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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Malaysia's pack of lying leaders and Wikileaks

Have you stopped being amazed at the blatant lies spouted by Malaysia's UMNO/BN leaders? After so many, hopefully the rakyat have not got immuned to it. Below is an article in Malaysiakini by Dean Johns which should be read by all truth seeking Malaysians:

WikiLeaks and wacky lies
Dean Johns
Dec 8, 10
3:32pm

It's a bit of a mystery to me why the US is getting its knickers in such knots over the betrayal of so-called 'secrets' by WikiLeaks.

Let's face it, the contents of these cables hardly come as a surprise to anyone who regularly reads and watches respectable media coverage of the wackos, weirdos and criminals out there running so much of the world.

It's hardly a revelation, for example, that the US is as aware as the rest of us are that its puppet Karzai (right) regime in Afghanistan is as corrupt as it's clueless. Or that one of the 'secrets' of the Pakistani secret service is that it supports selected terrorist groups; or that Russia is virtually a mafia state; or that the Chinese Communist Party is totally paranoid about criticism and sick and tired of the childish tantrums of its psychotic sole ally, North Korea.

Similarly, it's far from surprising to learn that the Saudis see Iran's nuclear ambitions as a threat to their oil and Haj pilgrim businesses with whose proceeds they help fund Sunni terrorists, and thus would love the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake”.

It's also far from amazing to read that the ga-ga Gaddafi of Libya takes a buxom blonde nurse with him wherever he goes, and very stale news indeed that Italy's Prime Minister Berlusconi is a character straight out of burlesque. Nor is it in the least astonishing to learn that the Malaysian government is again suspected of aiding or at least failing to prevent the trans-shipment of illicit military technology to America's enemies.

It doesn't take a WikiLeaks to expose the Barisan Nasional government's wacky lies. Every utterance by Najib Abdul Razak and the gang is faithfully reported for all to see by BN's fake 'news' agency, Bernama. And, as every word spoken by BN members, cronies and supporters is the direct opposite of the truth, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the facts.

For example, when questioned about the WikiLeaked cable containing the latest US intelligence on Malaysian companies allegedly trafficking in illegal nuclear technology, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein's immediate response was that “it's a new issue.”

A very old issue indeed

As you and I and Hishammuddin and the whole world know, it's a very old issue indeed. As old, in fact, as 2003, when nuclear centrifuge parts bound for Libya were intercepted in a shipment by Scomi Precision Engineering (SCOPE), a subsidiary of Scomi Group, an oil-and-gas equipment supplier whose leading stakeholder was Kaspadu, an investment company owned by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's son, Kamaluddin.

Then there was the case of Pakistani citizen Jilani Humayun who allegedly shipped parts for F-14 fighters and Chinook helicopters via Malaysia to Iran, after which the US imposed sanctions on 14 individuals, government agencies and companies, including Malaysia's Challenger Corp and Target Airfreight.

These old issues so enraged the US that Najib was summoned to the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC earlier this year and pressured into promising that Malaysia wouldn't do it again.

As you may recall from back then, Bernama misrepresented Najib's humiliation as a triumph, and praised his hypocritical speech to the summit proposing the establishment of a United Nations convention on nuclear security as an act of responsible global citizenship.

But of course it was all a pack of wacky lies and cynical spin, as usual, just like Hishammuddin's current claim that Malaysian companies' latest involvement in the trafficking of nuclear technology is “a new issue.”

But Hishammuddin's latest whopper wasn't nearly as wacky as his lying denial last week that there has been a surge in killings by the Malaysian police. Faced with the fact that fatal police shootings of 'suspects' has soared from 13 in 2007 to 82 in 2008 and 88 last year, he claimed that “the issue has been sensationalised by certain parties”.

Not a shred of recognition, regret or remorse. Not a single sign that, as the minister in charge, he's prepared to take the slightest responsibility. In fact he buck-passed the issue back to the culprits, saying “let the police respond on the data... as such allegations affect their image. If not, I would be asked this question every day when there are other serious matters to respond to.”

Hishammuddin's performance in this case, in fact in his entire political career, seems to me a glaring example of the kind of “delusion, amnesia, inertia and arrogance” that Najib told the BN conference in KL the other day “can infect parties that have been in power too long and may cause the people to hate them”.

Fraudulent reformist rhetoric

And Najib, for all his fraudulent reformist rhetoric, is as powerful a symbol of delusion, amnesia, inertia and arrogance as his cousin Hishammuddin or any other members of the BN gang.

Last week, for example, he had the arrogance to try and delude the International Conference of Asian Political Parties in Cambodia that his government had sufficiently overcome its amnesia and inertia as to achieve progress in six National Key Results Areas: reducing crime, fighting corruption, raising living standards of low-income households, improving basic rural infrastructure, enhancing urban public transport and establishing a a high-income, sustainable and inclusive nation.

As everybody knows, his government has delivered absolutely zero in any of these areas. And BN has shown no sign whatever of the “significant transformation” and re-invention of itself that Najib went on to claim to his no doubt incredulous audience.

But nothing daunted, a day or two later Najib (right) was back in KL addressing the true believers at the BN convention, simultaneously warning against delusion, amnesia, inertia and arrogance and giving a virtuoso display of all these vices in a speech riddled with typically ludicrous remarks.

Parroting sentiments plagiarised from historic US political speeches, he orated that “the clarion call of manifest destiny is beckoning upon (sic) us to bring this great nation, Malaysia, to its fullest potential”.

“It is time,” he went on, for Malaysia to “take its rightful place in the community of nations with dignity and pride, holding our head up high, while being thankful for the blessings of providence.”

He followed these flatulent, fatuous sentiments with some frantic attempts to denigrate opposition parties, warning “beware everyone, be careful everyone, they are very dangerous, they will do anything, including badmouthing Malaysia”.

When the truth is, of course, that the opposition, like all the rest of us, badmouths BN's criminal and incompetent misgovernment of Malaysia, not Malaysia itself. But as he was preaching to the converted and perverted, and being reported by his own corrupt and pathetically compliant 'news' agency, he felt entirely free to shoot from the lip.

Which brings me back to the point that the Malaysian people don't really need revelations by the likes of WikiLeaks, as long as Bernama and the rest of the mainstream media are around to faithfully record and repeat every word of BN's tacky slanders and wacky lies.


DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections 'Mad about Malaysia' and 'Even Madder about Malaysia'.

Source: WikiLeaks and wacky lies

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