Mahathir applauds Iraqi insurgents

Former Malaysian PM calls on insurgents to resist to make Americans pay heavy price for their adventure.

Former PM Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Wednesday applauded Iraqi insurgents and said that the flow of body bags back to the United States would "help Americans to change their minds."

"Carry on with your resistance... make sure that the Americans will pay a very high price for their adventure," he said at the launch of an alternative war crimes tribunal which he has spearheaded.

"When you do this, unfortunately you may have to kill a lot of Americans. When the coffins go back, when the body bags are carried back to America, it will help the Americans to change their minds," he said.

"I'm quite sure that as more and more American soldiers get killed in Iraq, the feelings in America will change and they will begin to see, as they saw during the Vietnam War, how futile, how useless are the sacrifices of the young men sent to Iraq," he said.

"Twenty-three thousand more will be going. They will be going to Iraq and many of them are going to die, they are going to go back in their coffins. And when Americans see coffins coming back they will understand what war is all about.

"That is why I congratulate the Iraqi resistance. Carry on. You have been successful," he said, noting that the leaders of coalition partners Spain and Italy had lost power and Bush and Blair were "no longer popular."

"Iraqi resistance has proven that it is not so easy to just walk into Iraq and take things over," he said.

"If America thinks that it is going to take Iraq and use it as a base to threaten the countries around the Gulf not to sell oil to China, the Iraqi resistance has proven that the Americans are wrong."

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair “fascist war criminals”?

( From Islam Online, Dubai, by Ahmed Abdullah )

More than a month ago, the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was hanged for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity, followed by two of his aides, who were also sentenced to death by the same U.S.-led tribunal.

The farcical trial didn’t give Saddam or his aides the chance to defend themselves. Nor did it delve deep into those crimes, for this would have implicated some Western leaders.

But yesterday, more than 3000 peace activists, local dignitaries, including a number of Malaysia's top judges, and foreign delegates, gathered in Kuala Lumpur to attend the opening of the War Crimes exhibit, which was staged parallel to a conference on war crimes entitled Expose War Crimes, Criminalise War that will also include a trial for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George Bush for war crimes and present documentary evidence of U.S. and Britain’s crimes against humanity over the decades, from Hiroshima to Iraq.

The conference, where Blair and Bush were branded "fascist war criminals", is hosted by the former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, who inaugurated the event with a call for the leaders to be tried by an unofficial tribunal for war crimes in Iraq, and will tour other Malaysian cities under the auspices of the Malaysian Ministry of Tourism.

It is no surprise that the event, which included gruesome evidence of those leaders’ crimes against humanity, including appalling pictures depicting wounded children, deformed babies and innocent men who were subject to torture in Iraqi prisons, received scanty coverage from the Western media.

"We shouldn't hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty," said Mahathir, who launched recently a campaign aimed at uncovering human rights abuses and hypocrisy of U.S.-led forces said to be on a mission to install “democracy” in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular.

"But he should always carry the label 'War Criminal, Killer of Children, Liar'," said Mahathir during his hour-long speech as tape-recorded screams of men being tortured and babies who lost their parents in the U.S.,UK-led war on Iraq echoed around the War Crimes Exhibition.

"And so should Bush and the pocket Bush of the Bushland of Australia," he said, referring to Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch U.S. war ally.

"They're giving an open mind to people who know what kind of war crime that the U.S. do to our communities in the world," was one of the attendees' remarks, an assessment probably shared by most of those who attended the event.

"It is the converted preaching to the converted," said Gwynne Dyer, a journalist and Oscar-nominated documentary maker; among the figures who gave out speeches at the conference, that also included former U.S. politician Cynthia McKinney, who was among the very first people to speak out against the American President’s illegal invasion of Iraq, and Hans von Sponeck, former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq.

"But I think this [conference] has potential," Dyer said, adding:

"It actually has a goal beyond cheering people up and allowing them to vent."

Vietnam War and My Lai massacre were also depicted in the exhibit to further remind people of American crimes.

The exhibit also didn’t ignore Israeli crimes in Palestine and Lebanon, where over 1,400 civilians died as a result of Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment during last summer’s war against Hezbollah resistance movement.

The Western media’s scant coverage of such an important event is part of its persistence to not deliver the full image to the Americans and people of the West. Iraq war coverage by the American media has long been biased in favor of the President and his war allies.

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The Age : Mahathir's war crimes tribunal kicks off

The nine-member tribunal is tasked with hearing cases recommended to it by a separate commission chaired by Mahathir.

The commission received its first petition on Wednesday signed by 10 people who called themselves victims of crimes against humanity, mostly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestinian territories.

"We of the commission look upon these (cases) as a human tragedy, not confined to any particular race, religion, creed or faith," Mahathir told more than 1,000 peace activist


BBC : Blair, Bush in 'war crimes trial'

Dr Mahathir is busy signing autographs. A woman passes him a copy of her programme to sign.

"Oh Dr Mahathir", she coos, "you're more handsome in person than you are in photographs."

The 81-year-old statesman takes it in his stride.

His admirer persists. "I'm honoured, I'm standing in front of you, I'm shaking I feel like I'm in love for the first time," she says.

"Shameless flattery," I suggested to Dr Mahathir.

"Yes, it's flattery," he said with a grave smile.

But there's no flattery when I ask him if he has anything to add about Mr Blair.

"What do I have to say about him? I think it's about time he resigns. Don't wait too long, people are impatient. It's time he resigns. He's been telling lies."

Bernama : War Crime Tribunal Must Be Recognised And Accepted

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal protem committee wants to become a body with a voice that is recognised and accepted by the international community, wielding enough power to do "what the best of the world has not been able to do."

"It cannot be done in a slipshod manner. The committee would make decisions without fear or favour and decisions made cannot be based on sympathy.

"We must be able to say that the so-called defendants have done something wrong."

He said that the tribunal should not be treated as "a court of last resort".

"The tribunal should also be independent and impartial, giving equal opportunities to both sides to present and argue their cases.

"We do not want to be in cohorts with the (Kuala Lumpur War Crimes) commission

Malaysia Mahathir war crimes tribunal