Extremist Groups Could Cause Third World War

Extremist groups such as Al-Qa'ida, pro-Nazi and racial extremists hiding behind Non-Governmental Organizations may cause the Third World War in the future. Former Foreign Minister Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar revealed, the Third World War is not impossible as it may be launched by the extremist groups who are not bound by boundaries and would bring destruction to anywhere.

Messages of Hatred and Conflicts
These groups employ sophisticated technology to spread messages of hatred and conflicts. Their weapons may not as high-end as the arsenal of military forces, but the destruction could be terrifying, he said. He said so when met after he delivered his keynote address in the International Conference on the Second World War and Emergence of Multilateralism organized by World Futures International Pte. Ltd. (Worldfuture). Also present was the organizer of the conference, Mustafa Latif.

The one-day conference featured 13 working papers from antiwar activists from the United States, the Netherlands, Turkey, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. About 200 participants attended the conference. Among the speakers who had presented their working papers were Prof Dr Hasan Yahya from the US, Professor Albert Jansen from the Netherlands and former Chief the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF), General (B) Tan Sri Mohammad Hashim Ali.

US and Al-Qa'ida
Syed Hamid said, the situation had happened right now between the US and Al-Qa'ida as the former is now pursuing the group all the way to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Middle Eastern countries. This can be a start for a bigger war between superpowers and those groups, he said.

Syed Hamid stressed, he predicted a war between nations would also happen like the war in Balkan countries which involved different ethnic groups in the same country or neighboring countries. He stressed, it was out of the expectation of the whole world when the war erupted in Balkan countries which witnessed massive killing of Muslims.

How to Prevent?
The key step to prevent war in this world is to establish more regional organizations such as ASEAN and so on because these organizations will forge cooperation and can resolve problems by means of the good relationship between two countries. "I believe such regional organizations are the best forum to resolve all problems between neighboring countries," he stressed.

He said, the world also has a proper mechanism to prevent war, that is, to use the media, whether it is mainstream or alternative media. He said, the mechanism needs to be use to educate the world inhabitants about the culture of peace, mutual understanding and give-and-take, as well as the culture of a society.

Violating Human Rights
With regards to the Second World War, Syed Hamid said, the world had never learned from the destruction and sufferings caused by the Second World War which had killed approximately 60 million people, including 40 million civilians. He said, war must not be made as a tool to resolve any differences and conflicts. There is no winner or loser in a war because both sides will suffer losses.

Today we still witness people encroaching on others' sovereignty and violating human rights, he said. He added, the United Nations was founded as a means to prevent war but it had not achieved its goal as it failed to prevent and deal with military conflicts within a nation and between nations.

Malaysia Must Review Defense Purchase, Defense Monitoring Mechanism

Things that can put Malaysia to shame occur frequently. After the scandalous news about the theft of the F-5E jet fighter engines from the Malaysian Air Force base, Royal Malaysian Navy Admiral Tan Sri Datuk Abdul Aziz even went that far to confirm that Malaysia's first submarine could not dive beneath water due to technical problems. He said the newly acquired submarine has to wait until after May to ascertain if could provide the underwater service to the Navy that a submarine was supposed to perform.

Maintaining Dilemma
Over the past one year, negative news has poured out from Ministry of Defense. In addition to the theft of F-5E jet fighter engines and exposure pertaining to the maintenance dilemma of the Nuri (Parrot) helicopters and Sukhoi military aircrafts, Minister of Defense Ahmad Zahid also disclosed the case in which some defense personnel have involved in the stealing and selling of defense intelligence and national secrets to some foreign intelligence agency.

We recalled that in September 2009, when Malaysia's first acquired submarine named Kapal Diraja Tunku Abdul Rahman (His Majesty's Ship Tunku Abdul Rahman), arrived at Pulau Indah navy base in Port Klang, not only Malaysian King Sultan Mizan Zainal but also the Selangor Sultan Salahuddin, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin were at the navy port personally to greet the arrival of this first Malaysian submarine with a price tag of M$3.4 billion ringgit. The military experts from different specialization also praised Malaysia as entering a historical landmark in national defense system.

Later on our Royal Malaysian Navy also made a special announcement and said that submarines were important national defense assets. The announcement also said the Malaysian Navy believed that having the newly acquired submarine in service would strengthen Malaysia's maritime security defense and allow the Royal Malaysian Navy in best performance status.

Strengthening Armaments Activities
In answering queries posed by parliamentarians during one of the parliamentary sessions, Deputy Defense Minister Abdul Latif further explained that Malaysia has a vast and broad sea surface. It was necessary for Malaysia to buy submarines to carry out the Navy's role in monitoring, preventing, intelligence gathering and strengthening of armaments activities. He said that this first submarine acquired by the defense ministry was equipped with sophisticated weapons and communications technology. Its operation team included 15 military officers and 17 other officers from different levels. The submarine could also carry an additional eight people for special assigned tasks at the same time.

However, it was really startled for Malaysians to learn that after the Ministry of Defense had spent really "gold and silver" to purchase this second hand submarine for use by the Royal Malaysian Navy in the event of Malaysia facing a rare military emergency, what Malaysia received was but a useless submarine only good to look at from outside but cannot perform its job to dive beneath the water.

Procurement and Security Protection Issues
National defense is one of the four main pillars of any nation. It has an important role to defend the homeland and to maintain regional security. If Malaysia does not treat defense procurement and defense security protection issues seriously, Malaysia can come to a situation to find the country losing a battle without even getting into the battle field to fight.

Although Malaysia is not situated in a critical military zone, but within our neighborhood there are some countries eyeing Malaysia's land and territory. Not too long ago, we also read reports about some Indonesian non-government organizations making public proclamation of their intention to launch attack on Malaysia.

As such, when two out of the three military forces within the Malaysian Armed Forces namely the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the Royal Malaysian Navy have problems associated with various human negligent factors, it is time for the defense ministry to shake off the kind of mentality of spending huge amount of money in buying expensive military equipment just to maintain its pride. Instead of keep spending huge amount of money to buy in all kinds of 'advanced' military equipment and assets that have no practical value, it will be better for the defense ministry to look into all the loopholes and weaknesses within the defense front line.

Technical Human Factors
Ministry of Defense should take time to inspect the current military situation and to maintain the existing weaponry. At the same time, Ministry of Defense should also seriously review the arms procurement procedures to make sure the procurement of any military equipment is done professionally. Ministry of Defense should also establish a stringent internal defense monitoring system to prevent leakage of defense intelligence. Failing that, Malaysia may come to a situation whereby when the country is really faced confrontation and attack from another country, the military officers then suddenly realize that many of their weapons and assets that are supposedly prepared for wartime use cannot be in operational status as claimed.

When this happens, even how well trained our Malaysian soldiers can be, and no matter how wonderful our military strategy can be, without reliable military weapons and equipment, all the soldiers and good defense plan cannot be utilized in the in the battlefield. This will be a sad situation whereby Malaysia has already lost the battle before it can put on a good fight because of technical human factors.

Demand of Situation
Ministry of Defense must seek remedy and to rectify the current situation in the ministry in order to take up the national defense role. Therefore, while it is good for our defense minister to disclose a variety of frauds that exist in the Ministry of Defense, it is equally important for him to seriously review the existing defense monitoring mechanism and transparency in military procurement matter.

The defense minister should ensure that there is no invisible hands either within or beyond the ministry that have kept penetrating into Ministry of Defense's arms purchase plan to enrich their own pocket. These invisible hands will do this at the expense of Malaysian national security.