Monday 16 May 2011

Happy Teacher's Day

We celebrate Teacher's Day yesterday 16 May 2011. Teachers are, along with our parents, undeniably instrumental in shaping us into what we are today. On this happy occasion, I would like to record and acknowledge the roles and contribution of my former teachers.

During my primary school days in early and mid 60s at SK Badak in Bachok, Kelantan, I am proud to mention that its HM Tuan Haji Mohd Zain Abdullah had done much to sort out my overage problem, one associated with my late enrollment at the school. The SITC-trained Cik Gu Zain later resigned from his post to contest the 1964 General Election as a PAS candidate. He won and successfully defended the seat for several terms, including his famous victory in 1986 GE (on BN ticket) by defeating a PAS heavyweight, Datuk Nik Aziz, now Kelantan MB. The fact that he still managed to win despite changing his party affiliation speaks volumes about his rapport with the electorates. Another teacher at the school who later made good in public life is Datuk Noordin Razak a former DG of DBKL. My late father used to be his father's "henchman". One of my classmates at SK Badak (named after Kg Badak where Datuk Mustafa Mohd, the Minister of International Trade and Industry hails from) is Maktar Mohd, the Minister's younger brother who is now a businessman. 

I later went to SM Bachok (then known as Bachok English School) for my secondary education. Again, an HM left an impact on my life. Cik Gu Mokhtar Hassan (the school's HM) forced me to sit for the maximum 9 subjects in the SPM (in 1969) instead of 8 as I had intended. I had wanted to drop my weakest subject, Drawing Art but Cik Gu Mokhtar would have none of it and had even offered to pay for the 9th subject if my reason for skipping Drawing Art was due to financial problem. He suggested I took Add Maths instead, in view of my "strength" in Maths, despite the subject not being taught by the school. I reluctantly agreed and he lent me several relevant textbooks for me to study on my own. I managed to barely pass with grade P8 but I reckoned I would have failed my Drawing Art should I opt for it. In any case, a P8 in Add Maths is much more valuable than a P8 in Drawing Art. What was amusing was that during the exam I was the only candidate at the exam hall sitting for the paper and was overseen by 4 invigilators!!! Amongst my schoolmates: Zainai Mohd (now Prof Dr, the VC of UMK who's one year my senior), Mansor Jusoh (now Prof Dr., a retired economics professor from UKM who's my classmate), Phua Ah Hua (former national badminton player, one year my junior) and Kang Bee Leng (now VP of MTUC and long-time Sec-Gen of AUEGCAS, two years my junior).          

Saturday 14 May 2011

Osama Dead in 2001?

Has anyone ever read or heard about Osama being killed in Afghanistan in 2001 shortly after the World Trade Centre disaster? I must confess that I am terribly out of date on this issue. What I did hear was the suspicion that the WTC tragedy was not perpetrated by Osama but by a Jewish organization and the US Government itself to provide justification for a "war against terrorism" and invasion of Muslim countries such as Iraq. They pointed to the alleged fact that no Jews were killed in the WTC disaster.

For those who are in the same league as me on Osama's death in 2001, please read the article below which appeared in the Star of 12 May 2011.


Quote:

