Sunday, July 1, 2007
ACOUPLE of months ago, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told the law enforcement agencies of the country to declare war on crime.
Now that the declaration has been made, we should look at ways of securing victory; and as always, in times of war we need to ensure the safety and survival of civilians.
That's where a certain Vietnam War veteran from popular fiction comes in; I'm not just suggesting that we go Rambo on criminals — that should be a given — but maybe we should consider his sage advice on survival in wartime.
In recent weeks, while we have seen great successes by the police — drug rings smashed, gangsters rounded up, rob-and-rape suspects hauled in — there is no denying that crime and its effect on the general well-being of our society are still very much in the forefront of the average citizen's thoughts.
Just a week ago, an auxiliary force was deployed in Johor Baru to combat crime there. But there are other places in the country facing problems too.
Some readers concurred that mercy should not be shown to the merciless. And maybe that's the key to winning the war on crime. We have to throw away our rulebook and send clear signals to these criminal elements that they will be shown no mercy. We can't be soft on crime.
Compassion is for better times. Look around you at the number of victims of so-called petty yet violent crime, or gang rape, or ram-and-rob (or slash-and-rob, or bludgeon-and-rob) and tell me that those times are here, and I'll strongly suggest that you suspend your medication for a while.
John Rambo was not known for philosophising, but his occasional pearls of wisdom — delivered by way of Sylvester Stallone and his screenplay collaborator James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) in 1985s Rambo, First Blood: Part II — should be heeded when the occasion demands it: To survive a war, you have to become war.
The first rule is: they start it, we as a society have to finish it. Or finish them.
Hardcore criminals who show no mercy to their victims should be put down like the rabid animals they are, and let the bleeding hearts or human rights advocates voice their concerns all they want. Save it for people who can be saved.
Some argue that deterrent sentences serve little purpose, because those who have it in them to commit such heinous crimes will do so anyway.
But, people, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. We don't need it to be a deterrent. It's a punishment first and foremost.
Pardon me if I sound glib when talking about human life, but that's only because these animals don't seem to hold it in high regard either. No regard for the life, well being or dignity of others.
The moment a criminal stops seeing his victim as a human being with a family and a future, that's when he too has made a choice that removes him from being a part of society.
We execute drug traffickers. We execute murderers sometimes. We even execute armed robbers. Time to extend the death penalty to those who destroy lives in other ways, too. Yes, they will receive the due process and they should know what's waiting for them at the end of that process.
And this brings me to the next point about war on crime. In a war, you need to mobilise all your resources. This means getting priorities right, too.
I don't want to tell people how to spend their money, but I believe I have the right to suggest how they spend my money.
Yet the Government dedicates a huge amount of manpower to the practice of censoring thousands upon thousands of books and periodicals, day in and day out, on moral grounds.
In an hour of war, like the war which the prime minister has asked to be declared on crime, shouldn't we mobilise all our human resources and put their time to more effective use?
And by being right there as the interface with the public, maybe the redeployed censors will be able to get a better reading of the pulse of the real world, too.
One can always dream. The Star/Asia News Network
Now that the declaration has been made, we should look at ways of securing victory; and as always, in times of war we need to ensure the safety and survival of civilians.
That's where a certain Vietnam War veteran from popular fiction comes in; I'm not just suggesting that we go Rambo on criminals — that should be a given — but maybe we should consider his sage advice on survival in wartime.
In recent weeks, while we have seen great successes by the police — drug rings smashed, gangsters rounded up, rob-and-rape suspects hauled in — there is no denying that crime and its effect on the general well-being of our society are still very much in the forefront of the average citizen's thoughts.
Just a week ago, an auxiliary force was deployed in Johor Baru to combat crime there. But there are other places in the country facing problems too.
Some readers concurred that mercy should not be shown to the merciless. And maybe that's the key to winning the war on crime. We have to throw away our rulebook and send clear signals to these criminal elements that they will be shown no mercy. We can't be soft on crime.
Compassion is for better times. Look around you at the number of victims of so-called petty yet violent crime, or gang rape, or ram-and-rob (or slash-and-rob, or bludgeon-and-rob) and tell me that those times are here, and I'll strongly suggest that you suspend your medication for a while.
John Rambo was not known for philosophising, but his occasional pearls of wisdom — delivered by way of Sylvester Stallone and his screenplay collaborator James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) in 1985s Rambo, First Blood: Part II — should be heeded when the occasion demands it: To survive a war, you have to become war.
The first rule is: they start it, we as a society have to finish it. Or finish them.
Hardcore criminals who show no mercy to their victims should be put down like the rabid animals they are, and let the bleeding hearts or human rights advocates voice their concerns all they want. Save it for people who can be saved.
Some argue that deterrent sentences serve little purpose, because those who have it in them to commit such heinous crimes will do so anyway.
But, people, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. We don't need it to be a deterrent. It's a punishment first and foremost.
Pardon me if I sound glib when talking about human life, but that's only because these animals don't seem to hold it in high regard either. No regard for the life, well being or dignity of others.
The moment a criminal stops seeing his victim as a human being with a family and a future, that's when he too has made a choice that removes him from being a part of society.
We execute drug traffickers. We execute murderers sometimes. We even execute armed robbers. Time to extend the death penalty to those who destroy lives in other ways, too. Yes, they will receive the due process and they should know what's waiting for them at the end of that process.
And this brings me to the next point about war on crime. In a war, you need to mobilise all your resources. This means getting priorities right, too.
I don't want to tell people how to spend their money, but I believe I have the right to suggest how they spend my money.
Yet the Government dedicates a huge amount of manpower to the practice of censoring thousands upon thousands of books and periodicals, day in and day out, on moral grounds.
In an hour of war, like the war which the prime minister has asked to be declared on crime, shouldn't we mobilise all our human resources and put their time to more effective use?
And by being right there as the interface with the public, maybe the redeployed censors will be able to get a better reading of the pulse of the real world, too.
One can always dream. The Star/Asia News Network