I refer to the post
here.
A colonel going to jail? Wow. You'd learn a lesson here huh?
But what type of lesson did you learn, and what conclusions did you come up with?
A man violated the law. The rules and regulations that bind us, make us.
He's on trial. Through the legal channels of our country.
What do we say?
"Cream of my cock."
"What a disgrace.... In his case, the MPs should strip him of his rank in front of the CDF and Minister of Defence...humiliate him...
Whether or not he ran outta steam, its another matter. He took an oath to serve this country...he broke his oath "
Wow.
I'm sure that, when we decide to slay the officer - spit on the accused, we keep in mind that they are innocent until proven guilty - and at the very least, should we fail that, keep in mind that the man might have a reason to do what he did outside of self-benefit, "corruption" if you will.
I mean, right, Colonels - officers - they're good, but there's got to be those bad ones right? To hell, and to jail they go.
And I'm sure that when criticisms are put on and forward about someone - tagged with a picture to boot - we make sure we look it up, make sure we don't slam the wrong person - or at least, that we consider the possibility there may be another side to the story.
Right
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:IxIXY-_VOGIJ:www.straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/story/0,4386,237067-1077832740,00.html+%22ong+beng+leong%22&hl=enIt's a cached copy of a ST article, and none-too-discriminating at that. It tells more of the story, though again it doesn't yell "he's innocent".
Still, if you read, you'd find that his position was that what he did benefitted the SAF. You could argue that, but the question is - did you consider it?
What if - what if what he saw in front of him to getting the job done would make for a huge amount of red tape? What if he was right? That the contractor had prices no one could beat, and to go by protocol would require more time and effort to plough through expensive, unfearsible alternatives?
And what if, due to the nature of the military and the training areas - these places *need* to be fixed quickly for the safety of the troops utilising them? What then?
I'm sure we all thought of that before we put his face up online and started mocking a man. We looked at the facts, and we considered the possibilities.
Right.
Look. I'm not saying its right to bypass the law outright, especially if someone should and probably does know the rules. I'm not saying the justification provided necessarily outweighs breaking the codes. It's against the law.
But there is a difference between someone breaking the law intentionally for his own benefit against someone who wanted to cut through red tape to get the job done faster and present the areas (and therefore the military) as a more professional force.
It's the assumption that the headlines are telling us something - concrete, the full picture, and enough to convict someone else of corruption or something worse - that I find disturbing. Generally, there's a story behind each story, and to those ends, while most of us will never know the truth, I'm saying - consider the possibilities, and hold your judgements.
Why do I say this? I happen to know the man myself - and if you knew him or anyone who knew him - you'd know that one of the things he does is give. A confident, strong man who's big on family (yes, he does have one - and therefore, yes, he is human like us). I've had the opportunity to work with him before and he's the type of guy you'd want to be with when under pressure. Calm, collected and thoughtful of those around him.
So it'll be fair to say that I personally find it offending to see his picture up on a forum and have people demonising him without hearing more of the story than beyond one headline or two.
When a good man goes to court, I think too many people conclude guilt - and in a bad manner at that.
I've learnt something else from this, I suppose. I hope some of you will too. We need to be more open and not claim short texts as our Bible of facts - because by doing so, we'd be putting ourselves up for milking.
