This week's price R20. If you take all 36 bottles R18.

This week's price R20. If you take all 36 bottles R18.

An excerp from John Scott's column (Cape Times) dated 6 Nov 2006

This really made me laugh out loud...

Now that nobody is threatening us with anything, who cares if a tank or 10 goes missing?

I can understand Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota's frustration.

He would like to have an army as well run as Magnus Malan's.

In those days if you mislaid your rifle, let alone 66 military vehicles, 40 mortar bombs and 27 grenade-launchers, you were sent straight back to the border for an extra spell of duty, where you dodged people called terrorists who simply wanted to run their own country. Even Lekota's top general thought every single vehicle had been accounted for when a board of inquiry found lots hadn't.

And Lekota himself didn't know there had been a board of inquiry.

When there's no enemy, nobody bothers to tell anybody anything.

A serving officer was reported on Sunday to have said: "If we had a war now, we should rather phone Chubb or ADT."

At least when you phone for armed response, you know that the chappies who come racing up to your front gate know where their arms are.

But it's asking a bit much to expect them to take over the defence of the country, too.

They're already doing the police's work for them, though neither they nor the SAPS are able to keep our neighbourhood safe, so we are also paying extra for bicycle patrols.

If there were a war, the men on bicycles could deliver despatches while the army were still busy looking for their vehicles.

We civilians can only hope that the defence force is able to keep tabs on the new fighter aircraft, frigates and submarines that it has bought for billions in case, out of the blue, an enemy pops up against whom it can use them.

Otherwise the new purchases could end up rusting somewhere, too.

It is clear that, as a nation, we are now geared to make love, not war.

Look what's happening in the Congo and Burundi, the only places where we have a chance to use our weapons these days.

We send our troops up there and instead of solely fighting the rebels or whoever needs to be fought, they get into bed with the locals and father children.

Not that I am opposed to fraternisation. But our boys far beyond the border should realise that even if you wear a uniform, sex requires consent from your partner, payment afterwards, if this was the agreement, and acknowledgment of paternity.

It's the right thing to do, no matter how many vehicles you may have lost.

All this could change if we really needed to defend ourselves, and found some people nearer home to kill with our expensive weaponry.

But it had better happen soon, while we still have it.

Otherwise Chubb and ADT could turn out to be the defence force's last line of defence.

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