OPINION: Osama may still have the last laugh

Petaling Jaya (The Star/ANN) - The Sept 11 terrorist attacks on US soil is not the only event whose 10th anniversary is approaching.
This week, US and Pakistani officials said a secret deal was struck between the two countries a decade ago for unilateral US military action within Pakistan.
The deal is said to have been made between Gen Pervez Musharraf and President George W. Bush. It supposedly resulted from Osama's escape from US bombardment of eastern Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains in late 2001.
The deal, quickly denied by Musharraf, allowed US forces to launch operations in Pakistan as and when it found fit. It would have the silent approval of the Pakistani authorities, who could then protest loudly for domestic consumption.
So far, events have gone according to script. Variables include the fate of the future billions in US aid for Pakistan and the precise nature of diplomatic relations between them.
Another event also approaching its 10th anniversary is the death of Osama himself. This is unlike the conspiracy theory that Osama is still alive and well somewhere.
There is a growing body of circumstantial evidence and belief around the world that the alleged head of al-Qaeda had died in the 2001 Tora Bora attack. Subsequent events including video releases are said to be devised to perpetuate his continued "existence" for US geopolitical interests.
In this scenario, the testimony of Osama's supposed captive family and al-Qaeda itself are of questionable origin. Its very secretiveness allows it to be another covert false flag operation by US authorities.
No pictures of a dead Osama have been shown that can stand up to scrutiny. An initial mugshot has been exposed by Pakistan's Geo TV as fake.
His body was swiftly dumped in the ocean, preventing verification by witnesses or forensic examination by experts. Despite the US Navy SEALs team that raided the Abbottabad hideout equipped with video cameras on their helmets, no graphic image of Osama, in close-up or from a distance, has been available.
Even senior members of the US government who watched the live feed from Abbottabad in "real time" from those helmet cameras had 25 minutes blacked out, CIA director Leon Panetta admitted this week.
President Obama said watching the raid live in the White House Situation Room was the longest 40 minutes of his life, but those 25 minutes must have been even longer.
Much of the testimony about Osama's death in late 2001 or early 2002 has come from senior US and Pakistani officials over the past decade.
Gen (Rtd) Hameed Gul, former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, is among those saying that the US raid on the Abbottabad compound was a hoax.
In December 2001, Pakistan's Observer newspaper reported that the Afghan Taliban had found Osama dead and buried him. In the same month, US forces ousted the Taliban from government.
The following month, Pakistani leader Gen Pervez Musharraf said he believed that Osama was already dead. He said Osama's dialysis machines needed for his kidney condition had been destroyed at Tora Bora.
Later that year, Afghan president Hamid Karzai said much the same on CNN, with the belief shared by the FBI's head of counterterrorism. An unnamed Republican Party source also confirmed to US radio host Alex Jones that Osama's body had been kept "on ice" by the Bush administration until a politically favourable time.
Democrats then made an issue of that and the White House apparently retreated from that measure and relied on "Osama videos" instead.
In late 2001, another video of Osama appeared, showing a younger, chubbier image grinning untypically. The point of that video was to "take responsibility" for the Sept 11 attacks.
The following year, senior US government security official Dr Steve Pieczenik announced on US radio that Osama had been dead for several months. Pieczenik had served in various presidential administrations and aided Osama and the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
Gen Tommy Franks, who led the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, then let slip in a news conference that Osama was already dead. Pieczenik believes that Osama had died not of renal failure but from Marfan Syndrome, which does not make US forces out as heroic for having hunted him successfully.
In early 2007, "new" videos of Osama looking quite unlike the gaunt and greying figure before Tora Bora's onslaught were released. Prof Bruce Lawrence of Duke University said the videos were fake, and he believed that Osama had already died.
In November that year, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto told David Frost on Aljazeera that Omar Sheikh was the man who had killed Osama. Omar, a British-born Pakistani militant, had earlier been recruited by the MI6 British intelligence agency and whom Musharraf suspected to be a double agent.
The following month, Benazir herself was killed soon after her return to Pakistan following a visit to the Bush White House. Not only did she say openly that Osama had died years ago, she had wanted the US and Britain to stop pretending he was still alive.
By 2009, Pakistani President Ali Asif Zardari, Benazir's widower, said he did not believe Osama was still alive. In the US, others who refused to believe the standard version of Osama remaining alive until early this month were news veteran Walter Cronkite and former secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
Last week, the possibility of Osama being kept a virtual prisoner in the Abbottabad compound was floated. Former US Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend added to this view by saying a secret video of Osama there looked like he was a prisoner.
Meanwhile, establishment voices opposing sceptics of the official story dismissed all speculation as conspiracy theories. But so far the score is that the US government has scored some hits, plus a timely hike in public opinion, regardless of how or when Osama had died.
Unquote

Saturday 7 May 2011

US the Invader: The Ends Justify the Means?

All news reports about the killing of Osama Ben Laden highlighted the angle that the world is now safer with the leader of the "terrorists" movement Al Qaida murdered and his body hurriedly thrown into the sea. Is it true that the world is going to be more peaceful now? I tend to agree with the Australian PM Julia that as long as the root cause is not attended to and resolved, terrorism will always be around and alive and kicking. I am not sure what root cause she had in mind but for me the root cause is the failure of the West (especially the US) to ensure that Israel comply with international laws and UN resolutions. Many UN Resolutions (in particular the one ordering Israel to withdraw from Arab territories captured during the 1967 war) were blatantly ignored by Israel and the Jewish state somehow never get punished. Contrast that with any Arab/Muslim country not obeying the UN or US who were promptly slapped with embargo or outright invasion. With this scenario, what is the point of observing the laws. They must be thinking that they will be better off taking up arms and fight. The laws could not be relied upon to protect them. In fact this was the root cause giving rise to "terrorist/extremist" organizations such as communism (particularly in Russia and China), Hamas, Fatah and Tamil Elam.

Another aspect conveniently ignored by the global media is the fact that the US had violated the sovereignty of another nation, Pakistan. This is not the first time that the US had shown disrespect to other nations, while those not respecting the US had been known to have been harshly punished. The ends justify the means. The pot calling the cattle black.