YOURSAY ‘It's not the radar that is unreliable, it's the people in the military.’

 

Malaysian radar not reliable, says Houston

         

Quigonbond: No wonder Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein does not want to disclose too much - it's embarrassing that the radar does not work - and worst still, the whole air force chain of command right up to the defence minister will be held responsible for failing to acquire a proper working radar and/or failing to properly maintain it, which again demonstrates the lackadaisical attitude in which BN government is defending our territory - a point that we need no reminder with scheduled monthly kidnappings off Sabah.

 

Anonymous_3e86: Unreliable radar? What a disgrace. No wonder they were not willing to disclose any radar information earlier.

 

Or does our military have a serviceable radar in the first place? Knowing how the BN government is managed, the radar has probably broken down long ago due to unavailable spares like many of the other military hardware the country has.

 

Perhaps that's the reason why they want to buy new equipment now.

 

Raja Chulan: It is not the radar technical capability. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is the people manning the radar who are all half-past-six guys.

 

One need not do any research on this, it is so obvious for all to see. It does not take the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) chief and Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) chief commissioner Angus Houston to tell us this.

 

All Malaysians know this already. I once asked a TLDM (Navy) Admiral about calibrating his ship's instruments and he asked me what “calibration” means.

 

Hplooi: This is not about the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) but about our military.

 

The DCA requires regular certification by international bodies, while our military maintains an opaque stance. In fact, so opaque that even the defence minister himself may be clueless regarding our combat readiness.

 

Which brings to question the very competency of our security apparatus and how compromised they are by the current 'ketuanan' culture which brooks no dissent and criticism/questions (internal or external).

 

I suggest the Malaysia Airlines’ MH370 incident points to some catastrophic failure in our security establishment and in a "normal" country, a high-level inquiry with non-performing high-level officers identified.

 

But as this is Bolehland, not only are clear incompetents gloss over on performance but even promoted.

A good example is a certain Finance Ministry official who lost billions in the forex (foreign exchange) speculations in the 1980s and 1990s, but up to 2000s was still a key officer with ministerial status in the Finance Ministry.

 

And Raja Chulan, blaming the officer down the line as ‘setengah (jam)-lepas-enam’ is not correct. An army is only as good as its leader.

 

A good general-strategist can even mold a rabble into a competent army while an incompetent general/leader can destroy a highly competent army.

 

Negarawan: Well, it's not the radar that is unreliable, it's the people in the military that's unreliable. There is no point having a reliable radar when the operator is ‘sleeping’.

 

Anticonmen: Indeed, this is not news to us. We know that millions were spent on radar but the radar was not working. In other countries, even the transport minister will have resigned.

 

But in Bolehland, there is no shame in mediocrity and inefficiency. And there is no accountability and transparency.

 

Why not give the job to a non-Malay? When an ailing airline with RM40 million liability under DRB-Hicom was given to a non-Malay for RM1, he turned it around into a billion-dollar company.

 

Gunner: Ten of billions ringgit budget have been allocated to Defence Ministry annually but the outcome is miserable. What kind of maintenance mentality do ministry have?

 

Mingxiang: I beg to differ with Australian Angus Houston. The military radar in question is exceptionally reliable. It can even differentiate between a friendly and a hostile aircraft just by looking at the blip on the screen.

 

Further, it is designed to be self-calibrating and even has a 10-year warranty issued by the base air-conditioner service contractor.

 

We are a first world country if you must know, although I have to agree with you our public toilets needs to be spruced a tad. Good day, mate.

           

Bystander: Houston is collaborating to give Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) an easy way out for its incompetency or lack of it.

 

Yet RMAF chief Rodzali Daud has the audacity to ask for a more efficient radar replacement when he should be the one to be replaced in the first place.

 

Gen2: Houston is a diplomatic person. Instead of saying that the people manning or maintaining the radar is useless, he says that the lack of calibration makes it unreliable.

 

Buying one even more sophisticated radar does not solve the primary problem of the ‘tidak apa’ attitude of those manning it. An unidentified aircraft crossing the sky in the dead of night? ‘Takpe lah, say mau tidur.’

 

Aceventura: Houston, we’ve got a problem - and it's not just the radar that is not reliable.

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