MH370 – Who did it?

15 days after the disappearance of MH370, everything is a blank. There is not a single trace of its where about. While the family members are griefing and in a state of desperation, the experts are still searching for an answer. Assuming that it is indeed a hijack, it can be expected that it is a professional job executed by a fairly big team of hijackers. With this as a basis, let me ask a few questions that hopefully could narrow down the list of suspects to a few possibles.

1. Who have access to the cargo bay of MH370?
2. Who have access to the ground crews loading the aircraft? These two items assume that there are many hijackers and weapons to be loaded into the plane. Remember the mangosteens and durians in the cargo manifest?
3. Who would be able to get the ground crews to work for them?
4. Who would know the flight plans and details of MH370?
5. Who would know the radar locations and their performance specifications including the air traffic procedures and location to handover from KLIA to HCM City?
6. Who could file imitation flight plans without being detected or cause suspicion. This would allow the aircraft to switch transponders and fly as another legitimate aircraft in the commercial corridors after it disappeared and reappeared. All flight plans of aircraft transiting through the spot MH370 was last seen at about the same time need to be investigated.
7. Who had the technical knowledge of the aircraft instruments?
8. Who had the knowledge to fly the aircraft to avoid radars?
9. Who could prevent the pilot and co pilot from transmitting emergency calls?
10. Who had the ability to silence 239 hostages from making a single call out?
11. Who would have access to remote airfields within the range of MH370 and could land stealthily and without arousing suspicion?
12. Who could secure the aircraft and passengers in a large and safe place undetected?
13. Who have the resources to keep 239 hostages alive and unseen?
14. Who knew the topography of the Antarctic Ocean and where to dump the aircraft and black boxes and with very slim chances of recovery?
15. Who had the facilities to refuel the aircraft and fly it to the Antarctics?
16. Who had the presence of mind or informed knowledge to search in such far off and remote area that was unreachable by MH370 without refuelling?
17. Who could bring the pilot and crews back to safety from the Antarctics after dumping the plane? Items 14 to 17 assume that the aircraft is dumped in the Antartics?
18. Who would have a reason to want to attack a Malaysian aircraft with mainly Chinese passengers?
19. Who had the logistics to hold the hostages for so long without making a demand?
20. Who could do all the above and successfully complete this hijack mission and keeping the whole world in the dark?

The answers to the above questions could point to a few possible suspects with such capabilities, knowhow and resources to pull it off. The whole exercise is a logistic nightmare.

Hugh White: A pinky lens

Hugh White, a professor of Strategic Studies from Australian National University, wrote an article on Asean published in the ST on 18 Mar 14.

His analysis has been fairly objective in most cases but one cannot detect, or he cannot escape from the western biased in his thought processes when discussing big power relations particularly between the USA and China. He talked about the rivalry between Washington and Beijing but sneaked in this comment.

‘Washington generally uses carrots, while Beijing has mostly used sticks but the aim is essentially the same.’ To him this is the truth, the western truth, that the USA has been a very peace loving superpower that does not use the stick, bully or coerce any country to have its way. The Arabs and muslim countries must be having carotene poisoning after being served with decades of carrots. Only China is the rogue superpower that has been using the stick to whack other countries. Westerners are blind to their actions and that is understandable. Even Asians or Africans that have been whacked by the American sticks, oops, I mean carrots, for decades still cannot see the American stick and those whacked would still believe they were not whacked by the Americans.

What were the Americans doing in the Vietnam War, in Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan? Having a tea party and passing out carrots? And what were the Americans doing in the Korean Peninsula with their daily war games? And what were the Americans doing with all the military pacts, signing love letters? And what about the American pivot and all the Americans bases and the weapons of wars? Are they all toys, I mean carrots? Sure, they are not sticks, just weapons of mass destruction.

And what did the Chinese do? Where is the stick? The Chinese whacking the Vietnamese and the Pinoys? Do the westerners want to know why? It was the Vietnamese and the Pinoys that were whacking the Chinese first before the Chinese kicked their asses. As for the rest of the Southeast Asian states having territorial issues with China, how would they expect China to behave when they are claiming Chinese territories as theirs? How would the Americans react if another country would to claim a piece of American territories or some of the islands in the Pacific Oceans like Guam or Hawaii?

And wherever the Chinese go, what are they signing, military pacts or trade pacts? Now who is carrying the stick?

You tell me. But please first remove the pinky lenses.

Sinkies’ ‘chap cheng’ mentality

Heard that Singapore is promoting the Songkran festival at the Padang. Now which organization is spearheading this event? I think it is a good start for a ‘chap cheng’ city. The meaning of ‘chap’ is ten and ‘cheng’ is tribes, together they men ten tribes. With so many tribes here we should have more festivals. Now let’s see what China, India, the Philippines, Myanmar and the rest of the foreigners here have in their home countries. We can celebrate all their festivals here so that they don’t have to go home and can feel at home here.

We can have more holidays in our calendars as well. We can change our official languages from 4 to plenty to make our city more global. Please don’t complain about 6.9m. And please don’t complain about being Sinkies. Sinkies will no longer be called Sinkies if we keep globalizing in this way. We can proudly call ourselves the ‘Chap Cheng’ country and our citizens or residents be called, yes, you got it right, ‘Chap Cheng’.

