Hunt for JI fugitive Mas Selamat continues

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Well the title says it all. After 20 days of placing boys in blue at SCGS, around forests like MacRitche, my little garden of one tree, tightening the already problematic bottleneck at the causeway until it takes almost 5 hours to get through Customs, one really wonders, just how much resources will the Singapore government expend to save its face? Maybe it's time we cut our losses and scale back on the intensive search operations.

After all, i'm sure our policemen and gurkas have better things to do then to keep peeping into drains just to find one limping fugitive. For instance, they could try keeping regular crime in check. I'm quite sure our thieves and burglars aren't going to take a break simply because Mas Selamat is on the lose.

Plus, i'm quite sure the 5h jam at the Causeway will have quite a negative effect on Singapore's economy. For one, it would virtually disrupt operations that depend on labour from Malaysia. Neither would it be ideal for tourism.

Further, in the time Mas Selamat was detained, I'm quite sure the highly efficient JI would have gotten someone to replace him already. Add on to that the fact that these networks are often highly prepared to lose any of their top leaders at any point in time. Call it an occupational hazard that factors into their calculations.

All this calculations made, continuing such a hunt merely raises questions. I think, the hunt is just a show to placate the fears of Singaporeans. After all, they did put policemen at totally useless places such as SCGS, where Mas Selamat being someone without a paedophile history would probably never visit. This whole show merely brings into question the credibility of the Singaporean government. It hurts their reputation and only serves to fuel discontent among the educated, IT-savy elite who have access to the internet and are thus able to access views on non-mainstream media such as the blogs of mr wang and mr brown that have been highly critical of this entire episode.

At the end of the day, it'll be the government that loses out once these truths are revealed. Not that it'll have any impact in the next elections.






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