14 theSun | WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 4 2009

speak up!

letters
Resignation letters must be dated
letters@thesundaily.com

Integrity and POLITICAL parties are said to that the persons signing them are be running foul of the law, espe- be reduced to pulp. So why are

loyalty in politics coerce their candidates who have

LOYALTY must have a special meaning in Perak
politics for their politicians to be hopping around
like drunken frogs. Integrity, of which loyalty is an
aspect, must be a bad word in the state because no-
body seems to be saying that party hopping shows
a lack of personal as well as political integrity.
The Pakatan Rakyat leadership of course sees
party hopping as an acceptable political strategy.
Even the Barisan Nasional leadership has said it
welcomes hoppers.
Don’t our leaders see that party hopping is
unethical and immoral? Besides showing a lack
of loyalty and commitment to the cause or party
one has chosen to be a member of, it also opens
up a range of social ills like lying, bribery, slander
and legal entanglements.
What’s the point of establishing the National
Integrity Institute and making integrity a tag line
if you don’t understand the first thing about the
concept of integrity? What’s the point of making
won seats in Parliament or state
assemblies to sign letters to say
they have resigned from their
posts.
This practice should be stopped
immediately and all of the signed
letters must be disposed of. The
reason being that they are useless
documents because they are not
dated, an element in law which
is crucial. Worse, in such serious
cases, there must be witnesses
to the signing of the document so
Errant cabbies
bad for image
I TRAVEL widely and am impressed by taxi
drivers overseas. Though some of these
not coerced to do it against his
free will.
In any document, the date of
the signing of the letters must be
specifically written or the docu-
ment is worthless.
Resigning as an MP or state as-
semblyman is a serious business
and must be made personally by
those involved and not by merely
producing letters to say that they
had done so.
And if there are others who ap-
plied the dates, they can be said to
How the Afghan War
cially if the person who signed the
letters or documents did not say
when the letters are said to have
been signed. In short it is a criminal
act of forgery.
It is as simple as that that the
letters can be considered by law to
be forgery since the date was not
approved by the persons who had
signed the letters.
I am surprised that the lawyers
of the political parties are still
unaware of this fact and if the
case goes to court, the letters can
some political parties insisting that
their candidates sign such letters
knowing very well that they are
useless?
I find it baffling especially since
the word of the candidates should
be counted on instead of their let-
ters which are delivered by others
representing the parties when the
persons themselves are making
themselves scarce.
Mansor Puteh
Cheras

