across a couple of fairly recent articles on my old "buddy" Mahathir when looking for some of the older articles on Dimson's messiah complex. Thought I'd share.
This first one is a rather biased opinion article, but it looks like Mahathir was calling for a dollar/pound boycott during the Lebanon bombings.
http://www.thousandreasons.org/get_article.php?article_id=291Mahathir’s Long March to the Sea Since the start of the most recent Israeli killing spree in Lebanon and Gaza, the world has stood helplessly by and watched as the IDF casually butchered innocents and systematically destroyed vital civilian infrastructure. Any conscientious observer of the continuing Israeli carnage should have no problem agreeing that “The destruction and killings by Israeli terrorists would not be possible without the support and collusion of the United States of America and Europe.” These precise words were part of a statement issued by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia.
But Mahathir’s statement did not stop at condemning the slaughter of Palestinians and Lebanese. Unlike other people of good will, the ex-Prime Minister offered a prescription to put an end to this nonsense. He went on to point out that “the oil-producing countries can stop these atrocities by stopping all transactions in US dollars or British pounds. If the world is sincere in helping the Lebanese and Palestinians, they should reject the use of the dollar in international trade. When the demand for the dollar falls, America will be weakened and it will lack the ability to act as a bully in the global stage."
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Mahathir’s call for a popular international insurrection against the dollar can and will change the course of history. It is a beautiful and elegant solution that will immediately attract serious attention from Washington and London. It will expose to Americans and Arabs alike that their leaders are taking them for fools.
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Once the ‘dollar’ issue is part of the public debate – the role of the American peace movement will be to educate our fellow citizens to make them understand the real motives behind American military intervention in the region. The average American is bewildered by the Iraq war and deliberately manipulated by the Likudnik activists who pass themselves off as journalists in the mass media brothels. This explains why Mahathir’s unprecedented call for passive resistance to American hegemony and Israeli brutality was completely ignored by virtually every media outlet in both the United States and the Middle East.
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Mahatma simply urged his countrymen to make their own salt. Mahathir is asking much less of us. “I appeal to the world to take this simple action. Reject the dollar and the pound.” It is an elegant, peaceful, legal proposition and can be very financially rewarding to those who bail out of the dollar first.
The greatest current challenge to Mahathir’s call for passive resistance is the Stalinist news blackout in the West and the Middle East. We need to breach that barrier through the power of the Internet and through protests burning effigies of the dollar and the pound. Our first task is to get the subject on the table and generate an international discussion of Mahathir’s Long March to the Sea. We would have done no less for Mahatma.
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'Father' of Malaysia Savages Bush and Blair
Mahathir brands US a rogue nation terrorising innocents and stands by claim that Jews 'rule the world by proxy'http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0527-05.htmsnip>
Earlier in the day, he had lectured students at his Perdana Leadership Foundation on the importance of education and development in the Muslim world to defend the Islamic faith. The problem was not Islam itself, he said, but the many incorrect interpretations of the Qur'an that were exploited by extremists.
"Islam is a positive, not a negative force. Today most Muslim countries seem incapable of developing good governments, they are always fighting each other, assassinating each other and doing all the wrong things." Distortions of the Prophet's teachings had held back the peoples of many Muslim countries, he said.
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"The US is the most powerful nation," he said. "It can ignore the world if it wants to do anything. It breaks international law. It arrests people outside their countries; it charges them under American law. It kills them.
"The US war on terror is a way of terrorizing people. If you are an Iraqi and you are expecting to be bombed, aren't you terrified? If you have done nothing, if you are an innocent Iraqi citizen and you are expecting any time a rocket to fly in and blow you to pieces, aren't you terrified?
"That is terror
the US is as guilty of terrorism as the people who crashed their planes into the buildings ... Bush doesn't understand the rest of the world. He thinks everybody should be a neocon like him."
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"Even if you get Bin Laden, you can't be sure there won't be another Bin Laden. You cannot get terrorists to sign a peace treaty. The only way to beat terror is to go for the basic causes.
"They don't blow themselves up for no reason, they're angry, they're frustrated. And why are they angry? Look at the Palestinian situation. Fifty years after you created the state of Israel, things are going from bad to worse.
"If you don't settle that, there will be no end to the war on terror. For how long are you going to go on examining people's shoes?"
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Ahhh, but that's all yesterday. This is from the most recent news. The great Mahathir is loosing clout as the wise Father of Malaysia....
Cabinet ministers rally behind Malaysian leader, express shock at Mahathir's attack
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/24/asia/AS_POL_Malaysia_Mahathir_vs._Abdullah.php
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia Top government members on Tuesday rallied behind Malaysia's prime minister in his spat with former leader Mahathir Mohamad, whose vitriolic criticisms have shaken the country and damaged investor confidence.
In his most personal attack yet, Mahathir on Monday accused Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi of nepotism, corruption and mismanaging the country's economy — but as before, Mahathir gave no proof.
Mahathir's remarks came just hours after he and Abdullah held a private two-hour meeting that many had hoped would lead to reconciliation and persuade the elder statesman to end his one-man campaign to oust the prime minister.
"I was shocked by the statements made by (Mahathir) immediately after the meeting had concluded," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters.
"Most people thought that this was the beginning of trying to work things out between the P.M. and Tun," Najib said, referring to Mahathir with the nation's highest civilian title, given him for his service to the nation.
Mahathir's actions appear to have little overt support in the ruling United Malays National Organization party, but it is difficult to gauge his behind-the-scenes influence. The Cabinet has consistently supported Abdullah during the past year, as he has faced Mahathir's ire.
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