Open Letter to Barack Hussein Obama President-elect of the United States – From Dr Mahathir Muhammad
Dear Mr. President, I did not vote for you in the Presidential Election because I am Malaysian. But I consider myself one of your constituents because what you do or say will affect me and my country as well. 1) Stop killing people. The United States is too fond of killing people in order to achieve its objectives. You call it war, but today’s wars are not about professional soldiers fighting and killing each other. It is about killing people, ordinary innocent people by the hundreds of thousands. Whole countries will be devastated. 2) Stop indiscriminate support of Israeli killers with your money and your weapons. The planes and the bombs killing the people of Gaza are from you. 3) Stop applying sanctions against countries which cannot do the same against you. 4) Stop your scientists and researchers from inventing new and more diabolical weapons to kill more people more efficiently. 5) Stop your arms manufacturers from producing them. Stop your sales of arms to the world. It is blood money that you earn. It is un-Christian. 6) Stop trying to democratize all the countries of the world. Democracy may work for the United States but it does not always work for other countries. Don’t kill people because they are not democratic. Your crusade to democratize countries has killed more people than the authoritarian Governments which you overthrew. And you have not succeeded anyway. 7) Stop the casinos which you call financial institutions. Stop hedge funds, derivatives and currency trading. Stop banks from lending non-existent money by the billions. 8) Sign the Kyoto Protocol and other international agreements. 9) Show respect for the United Nations. I have many other resolutions for change which I think you should consider and undertake. If you can do only a few of what I suggest you will be remembered by the world as a great leader. Then the United States will again be the most admired nation. Your embassies will be able to take down the high fences and razor-wire coils that surround them. May I wish you a Happy New Year and a great Presidency. Yours Sincerely, Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad (Former Prime Minister of Malaysia) 1st January 2009 3.59am |
Truely: Most people abroad will view Bush as a war criminal
also noted, “The calls for a reckoning are growing by the day — and not
just from progressives outside the government.”
become and would stay?” Maddow asked Constitutional law professor
Jonathan Turley.
it,” he added, pointing to the Capitol. “I mean, that building is where
principles go to die. And they haven’t, because there’s been this
groundswell of people saying, ‘Look, you might be able to get away with
an electronic surveillance program and say that’s just a crime we’re
not going to allow to be prosecuted, but these are war crimes., these
are a special category.’”
it very hard to go round the world and to say that we’re now again the
nation of rules of law,” Turley suggested, “if the first act he commits
as president is to walk away from a confirmed war crime.”
administration officials from this [previous] administration cannot
travel abroad to the other 145 countries that have signed the torture
treaty because they might get arrested?”
different from Augusto Pinochet. They’ve both been accused of running a
torture program. And outside this country, there’s not this ambiguity
about what to do with a war crime. … Most people abroad are going to
view you not as former President George Bush, they’re going to view you
as a current war criminal.”