premature exposure may derail better investigations. The BG may take measures to cover his tracks. RMAF suddenly realizes it is too excited. They have blown open their action. The suspects got wind and they are countering.

It is impossible for a person to attain the rank of a BG to have done so through incompetence. That would suggest his superiors were more incompetent than he. Or it would also suggest that the system it has as regards career progression is compatible and suitable to allow incompetents to rise through the ranks. This would then lend credence to the expression, not only does the cream rise to the top, the scum does too.

If that is, then it calls into question, the quality of our airmen. Can they be depended upon to defend our country? If one incompetent BG is a measure of the general quality of his subordinates( the entire division which he heads), our air defence is suspect.

Then we might as well say the whole RMAF is full of morons; you join at the age of 20 and then maybe attain the rank of BG at the age of 45. That means for 25 years, RMAF couldn't detect your incompetence? If they couldn't detect this, can they interpret what's on our radar screens?

Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the BG was sacked because of incompetence. He must have committed some gross misconduct which warranted dismissal.

It is better for RMAF to shut up and not issue any more public utterances about this mater. How do we know those issuing such statements are not incompetent themselves? If you are stupid, let the stupidity stays with you. Don't make us stupid too.

Suppose, like someone said- the engines theft is only the tip of the iceberg. What does this statement mean? I am thinking that we need to lose at least 14 F-5Es to arrive at the figure. Remember we have lost RM 100 million or USD 29 million. One unit of F-5E costs USD 2.1 million.

What have we actually lost that could total up to USD29 million? Perhaps more than 20 planes each costing around USD900k like A4 Skyhawks for example? What if, for the past 10 years, this syndicate has been selling a number of engines and planes each year?

At regular intervals, you booked out a few engines for repairs somewhere. They were never returned or some people just 'booked' in the same number on paper. Not until a physical inventory check is carried out, will you become aware that physically the engines were not there. For the whole scam to work there must be close collusion between the various departments.

There must be a dummy company somewhere which acts as the exporter. This company processes the necessary export documents, gets customs clearance, does all the shipping or even air freighting arrangements.

Do we now trust, the incompetent RMAF to conduct a thorough investigation into the sordid affair? Now, by their own inadvertent admission, the FMAF is full of incompetent people. We therefore cannot afford to depend on the RMAF people for who knows, the investigation team may be led by another incompetent person- a colonel maybe, a BG perhaps. We must therefore set up an independent auditing team to investigate the full scale and extent of any larceny that is going on. This is simply an aggravated burglary.

If we have lost so many planes, then there must be an internal syndicate in the RMAF which has been consistently stealing our assets. That would make any claims by anybody that the auditing and or stock taking system within the RMAF as being 1000% solid are just brinkmanship talks.

The phrase 'tip of the iceberg' can mean, the RMAF is full of even worse morons. The incompetent BG is only the tip. That can either mean, those subordinate to him are all confirmed mental retards or those above him are even worse mental retards. If I am not mistaken, the current PAT is an air force 4 star general. Is he competent or not?

It can also mean, the RM100 million lost is miniscule compared to the actual loss/theft/corruption that occurs within the RMAF and by extension right through the defense ministry.

Now, that sets me thinking on another unrelated matter- the ex general who suffered calamity and personal loss when his residence was hit by a massive landslide had his suitcases with RM300-400K recovered- were those loose change, mein general? That was also the tip of the iceberg, no?

Let us further assume that, the real intent of the leaked information was to highlight the magnitude of the corruption and other forms of thievery that are occurring within the entire defence ministry. The plane engines were just a decoy leading us to bigger game. That bigger game is corruption within the defence ministry.

Our next question then is to ask why did the theft of the engines take place with such superciliousness and impunity and more alarmingly, taken lightly by the relevant authorities charged with overseeing these matters? The thieves and those responsible for stealing engines or bleeding the military coffers dry were doing what they did with extraordinary boldness. Strange indeed.

That would suggest many things.

1. They had some leader powerful enough who was daring enough to thump the nose of the upper echelons in the military establishment.
   

Or, they were emboldened enough to carry out what they did, because everyone knows that everyone who matters in the defence ministry were responsible for even greater larceny.