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IT seems to me that minister of national security Senator Dwight Nelson has not taken a good look at himself in the mirror since the disastrous episode of his testimony before the Manatt enquiry earlier this year.
He earned himself the moniker, 'I can't recall', during one phase of him being grilled by seeking solace in replying 'I can't recall' to a series of questions.
NELSON... earned himself the moniker, 'I can't recall'
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As a Jamaican watching him that day, I felt ashamed for the state of my country, and while I recognise that there will always be sensitive matters underpinning national security, I expected a lot more from him than 'I can't recall'.
His performance at the enquiry wavered between buffoonery and disrespect for the people of this country. It was almost as if he was saying that our people were much too common and unlearned to be trusted with even selective truths, and people like him were the lmasters placed there to lord it over us, the foolish, common, despicable rabble.
Now at age 65, when he should be pondering a retirement from the political field, he has decided to throw his hat in the ring in South East St Andrew. Months before that we recall that during a spat outside the confines of the Manatt enquiry Nelson told someone, 'Yu want a piece a me?'
That was so reminiscent of a schoolboy who couldn't fight, never won a fight, but was always willing to call for a fight when his bigger, braver friends were around.
That, I say, should never have been uttered by any politician, elected or no, and worse, certainly not the man who calls himself our minister of national security. In the fallout after the Manatt enquiry (Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne was in over her head and was made a convenient casualty; the then PM Bruce Golding followed belatedly), Dwight Nelson should also have been axed.
In the article by freelance magazine writer Mattathias Schwartz, who was in Jamaica for several weeks during and after the tensions surrounding the Tivoli incursion, he has stated that a P3 Orion 'spy plane' was in the air over Tivoli providing imaging information for the Jamaican security forces on the ground, that is, our JDF personnel.
After the story broke wide open on Nationwide News Network, Minister Nelson could not find it in himself to be coherent. Certainly hundreds, maybe thousands, of Jamaicans had seen the aircraft, but to the minister, our heads were much too light for such heavy stuff.
It is known that politicians will always imagine themselves to be more important than they really are and, if they are not, they will invent their level of importance. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the 'secret'.
A politician will have two marbles in his pocket and say to a 'common man' while beaming, 'You know what I have in my pocket?'
Not the least interested, but still, playing along with him, the 'common man' will say, 'No, what do you have?'
The politician will answer, 'I can't tell you that. It's a national security matter.'
The point I am making is that the security minister, first, had a duty to himself to inform himself, then to confer with his boss, the PM, before he was made to look so ineffective and out of the loop. Making the link with Nationwide, his response went from, "absolutely no such thing" to backtracking, to silence, until he was rescued by the new prime minister.
Certainly the majority of the people of this country supported the Tivoli incursion, if not the stupid delays and half-truths which led to it, and those same people would have overwhelmingly supported the assistance from the Americans. So, why hide the marbles?
Prior to Nelson's foray into the constituency of South East St Andrew, both Kent Gammon of the JLP and Julian Robinson of the PNP were getting along quite fine. Then entered Mr 'I can't recall'. Does the JLP have a political death wish in the constituency or has it placed the highly unpopular Nelson there as fodder for Robinson? Why was Mr Gammon removed and the 'old school' type Dwight Nelson installed?
Frankly, Bruce Golding should have used a heavy fishing line with a solid hook attached to Nelson's ample waist, and on his way out of the PM's office Golding should have dragged on the line and said, 'Come Dwight, yu neva know sey yu done to. Follow back a mi!'
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1gDucIX6i
He earned himself the moniker, 'I can't recall', during one phase of him being grilled by seeking solace in replying 'I can't recall' to a series of questions.
NELSON... earned himself the moniker, 'I can't recall'
1/1
As a Jamaican watching him that day, I felt ashamed for the state of my country, and while I recognise that there will always be sensitive matters underpinning national security, I expected a lot more from him than 'I can't recall'.
His performance at the enquiry wavered between buffoonery and disrespect for the people of this country. It was almost as if he was saying that our people were much too common and unlearned to be trusted with even selective truths, and people like him were the lmasters placed there to lord it over us, the foolish, common, despicable rabble.
Now at age 65, when he should be pondering a retirement from the political field, he has decided to throw his hat in the ring in South East St Andrew. Months before that we recall that during a spat outside the confines of the Manatt enquiry Nelson told someone, 'Yu want a piece a me?'
That was so reminiscent of a schoolboy who couldn't fight, never won a fight, but was always willing to call for a fight when his bigger, braver friends were around.
That, I say, should never have been uttered by any politician, elected or no, and worse, certainly not the man who calls himself our minister of national security. In the fallout after the Manatt enquiry (Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne was in over her head and was made a convenient casualty; the then PM Bruce Golding followed belatedly), Dwight Nelson should also have been axed.
In the article by freelance magazine writer Mattathias Schwartz, who was in Jamaica for several weeks during and after the tensions surrounding the Tivoli incursion, he has stated that a P3 Orion 'spy plane' was in the air over Tivoli providing imaging information for the Jamaican security forces on the ground, that is, our JDF personnel.
After the story broke wide open on Nationwide News Network, Minister Nelson could not find it in himself to be coherent. Certainly hundreds, maybe thousands, of Jamaicans had seen the aircraft, but to the minister, our heads were much too light for such heavy stuff.
It is known that politicians will always imagine themselves to be more important than they really are and, if they are not, they will invent their level of importance. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the 'secret'.
A politician will have two marbles in his pocket and say to a 'common man' while beaming, 'You know what I have in my pocket?'
Not the least interested, but still, playing along with him, the 'common man' will say, 'No, what do you have?'
The politician will answer, 'I can't tell you that. It's a national security matter.'
The point I am making is that the security minister, first, had a duty to himself to inform himself, then to confer with his boss, the PM, before he was made to look so ineffective and out of the loop. Making the link with Nationwide, his response went from, "absolutely no such thing" to backtracking, to silence, until he was rescued by the new prime minister.
Certainly the majority of the people of this country supported the Tivoli incursion, if not the stupid delays and half-truths which led to it, and those same people would have overwhelmingly supported the assistance from the Americans. So, why hide the marbles?
Prior to Nelson's foray into the constituency of South East St Andrew, both Kent Gammon of the JLP and Julian Robinson of the PNP were getting along quite fine. Then entered Mr 'I can't recall'. Does the JLP have a political death wish in the constituency or has it placed the highly unpopular Nelson there as fodder for Robinson? Why was Mr Gammon removed and the 'old school' type Dwight Nelson installed?
Frankly, Bruce Golding should have used a heavy fishing line with a solid hook attached to Nelson's ample waist, and on his way out of the PM's office Golding should have dragged on the line and said, 'Come Dwight, yu neva know sey yu done to. Follow back a mi!'
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1gDucIX6i