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LoginPM's son's army gaffe and why we have to worry
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...Found this over at tomorrow.sg. Remember it's a blog entry:
Tuesday, July 10
PM's son's army gaffe and why we have to worry
Read this from the HardwareZone's forums and confirmed the story with a friend in the military. A few bloggers have blogged about it too.
2LT Lee Hong Yi, better known as PM Lee's son, had fired off an e-mail within the military network lambasting the "quality of leadership" in the SAF to the top brass, including the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Defence Force.
He had done it after being punished for an error that was largely not his.
What was his fault, however, was involving just about the entire military force of Singapore in this one small matter of his, by addressing the e-mail to entire battalions of people. Committed by an ordinary serviceman, the offence would have warranted a formal military charge - and in an officer's case, his rank may be stripped.
Nothing so far (or so I hear) has been done to 2LT Lee, save that the Commanding Officer of his unit gave a speech to the entire unit the next day about "following the chain of command".
While one might argue that the e-mail comes from the military intranet and should not have been circulated in the general public (i.e. in HardwareZone), 2LT Lee surely could not have expected the matter not to leak out when he addressed it to so many people, most of them National Servicemen rather than full-time regulars.
If you looked through the thread, what's worrying is not the blatant abuse of family ties, by a person who is highly likely to take up an important position in our society in future.
Neither is it the fact that he is being given favourable treatment on two counts: first, the lack of punishment for his offence, and second, his pending disruption from the army (which he mentioned in the article), despite not being bonded under a government scholarship, which, as far as I know, is the only official way of obtaining disruption.
And of course, it's definitely not the "quality of leadership" in the SAF that 2LT Lee questioned that worries me.
No, it is the perceptible sense of fear in the Hardwarezone thread where the topic was discussed. No one dared to give the full details: one had to sieve through several pages of the thread before getting the full picture. Nicknames like "Bored Dragon" and "Golden bar" were given to the persons involved. There were even warnings given by concerned forum members about the ISD and MSD surveilling the thread.
If it were in other democratic countries like the US, such an incident would have been a scandal and generated a media frenzy. Questions would be asked about his conduct and his suitability for an important position in future. The public would have a field day airing their views on his actions.
What would have been the effect? 2LT Lee would learn a painful lesson in humility, and the transparency of the government would be highlighted, because they did not shield even the son of the most important official when he had done wrong.
The resulting fire of the public would simmer and die down, and the public would have been satisfied that their views were heard and their indignation expressed. That fire would have been a cleansing one.
Instead, the entire deed is hushed up. The original thread on HardwareZone was deleted. But perhaps the worst thing of all is that the public is censoring itself. People dare not to speak up about the topic.
Instead of fire, the incident is met only with self-defeat and fear. The public has lost its voice and its own opinion, and surrendered its position as the main critic of the government. And as we know, the local media surrendered its own position a long time ago.
It shouldn't be this way.
Governments should fear people, not the other way round.
It's just a minor incident - after all, there've been worse offences committed by officers in the SAF - but it speaks of a larger, darker, and insiduous problem.
"It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing...one loud noise, and its gone...Noise is relative to the silence preceding it - the more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap.- V, V for Vendetta
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Oh yeah, forgot the link. The feedback at the blog site has been largely positive, believe it or not.
http://e-hung.blogspot.com/2007/07/pms-sons-military-gaffe.html
Here's the link to the original HWZ thread where, "strangely", the said intranet email copy has since been censored. Too bad, looks like the posters over there really slammed the message.
http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=1663840&page=1&pp=15
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btw... i do not believe that keeping quiet and doing what we will do eventually is called "self-defeat and fear"
so, what isn't to you? pointless ranting and riots?
they don't do much...
what we can do, is to cast a vote wisely... taking into account everything and do not have a short memory...
remember all the things which you want your children to inherit when you cast that vote...
and that vote... you can cast it whatever way you want... for the incumbent, for the opposition, a blank vote, a spoilt vote, an essay on the vote... it is your right...
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it must have taken a great deal of injustice for him to shoot an email to the whole organisation . logically his platoon should be the white horse platoon hence they wont be punished right ? maybe he wants to show who will be future boss ha ha . by right what he has written is deemed restricted right ?
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...Comment from another blogger, plus a feedback entry that touched a bit on the email content:
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Mass Whistleblowing Military-Style
Whistleblowing has been the flavour of corporate governance for some months now.
In the last few hours, it has been alleged that a Singapore military officer of Second Lieutenant rank sent out an e-mail to a whole bunch of individuals whistleblowing about certain things one of his more senior officers had done.
There has been no official verification about this by the Ministry of Defence in Singapore. It has also not been reported by any media yet.
But if this is true, three thoughts immediately come to mind:
a. The Second Lieutenant deserves every protection he can receive as a whistleblower. He should not be punished but he should be commended for what he has done, even if one may not necessarily agree with the manner in which the issue was reported.
b. But maybe the manner in which the issue was reported can be attributed to the circumstances the officer found himself in. For example, could it be that the issue was reported and no one acted on or looked into the issue, and the Second Lieutenant acted after he was frustrated by inaction?
c. Perhaps, it also highlights the lack of a whistleblower mechanism within the public service, which is why the e-mail ended up being sent to so many people and eventually its contents are now being disclosed and discussed in the public sphere.
I will reserve further comment on this issue until more information is known. And if this issue is untrue, I ask the reader to treat this as purely a work of fiction.
I will however add that a whistleblower mechanism can and should be put in place most organisations, especially large ones and where public money is involved.
Such a mechanism will enable individuals of these organisations to better report practices, which appear questionable. The mechanism should also provide enough space for an independent investigation of the practice.
