Comments on: A moderate in his own special way

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Oct 2003 21:01:46 +0000

Except Bin Laden was born with a couple hundred millions attached to his name. So you guys did screw up after all, uh ?

By: Sam Gilon

Sam Gilon — Sun, 19 Oct 2003 18:46:15 +0000

Mahathir’s revealing truth about my people has made me feel great. Of course, I am Jewish (an Israeli citizen).
Nothing better than waking up each morning knowing that 1.3 billion moslems are getting screwed, bloo’ed and tattoo’ed by a pityful 6 million of us Jews (by proxy, as it turns out…) .

By: Sylvain Galineau

Sylvain Galineau — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 20:21:48 +0000

Unavoidable. A necessary evil. Let’s not get distracted by fluff. Just because it is public doesn’t change its essential nature : PR fluff.

By: Mr. Courtesy

Mr. Courtesy — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 20:18:45 +0000

Sylvain,

Indeed. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I hope the U.S. continues to work privately agains terrorism, even with less than desirable countires. However, this was not a “private” dealing between Bush and Mahathir. It was quite public. It was equally as public as Mahathir’s sentiments about Jews. I’m not saying Bush shouldn’t deal with Malaysia in ways that are good for the protection of Americans. I am highlighting the ironies of public foreign policy, and the uncomfortable results.

By: Sylvain Galineau

Sylvain Galineau — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 19:03:04 +0000

So what ? We’re pals with Saudi and Pakistan too. In those parts, there is always a gap between the leaders’ public rhetoric aimed at their domestic audience, and their private dealing with others, specially the US. Syria and Iran were actually quite helpful after 9/11, even following the axis-of-evil speech. You wouldn’t tell that from the public rhetoric on either side at the time. But some of that was also for show for the public.

As for Mahathir, he has definitely established his credentials as a looney toon. His pending retirement is probably also part of it. He doesn’t need to care what foreigners think as much, and his party’s main competitor is the Muslim PAS. There is domestic politics at work here as well.

Still, given the time and place, his statements are gross, for lack of a better word.

By: mr. courtesy

mr. courtesy — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 17:50:42 +0000

You mean, this Mahathir Mohamad?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1988168.stm

strange bedfellows in the war on terror…

i don’t think he’ll be visiting the white house again anytime soon… and in all likelyhood, he’ll be out of a job within months.

By: Angie Schultz

Angie Schultz — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 17:18:01 +0000

In my first year in grad school I had a Chinese-Malaysian classmate, whose family was Christian. (As it says in the article, he had to come to the US for college.) He said when the British gave Malaysia its independence, they didn’t want a repeat of what happened in the US, where the newcomers slaughtered and oppressed all the natives. (At the time, I thought that was just his shorthand way of referring to it. Now, knowing what little others know of American history, I suspect he meant this literally.) So the British left Malaysia with a government which officially favored the native Malay at the expense of the Chinese and Indians.

According to him, the Chinese and Indians were the merchants, and tended to be more prosperous than the Malay. At the time, I thought it sounded suspiciously like bigotry against the “money-grubbing” Jew.

He also said it was difficult to get Bibles in Malaysia, and used to mail them to his family.