Quora Answer: How Do Countries Who Had ISIS Fighters Punish Them When They Try to Return?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How would the countries, who had citizens fight for ISIS, properly punish them if they tried to return to their home country?” 

The answer is straightforward: arrest them, try them, and have them executed.  In Singapore, it is to be hung until dead. The crime, in this case, is sedition and waging war against the state.  I do not believe in rehabilitation for these Wahhabi terrorists.  This should be applied regardless of whether they are male or female.  There is no such thing as a lesser penalty for these ISIS brides.  They are not innocents or victims; they are enablers and supporters.  And those below the age of majority, but close to it, the court should be given special dispensation to try them as adults. 

It is only natural that when we have an infection, we address it at the root.  These people will always be a source of propaganda and inspiration, even when they are dead.  The difference is that dead people do not spin new stories.  Hang enough terrorist and the rest of the population will understand that there is no misguided softness when it comes to addressing an existential threat to the secular state.

Quora Answer: Should Singapore Accept Amos Yee Pang Sang if His Asylum is Revoked?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Should Singapore accept Amos Yee Pang Sang if his asylum is revoked?” 

Amos Yee Pang Sang never actually renounced his citizenship.  He absconded court judgement in Singapore, and sought political asylum in the United States.  That asylum was granted that on the basis of political persecution, despite the US government itself appealing against the decision.  They do not want that troublemaker any more than we do. 

Upon conviction, the US government has a strong legal basis to rescind that asylum, and he will be deported after serving his time in prison.  Since he is technically a Singapore citizen, Singapore will have to take him back, under international law.  He will then be charged for absconding from court, and he will spend considerable time in prison.  That means he will have to be fed and housed at tax payer’s expense.

Quora Answer: What Will Happen to WHO Now That the US Has Decided to Halt Funding?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What will happen to WHO now that the US has decided to halt the funding?”

On the WHO website, there is a statement of accounts of the invoiced contributions of individual nations, assessed according to the size of their economy and other factors: Assessed contributions overview for all member states as of 31st March 2020.  You would note that the United States is in arrears, and the WHO is still functioning.  In fact, the US has been in arrears in a number of its international commitments, and none of these organisations have collapsed.  They have been constrained, but they have continued to function.

In the aftermath of World War II, and the establishment of a new world order with the United States as a global superpower, the US initiated or supported efforts to set up various supranational organisations, including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and many others.  It also undertook the responsibility of being the largest funder of these organisations.  None of this was done out of altruism.

When you are the largest single donor or funder of anything, you dictate the agenda, and shape policy in nations all over the world.  In effect, the United States enforced a sort of global hegemony that even the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were constrained by.  This meant that it was always inevitable that a stalemate in the Cold War would have resulted in an American victory.

Donald John Trump does not understand history, and how the world functions.  An increasingly isolationist America, stepping back from its international commitments creates a vacuum.  Into that vacuum, other players will step forth.  China is the strongest candidate at the moment, but Russia and the European Union are not far behind.  Once the international order is weaned off American largesse, the US will gradually lose its ability to influence policy outside its immediate regions.  Contrary to “Making America Great Again”, this will ensure the US becomes increasingly irrelevant.  We are witnessing, in real time, the fall of an empire.

Quora Answer: If Singapore-Flagged Vessels are at Risk, Traversing the Strait of Hormuz, will the Singapore Navy Protect Them?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “If Singapore-flagged vessels are put at risk, traversing the Strait of Hormuz, will the Singapore Navy protect them?”

If Singapore-flagged vessels were threatened in the Straits of Hormuz, the Republic of Singapore Navy is quite capable of deploying to the Persian Gulf.  Singapore has deployed to the region before, but always as part of a multinational effort under the auspices of the United Nations, never as a belligerent.  The most recent deployment to the region was as part of the international effort to curb piracy in the Gulf of Aden, at the western entrance to the littoral waters of the Arabian Peninsula.  The Straits of Hormuz is at the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

The being said, the RSN is not expected to be deployed there anytime soon, because Singapore is not involved with any dispute with Iran.  We are not America’s bitch, antagonising the Iranians just to give Trump a jingoistic erection.  That would be the UK, and Jeremy Hunt, as foreign secretary.  Iran is not going around arresting ships.  They are retaliating against the seizure of their own vessels, and the strangulation of their economic lifeline by the Americans, and their British sycophants.