Originally posted by Typhoon:
ll say for SR. Back during the 1974 Laju ferry hostage taking, he volunteered to replace the hostages and accompany the terrorists to Kuwait as a garuantor. What about your leaders? Mahathir is a crazed paranoid anti-semite, Anwar is an ah kua, and both are corrupt as fark.
I can remember Dr Mahathir saying that if he were anti-semitic, he would have to hate Arabs too. After all, the Jews and Arabs share Abraham's blood. In fact, Hebrew and Arabic are linguistically related (eg the Hebrew word "Shalom" and its Arabic equivalent "Salam", meaning peace). Do note that the word anti-semitic is a misnomer, just as Hitler bent the word "Aryan" to mean Teutonic German.
With regards to Anwar, the charges of homosexuality levelled against him are highly questionable. I can only say Dr Mahathir needed an excuse to get rid of his former No 2 and charging him with sodomy was way too convenient indeed. This indeed shows that Dr Mahathir is corrupt as fark. Later on, one of Anwar's accusers attacked one Putri Umno leader for being lesbian, but was ordered to retract her allegations. Had this been the Netherlands, it wouldn't have been possible to attack a politician for being gay/lesbian and say he/she is unfit to hold power. But it was Malaysia, where Islam dominates and a conservative undercurrent is gaining clout.
However, his stand on Islamic affairs is to be lauded. He has trodden a fine line between getting support from the westerners and promoting Islamic values in a way that nobody has done. As a result, no terrorist has yet to strike on Malaysian targets. Dr Mahathir was vocal about the issue of IDF troops killing innocent Palestinian civillians while Singapore was loath to make its stand (due to SAF's debt to IDF). Reading about West Jerusalem's atrocities towards these people in the
Star has significantly changed my outlook. I don't blame those suicide bombers for what they do anymore, as they were pushed into a corner.