The investigation should be carried out by a person with a reporting line to the highest-ranking person in the organisation, such as the Chief Legal Officer or General Counsel.
Happiness,
Dharmendra Yadav
Please consider the environment - do you really need to print this?
Posted by DPYadav at 12:42 AM
1 comments:
eXo said...
oh i read that complain e-mail. I think the whistle-blower (who is gg for studies) and that other guy he complained about, won't go far at all in the army. I don't think he called the SAF hotline , but iirc, he did go to his superiors 1st. But i still think he'll be faulted for breaking the chain of command. But there's no doubt the guy he's complaining about is... well, to put it crudely F**ked. This is going to be interesting
3:40 AM
Post a Comment
http://thinkhappiness.blogspot.com/2007/07/mass-whistleblowing-military-style.html
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The Second Lieutenant deserves every protection he can receive as a whistleblower. He should not be punished but he should be commended for what he has done, even if one may not necessarily agree with the manner in which the issue was reported.
Crap. It's not even whistle-blowing. He doesn't understand reality.
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No doubt he has broken the chain of command and given any other junior officer, would have been punished according to SAF's military law.
However, how much do you really understand about the situation? Are you clear of the circumstances under which he wrote the email?
Instead of focusing on him being Lee's son, high and mighty and all, we should see the cause of his email first. After all, those who have served NS before can testify to some fundamental flaws in the SAF.
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Using the blog materials...
Everything has cause and effect...
Indirectly or directly, it will affect... you and/or others.
Why I want him to be punished because he doesn't see this point.
Directly, he did nothing wrong. Indirectly, he has to ask himself what went wrong that resulted in punishment.
He makes the same mistakes that everybody makes - to judge everything superficially, without considering other causes.
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Originally posted by blitzonic:...Found this over at tomorrow.sg. Remember it's a blog entry:
Tuesday, July 10
PM's son's army gaffe and why we have to worry
Read this from the HardwareZone's forums and confirmed the story with a friend in the military. A few bloggers have blogged about it too.
2LT Lee Hong Yi, better known as PM Lee's son, had fired off an e-mail within the military network lambasting the "quality of leadership" in the SAF to the top brass, including the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Defence Force.
He had done it after being punished for an error that was largely not his.
What was his fault, however, was involving just about the entire military force of Singapore in this one small matter of his, by addressing the e-mail to entire battalions of people. Committed by an ordinary serviceman, the offence would have warranted a formal military charge - and in an officer's case, his rank may be stripped.
Nothing so far (or so I hear) has been done to 2LT Lee, save that the Commanding Officer of his unit gave a speech to the entire unit the next day about "following the chain of command".
While one might argue that the e-mail comes from the military intranet and should not have been circulated in the general public (i.e. in HardwareZone), 2LT Lee surely could not have expected the matter not to leak out when he addressed it to so many people, most of them National Servicemen rather than full-time regulars.If you looked through the thread, what's worrying is not the blatant abuse of family ties, by a person who is highly likely to take up an important position in our society in future.
Neither is it the fact that he is being given favourable treatment on two counts: first, the lack of punishment for his offence, and second, his pending disruption from the army (which he mentioned in the article), despite not being bonded under a government scholarship, which, as far as I know, is the only official way of obtaining disruption.
And of course, it's definitely not the "quality of leadership" in the SAF that 2LT Lee questioned that worries me.
No, it is the perceptible sense of fear in the Hardwarezone thread where the topic was discussed. No one dared to give the full details: one had to sieve through several pages of the thread before getting the full picture. Nicknames like "Bored Dragon" and "Golden bar" were given to the persons involved. There were even warnings given by concerned forum members about the ISD and MSD surveilling the thread.
If it were in other democratic countries like the US, such an incident would have been a scandal and generated a media frenzy. Questions would be asked about his conduct and his suitability for an important position in future. The public would have a field day airing their views on his actions.
What would have been the effect? 2LT Lee would learn a painful lesson in humility, and the transparency of the government would be highlighted, because they did not shield even the son of the most important official when he had done wrong.
The resulting fire of the public would simmer and die down, and the public would have been satisfied that their views were heard and their indignation expressed. That fire would have been a cleansing one.
Instead, the entire deed is hushed up. The original thread on HardwareZone was deleted. But perhaps the worst thing of all is that the public is censoring itself. People dare not to speak up about the topic.
Instead of fire, the incident is met only with self-defeat and fear. The public has lost its voice and its own opinion, and surrendered its position as the main critic of the government. And as we know, the local media surrendered its own position a long time ago.
It shouldn't be this way.
Governments should fear people, not the other way round.
It's just a minor incident - after all, there've been worse offences committed by officers in the SAF - but it speaks of a larger, darker, and insiduous problem.
"It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing...one loud noise, and its gone...Noise is relative to the silence preceding it - the more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap.- V, V for Vendetta
1st in red the matter yes this is what he did
2nd in brown the matter is not 1st leak by 6signal brigade but by isb ppl themself , than by boggers and hwz ppl the thread was del by .........
For this matter i have no comment, only one line
MORE GOOD YEARS AHEAD
hell ya i getting the fack out sinkapore,
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First of all,
2Lt Lee Hong Yi is the son of PM Lee
That means in Singapore he cannot be touched.
2nd of all, I was stunned that the military actually punished 2Lt Lee Hong Yi.(If it were true)
I mean who would have the guts to punish a PM Lee's son???
3rd of all,
2LT Lee retaliates by violating military law.(If it was true)
4th of all,
No military charge is imposed on 2LT Lee. Only a speech was given the next day to educate them of the chain of command.
Lee family can be called Gods of Singapore for sure now.
This is a demonstration of prolong control by the PAP and it's strong hold of the system in singapore.
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