In a recent interview, Lee Kuan Yew said Singapore is exposed to a danger of disrespect of international law. He was clearly referring to either Malaysia or Indonesia. My bet is he was speaking specifically about Malaysia. He thinks Malaysia will, given half a chance, lay siege. He thinks the reason for that is that Singapore is a painful reminder to Malaysia that Malaysia has been badly mismanaged by perpetuating racist policies. Singapore stares down at Malaysia and says “see what you could have been? You choose instead to take the racist and destructive path”. No one likes to be reminded that he has been wrong, that he has made a mistake. Malaysia has been a mistake for a long time now. You can’t right a wrong unless you first accept that there has been a wrong. Instead of acknowledging that the racist path has been wrong and has been bad for the country including the Malays, it continues with to not only travel down this path but lies and tell the country that it is the best path.Give the Chinese and Indians more equal opportunities and the whole country would be better off. But no, Malaysian leaders in their collective wisdom, decide instead to behave in the most bloody minded and idiotic way. The following is an extract of the interview: Lee: Where are we? Are we in the Caribbean? Are we next to America like the Bahamas? Are we in the Mediterranean, like Malta, next to Italy? Are we like Hong Kong, next to China and therefore, will become part of China?
We are in Southeast Asia, in the midst of a turbulent, volatile, unsettled region. Singapore is a superstructure built on what? On 700 square kilometers and a lot of smart ideas that
have worked so far but the whole thing could come undone very quickly.
For this to work, you require a world where there are some rules of international law and there is a balance of forces of power that will enforce that international law and the U.S. is foremost in that. Without that balance of power and international law, the Vietnamese will still be in Cambodia and the Indonesians will still be in East Timor, right? Why are they out? Because there were certain norms that had to be observed. You can’t just cross boundaries. This little island with four and a half million people, of whom 1.3 are foreigners working here, has got to maintain an army, navy and an air force. Can we withstand a concerted attempt to besiege us and blockade us? We can repel an attack, yes. Given the armed forces in the region and our capability, we can repel and we can damage them. Three weeks, food runs out, we are besieged, blockaded.
QUESTION Who will come after you? Who would come after you?
Lee: There are assets here to be captured, right?
QUESTION Some unnamed bad regime?
Lee: When [Malaysia] kicked us out [in 1965], the expectation was that we would fail and we will go back on their terms, not on the terms we agreed with them under the British. Our problems are not just between states, this is a problem between races and religions and civilizations. We are a standing indictment of all the things that they can be doing differently. They have got all the resources. If they would just educate the Chinese and Indians, use them and treat them as their citizens, they can equal us and even do better than us and we would be happy to rejoin them.
Ante 