MH 370: AIR FORCE CHIEF SHOULD BE COURT MARTIALLED?

by a flying carpet and two coconuts, Donplaypuks® intrepid crocodile slap bomoh (shaman) correspondent for missing commercial aircraft affairs at http://donplaypuks.blogspot.com

 

Despite my loathing for Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, his Government of Thieves and his cousin, Defence Minister and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein (dubbed Kerismidin for his racist, threatening and menacing keris waving antics at the 2005 UMNO General Assembly), I concede graciously that the duo are sincere when they say "we will leave no stone unturned...do everything to resolve the frightening mystery of missing flight MH370...help the families of the missing 227 passengers and 12 crew members."

Make no mistake, with passengers from some 15 countries missing, 156 of whom are from China, the whole world is watching. And so far, if we were to judge our Ministers and various aviation and military authorities involved in this ongoing saga from their performances in front of the TV cameras, an 'F' grading would not be far off the mark.

For Kerismudin to scold the press, local and foreign, that "it's only confusing if you want to see it as confusing" is the kind of false bravado and arrogance we have come to expect from a 3rd rate Minister and politician. That UMNO continues to field the clueless Kerismudin as someone who can handle two Ministerial portfolios, when he reached his Peter's Principle #1 level as a rank-and-file UMNO member, is mute testimony to the fact that UMNO lost the plot decades ago. Kerismudin had the cheek to look annoyed, when within the space of five days, he and his "team" u-turned on a number of statements and "strategies", and after five days, switched the search and rescue operations from the waters of the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, completely in the direction opposite to that from which they started!

Which brings us to the statement first released on 11 March by Berita Harian, a Malay language daily newspaper owned and controlled by UMNO. It quoted our Air Force chief General Tan Sri Rodzali Daud as saying that MH370 had been detected by military radar as a "plot blip" at 2.15 a.m. on Sunday 8 March. The "plot blip" finally went off the military radar screen at 2.40 a.m. over the Straits of Melaka, north west of Penang Island.

Mind you, MAS itself had at first announced that MH370 disappeared off its radar screens at 2.40 a.m. on 8 March over the South China Sea, and then corrected it to 1.30 a.m.

General Daud claimed that he had been misquoted by Berita Harian, and then promptly confirmed the next day that what the Berita Harian had reported was pretty much spot on!!

In simple terms, what this means is that some military personnel at the radar stations at Kota Baru in the east coast, and Penang on the west coast:

1. Were not at their posts when they should have been

2. Or, were sleeping on the job

3. Or, were awake, saw a UFO blip on their screens and went to sleep without alerting their superiors

4. Or, reported their findings to their superiors who dismissed it as fatuous and went back to sleep

AND

5. No one followed the national security SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) and scrambled our fighter jets. Imagine, the lives that could have been saved or expenses mitigated had our jets been released for visual sighting and action on the UFO. Imagine too the horror if some misguided terrorist on board MH370 had tragetted ramming into Petronas Twin Towers!!

Worse, do we  have uninterrupted and vigilant 24-hour radar watch over our air space or not, General Daud?

Because, General Daud also said that the search for the "plot blip" was only initiated some hours after MH 370 went missing and the military was told to look at the possibility of MH370 having doubled back and flown towards the Straits of Melaka, based on foreign intelligence.

When questioned why air force jets were not scrambled in real time to investigate the phenomenon, General Daud replied that such action would only have been initiated if the "plot blip" had been determined to be "hostile." 

Huh? Military radar can do that? Determine from a mere "plot blip" whether a UFO is "commercial" or "terrorist or aliens controlled", "hostile" or "benign", especially one which had its ACAR system and transponders deliberately switched off, and did not respond with its "squawk code" transmission? But then, by General Daud's own words, the "plot blip" was not discovered in real time. So, who determined what, when and how? 

Confusing? Not so, says our beacon of clarity incarnate, Defence and Acting Transport Minister, Kerismudin. Attaboy, UMNO's poster boy for speaking at the same time through two apertures at opposite ends of the human anatomy.

What this episode means in terms of our national security is that this is the equivalent of literally driving a coach, an elephant and two T-Rex through Putrajaya, and no one noticing it in real time. We are literally handing out a road map to would-be terrorists to crash their aeroplanes into something like our central busines district, Putrajaya, KLIA or military HQ, and get away with it scot-free.

This is the kind of negligence for which they routinely behead generals in China, while in Japan it would not proceed so far, as the head honcho would have spilled his guts out by first committing hara-kiri!

A Royal Commission of Inquiry, you say? Don't make me laugh. Najib and his Government of Thieves has yet to implement the findings of the 2005 RCI on the 'Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission' or the 2007 'VK Lingam Video Clip RCI' which recommended action be taken against former Chief Justices Eusoff and Ahmad Fairuz for corruption and fixing of judicial appointments, as well as ex-Prime Minister Mahathir, lawyer VK Lingam, businessman Vincent Tan and current Minister of Federal Territories, Tengku Adnan, for their various roles in the affair. This has remained an outrageous and resounding slap on the face of out King by Najib and UMNO for their continued brazen stonewalling.

 And if we do advance to court martial, then let's not dishonourably discharge some poor junior radar clerk; go for the general, because complacency starts at the top.

 Donplaypuks® with our air defence and national security, man!

#1 Peter's Principle - people tend to be repeatedly promoted until they reach their level of incompetence