USD29 million: what did we lose actually?

Holy Mary! Mother of Jesus! Even while partaking in the Christmas goodies, people are talking about the lost plane engines.

I hope this will not spoil your Christmas celebrations. Saya ingat saya mahu cuti , tapi tak boleh.

First, I find it incredulous. I don't believe we lost over RM 100 million through 2 smuggled out F-5E engines. They couldn't be that expensive. One unit of F-5E plane costs over USD 2 million. We are talking about USD29 million. We need to lose at least 10 F-5E planes.

But then again, I could be wrong. If one packet of Maggie Mee can cost over RM 8, a screw driver can cost over RM 30- it is like AR Tompel says—POSSIBLE, P-A-W- ssible. .

How on earth can we cart off 2 huge and heavy engines? Each engine may be 12-14 feet long. It weighs maybe a few tons. First we need a loader. Second, we need some authorization from some big shot at the admin office. We need to go to the hangar to physically load the engines, and have the necessary papers signed off by some authorizing officer. The loading must have been supervised. Having loaded the engines, we need to drive through the gates. The sentries on duty will check through the papers to ascertain authorization. Then the loader is let through.

Where are the pressure points? They must be in the documentations and therefore the persons who authorized and document them. Who issued the work order to dismantle the engines? Who then decide to have the engines serviced elsewhere? Who determined they have to be serviced elsewhere? The only possible explanation to account for the engines being transported outside is a need to have the engines serviced or repaired at another location. So who and where is the location? Is this the fence?

The transporter. It has to be an authorized contractor familiar to the top brass and the admin and operations staff. Only a transporter/contractor that is well known to the airbase personnel can enter and exit with relative ease.

So there is a whole line of people involved in the sting. 40 seem to be a nice number. But we must get to Ali.

The defence minister said that 40 people were involved. Including one retired BG. He is our Ali then. In our neighboring country, BGs go on to become ministers and even prime minister. Here, a retired BG ends up as chairman of some GLCs. Maybe in this particular case, the said BG was given chairmanship of Tabung Haji(?) to sit there and perhaps contemplate on the evils and sins he has committed. If he is a retired BG, then he must have joined the air force during a time when the officers'' mess was synonymous as being centers of drunken and maybe other sinful orgies. Such a person needs to atone for the sins committed during those Christmas past.

The defence minister has warned bloggers not to twist the story. Mana ada Herr Doctor Z? The one who broke the news was the NST and other MSM papers. Tangkap dia orang semua dulu. Other bloggers are asking questions only. We can't stand if MSM and papers indulge in debauchery and an orgy of misinformation.

Consider this one for example.

The other night, the newsreader on TV 3 says the 2 engines we lost are in South America. Perhaps it they will be refitted for use to fight drug distributors there or flying over the Amazon or guarding the largest underground water reservoir there. Maybe flying over the Pampas.

These engines, it has been reported, cost us USD29 million. Ini bukan saya cakap. Ini pemberita TV bilang. Ini TV, Prima Media punya. Kerajaan punya. Takkan dia mahu tipu sama kita?

At the exchange rate of 3.8, the cost in Malaysian Ringgit is over RM100 million. That would make each engine RM50 million. Plus all other parts and instruction manuals, the total cost is over RM 100 million.

What did we lose actually? What kind of engines? Anyone researching into these matters will be surprised that one F-5E fighter plane is priced at over USD 2 over million. Yes, TWO Million. That is the cost of the entire plane. If ONE place costs USD2 million, how could ONE engine cost more than the plane itself?

So what engines did we lose? USD29 million can buy us one unit of  the famous F-15 fighter planes- the ones used by Israel and Saudi Arabia. If we had lost 2 engines belonging to F-15 fighter planes, then that would sound more reasonable to have incurred a loss/theft of RM 100 million.

So, we don't know what the NST reporters meant- F-5E or F-15? Malaysia has no F 15 I think. We have bought 18 Sukhois- that we know. But F 15? Never heard of that.

So we come to the question. Malaysian TV announced we lost USD29 million. The MSM reported we lost RM 100 million.

What have we actually lost really?

That sets people thinking. We have lost more than engines. To have lost more than RM 100 million could only mean we have lost an entire fleet of planes or something more valuable. Because this is highly implausible, the reports by the MSM could not be true.

The MSM, especially the NST which led in exposing the story may have lied to the Malaysian public. The lie could be deliberate. Or maybe they have sent a rookie reporter who has just passed his SPM and to top that, maybe one who can't string a decent sentence in English- he was the one who came up with the preposterous news.

If all this is a big lie, why did the NST publish the story without further verification? That would suggest monumental carelessness on the entire editorial staff at NST. Who is going to be responsible for this extraordinary slip of the mind that would further suggest, gross inadequacy for such an important job?

Let's leave that issue for later.

Or could the Air force itself be embarking on a misinformation briefing? I don't think newspapers can get such stories, unless people inside the military, notably those in the top echelons who have an axe to grind or are on some chosen vendetta, leaked such misinformation. If they indeed leaked such misinformation, it was done for a purpose.

So we need to ask for what purpose?