the eradication of corruption a platform if you
don’t see party hopping as a serious form of cor-
ruption?
To me integrity is the very antithesis of cor-
ruption. In fact, it is the antidote to corruption.
There is a strong correlation between the two. You
cannot eradicate corruption in society without
establishing a strong sense of personal integrity
among the people. Corruption in political par-
ties can only be eradicated when their members
understand what integrity is and live by it.
To me “integrity” is a composite concept which
subsumes simpler moral attributes like “honesty”,
“uprightness”, “sincerity”, “trustworthiness”,
“keeping one’s word” and “loyalty”. Whether at
the personal or political level, one cannot com-
promise one’s integrity.
Halimah Mohd Said
Kuala Lumpur
threatens Nato
drivers look scary and gangster-like, I have
never been cheated and never had to argue
about the fare. I always arrive at my destina-
tion in high spirits, eager and relaxed.
But in my own country taking a taxi never
fails to unsettle my spirit and I arrive at my
destination sick. What are the authorities
doing? If the powers that be are incompe- by Eric S. Margolis
tent, they should be replaced.
Unscrupulous taxi drivers should be LONDON: Britain’s security minis-
charged for treason as their dishonesty is ter, Lord West, dropped a bombshell
a subversive act, sabotaging every effort last week by declaring his nation’s
to attract tourists. They are a disgrace. As military intervention in Iraq and
for the minister responsible, please have Afghanistan had fuelled global radi-
some pride, if you cannot solve such a small calism against Britain and the US.
problem, give way to others who have the West described as “bollocks”
will to. former PM Tony Blair’s claims
the so-called “war on terror” had
Patriotic Rakyat nothing to do with growing Islamic
Via email radicalism. This comes soon after
Britain’s foreign secretary, David
Miliband, called the term “war on
terror”, deceptive and damaging.
In an extraordinary move, cabinet
minutes of Blair’s decision to invade
Iraq may shortly be made public,
raising the possibility of serious
criminal charges – even war crimes
– against senior British officials.
While glasnost sweeps London, in
Washington, it’s déjà vu. President
Barack Obama vows to plunge the
US ever deeper into the eight-year-
old Afghan conflict begun by former
President George Bush by doubling
the number of US troops and aircraft
there.
Obama’s
unfortunate
The Afghan move demon-
War will have strates political
inexperience.
to be ended A change of
administration
by a political in Washington,
settlement and departure
of the reviled
that includes Bush, offered
an ideal op-
the Taliban-led portunity for
nationalist Washington
to declare a
alliance. pause in the
Afghan War
and reassess
its policies. It
also offered an ideal chance to offer
negotiations to Taliban and its grow-
ing number of supporters.
The Afghan War will have to be
ended by a political settlement that
includes the Taliban-led nationalist
alliance that represents over half of
Afghanistan’s population. There is
simply no military solution to this
grinding conflict – as even the secre-
tary-general of Nato admits.
But instead of diplomacy, the new
administration has elected to stick
its head ever deeper into the Afghan
hornet’s nest. The 20,000-30,000 US
troops slated to go to Afghanistan
will be standing on a smoking vol-
cano: Pakistan. The Afghan War is
relentlessly seeping into Pakistan,
enflaming its people against the Nato
powers and, as Lord West rightly
says, generating new jihadist forces.
Why are Obama and his advisers
committed to expanding a war where
there are no vital US interests? Oil is
certainly one reason. The proposed
route for pipelines taking oil and gas
from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea
coast run right through Taliban-Pa-
shtun territory.
But there is another important
reason. Washington arm-twisted
the reluctant Nato alliance, Canada
included, into sending troops to
Afghanistan. The war is now going
very badly for the US-led forces as
their vulnerable supply lines come
increasingly under Taliban attack.
Here in Europe, the majority of pub-
lic opinion opposes the Afghanistan
War as a brazen colonial adventure
for oil.
The US could survive a defeat in
Afghanistan, as it did in Vietnam. But
the Nato alliance might not.
The end of the cold war and
collapse of the USSR removed the
raison d’etre of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation which was
created to resist Soviet invasion of
Western Europe.
According to Zbigniew Brzezin-
ski, America’s smartest strategist,
Nato serves as a “stepping stone”
for America’s domination of Europe.
Japan fulfils the same role for the US
in Asia. The Soviet Union similarly
used the defunct Warsaw Pact to
dominate Eastern Europe. The US
also uses Nato to help deter the
creation of a truly united – and rival
– Europe with its own unified armed
forces.
Nato’s defeat in Afghanistan would
raise questions over the alliance’s
continuing purpose and obedience to
US strategic demands – Afghanistan
being a prime example. Calls will
inevitably come for empowerment
of the European Defence Union, an
independent European armed force
that answers to the EU Brussels, not
to Washington.
This, I believe, is one of the pri-
mary reasons why vested interests
in Washington have prevailed on
the young, inexperienced president
to expand the war in Afghanistan.
America’s influence in Europe de-
pends on victory in Afghanistan.
The US and its western auxilia-
ries cannot be seen to be defeated
by a bunch of lightly-armed Afghan
tribesmen. The last empire that
affronted them, the mighty Soviet
Union, lost and quickly fell apart.
Its imperial rival, the United States,
clearly took this dire lesson to heart.
Eric S. Margolis is a contributing
editor to the Toronto Sun chain of
newspapers, writing mainly about
the Middle East and South Asia. Com-
ments: letters@thesundaily.com