Mas Selamat Kastari

Let's dispel a few myths about Mas Selamat Kastari. People think he will be caught. I don't think it will be easy, or possible, I don't think he will be caught before he links up with JI again. It is possible to escape from Singapore. There is jungle. Why they put the Whitley detention centre so close to the jungle escapes me, but in Singapore, if you're not close to a jungle, then you are close to the coast, and you can still escape to another island.

I don't know why they say he is still in Singapore. They only made this public 4 hours after he escaped. This is really stupid. If you were to make this public immediately, it would have been much easier to catch him, everybody would have been able to look out for him. I'm sure it takes less than 2 hours to escape from this small island.

Saying that he is still in Singapore does serve one purpose. When you are in the government long enough you will realise that times of adversity will unite the people, as it did in the SARS case. Never mind that you yourself were the cause of that adversity.

Mas Selamat may or may not join back to JI and return to terrorism. It is possible either way.

His escape will not make a big difference to terrorism. JI's the way that it has always been. If it needs more talented people it can always find them. One more or one less doesn't make a difference.

What is not a myth is if I do find myself face to face with him I will try to beat the shit out of him before the police stop me.

I am very annoyed. But not as annoyed as the air defence units in the country who will have to work harder because he is on the loose.

Cherian George raised the interesting question of why the media has failed to report on the inquiries into the security lapse. That's the last thing the Straits Times would want to write about. Who in the press would want to criticise Internal Security since most of them work for them anyway? And some have also criticised the nomination of an insider to be a member of the so-called independent inquiry into the case.

This just in: LKY has criticised the handling of the case and blamed "complacency". Well and good. But it is interesting that the first time that the media reports about the culpability it is still LKY who opens his mouth. Doesn't the prime minister of the country have anything to say? Do LHL and GCT wait for him to take the lead? nobody wants to say anything risky unless it's LKY saying it?