MORE SECURITY

Quickly following last week's security measures for schools, pubs and shopping centres – the government has just announced that Singapore is preparing to deploy 8,000 'crack troops' to guard key facilities. For a city of just over four million, that's a whole lotta crack:

SINGAPORE - Singapore will deploy 8,000 crack troops to guard key national facilities such as power stations and reservoirs as part of increasing anti-terrorism efforts, a press report said on Thursday.
The government has established a new training base for police national serviceman designed to cut the amount of time required to enable them to guard key installations (Kins) from four years to two years, the Straits Times said.
“This new training ground signifies that a new breed of Kins officers are being trained to handle post 9-11 challenges in the security and protection of Singapore’s installations,” the paper quoted Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee as saying.
The daily said the new training base will enable 8,000 troops to be deployed by 2007 to guard vital national installations, which also include telecommunications facilities.
It said the 11-hectare (27-acre) training ground has areas for high-powered weapons training, fighting in urban areas and military defence tactics....
“We’re making Singapore a difficult target, a hard target, so that people are aware that we’re always watchful, always vigilant,” Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said last week.

In most countries, such a rash of announcements would have me concerned that a credible threat had been received. But this is a place where private homes have been required to have bomb shelters since 1998, without of course any reasonable expectations of bombing raids. So increasing the number of visible security forces seems, more-or-less, in line with the government's slightly paranoid security outlook.

Still, this does seem to indicate a cultural shift post-9/11. Due to its reputation as a police state, Singapore has always been very careful not to look like one. Compared to most western countries, very few police or armed security officers can be seen on the streets.

That's always been a nice thing. When sitting by the riverside drinking a beer, I enjoy watching the girls walk by. Having men march by with automatic weapons is an unpleasant distraction.

With that, I have a suggestion for the government. In order to increase security without dampening the aesthetic qualities of places like Boat Quay, I suggest that some of these new 'crack' forces be female, like the ones Gadaffi has.