We have nothing of our own to be proud of and we can keep coveting other people’s culture and festivals and even talents to make us feel better, to be more global and some self assurance that we are ok. After creating so many fakes for the locals and tourists, at least a festival like Songkran is real. We can have the colour powder festival of India and the bun festival of Hongkong. We can have bullock racing at the padang as well. And not to forget the smashing of tons of edible tomatoes on the streets for fun. Let’s celebrate, let’s party as the world in a chap cheng City, or a more marketable and sleek name like the City of Chap Chengs.

Kopi Level - Red

Little India riot COI – A voice of wisdom and reason

Finally we are hearing a voice of reason from not only a very experienced ex commissioner, but one who uses his wisdom to think before making a subjective assessment. If you are following the comments of experienced, so called experts in the MH370 case, you will know that many of them were just spouting nonsense. They may have the experience and in senior positions, but they were the proverbial one eyed jack during a time when everyone was blind. Intelligence and wisdom will show when one does not have them in the first place.

Back to the COI. We have several sessions when the COI was more about a contest of opinions between the police on the ground and the COI committee. It was about who is right and smarter in handling the riot. The police’s view was not using excessive force, waiting for the SOC to reinforce their position was the right thing to do as any wrong move could inflame the already bad situation that could be life threatening. The COI’s view, the police should have acted swiftly with a bit more assertiveness or use of force to disperse the crowd. It wasn’t life threatening and going after the rioters would prevent more violence or the burning of more vehicles. These two views were what I read from the media and the police or COI may want to dispute and say I am misreading the whole hearing. Just my view, feel free to disagree.

In this morning’s paper, ex Police Commissioner Khoo Boon Hui offered some very sensible and reasonable views of what he thought, and how the police handled the situation. He did not outrightly claim which side was right as the situation was fluid and volatile and could turn any way. Whatever actions the police could do otherwise, could lead to lowering the tension and lesser rioting, or it could be worse. Who could be wiser to claim for sure that doing A would end up with B or doing C would end up with D unless he is omniprescient. A mob is unpredictable.

Khoo Boon Hui also spoke about different times, different values and different methodologies. The old tactics of meeting force with force is less desirable in today’s context unless the situation warrants it. How the police handled the situation in Little India was in line with their new doctrine and a new reality. He wisely stayed away from committing himself into a ‘I am right and you are wrong’ situation. No one in his right mind should be making such a judgemental pronouncement without looking pompous and silly.

The COI would definitely benefit from Khoo Boon Hui’s statement of reasons.

MH370 – A confluence of Incompetence

I may be jumping the gun to say this as no one is really in the picture and those in the know would be smiling quietly. For all the while goose chase, there is a pattern, like they say, even madness has a pattern. Who knows, from the very next day the Malaysian Govt was already in contact and negotiating with the hijackers and the rest of the chase was just a big wayang kulit.

Putting this aside, the incompetence of those managing this affair is showing. When MH370 first went missing, the first thought that it could be a crash or an explosion was reasonable and the search for a crash site and debris a very logical thing to do. The stupid part about this was that though there were other possibilities mentioned, there was no serious effort to follow up in those directions. The most important of which was a hijack scenario. Instead, all efforts and resources were ploughed into searching for debris in one location. And when this was fruitless, everything was turned towards the Indian Ocean to follow a new lead.

The authorities should have dovetailed the search, from just looking for debris and a crashed aircraft to looking at where the hijackers could possibly take the aircraft to at the same time. Before ruling out a crash, a hijack cannot be ignored and ruled out.  It could not simply ignore other possibilities while sitting on one. Ok, I am saying this assuming that they did not know and were not negotiating with the hijackers. Without chasing this possibility and other possibilities, without looking at possible landing sites, many precious days were lost and now it is as good as impossible to locate them except for the hijackers to call.

In the case of a hijacking, and not a suicide bomber mission, the plane would have to be flown to an airstrip or some islands where it could land with minimal damage to the aircraft and loss of lives. It could be a friendly airport controlled by sympathetic forces, or an island prepared for this mission, fully secured by members of the hijacking team.

In the first couple of days, the aircraft and passengers could be at the landing site. By now they would have been dispersed to far away locations from the landing site. The aircraft could have been camouflaged or hidden or dumped somewhere else. If it landed in an airfield, it could be inside a hanger or even be repainted. All clues would be gone.

I am afraid by now any searches to locate where they could have landed would be in vain. There would be no traces of their presence or where about.  One possibility, as in the case of the debris in the Antarctic, is that after off loading the passengers and doing all the necessary, they would be dumping the aircraft as far away as they could to hide their tracks.  

The initiative is now with the hijackers and everyone could just wait patiently for the phone to ring. The last lead is for the intelligence services to make contacts with their sources for information. If it is state terrorism, it would be a very different proposition. Do not expect them to tell you even if they are openly offering assistance.

All the search parties can now make a last ditch effort with the Australian lead in the southern Indian Ocean before going home for a good rest and hope for more leads.  For sure, whatever that could be found from the latest lead would not lead to the passengers or the hijackers unless the passengers are sacrificed and buried with the aircraft.

For so many days, everyone was just reacting to news and would rush to wherever something was seen moving. It was funny but pathetic. Everyone was waiting for something to fall onto their laps but nothing came. They were not using their heads to look at other possibilities. To anticipate what could be and looking in different directions.

What theory are they going to explain for a pilot or hijacker to dump the plane in the Antarctic if this is the case?  The aircraft was airlifted by alien spacecraft and dropped off in the Antarctic Ocean? Or could it land in a remote airfield in Australia or Diego Garcia, off load the cargoes and passengers, refueled to fly to the Antarctica and dumped into the deepest corner of the ocean, not to be found again?

Kopi Level - green