This is Mahathir Mohamed prime minister of Malaysia.
http://www.counterpoint-online.org/cgi-bin...item.cgi?id=221
http://www.atimes.com/se-asia/AE21Ae01.html
http://www.upm.edu.my/WebsiteEnglish/Welco...at_a_glance.htm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Asiaandth...cific/em557.cfm

Ek-ek u seem to post alot of Url-s. Dont u think we know how to use internet? u could be more precise & prolegomenous ...unless if u are making some point what im missing here...am i?

My favorite quote of Mahathir:

"I have never seen so many Japanese blondes before and most of the time they're dancing to music. Japan wants to change its whole culture completely and adopt Western culture. If you do that, you're going down. "

--Outgoing Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, on the decline of Japanese society.

Yes, I try to have a lot of URL to tell a lot of story. because one story had a different side. Like one site might be anti-Mahathir, one tells his life story, one is pro-Mahathir . You need to be more transparent in posting .

Me, mahathir mohamed. me, anti-semite. Jews opresses my muslim brothers. me don't eat pork.

I think Ek-ek is right in giving many URL.

The more the merrier.

Ek-ek u construe me wrongly...i dont mean as alot of URL-s in 1post...i mean as u send alot of url-s with posts where there is just 1sentance what wont give much idea about them...i mean: u could make the story & use url-s as fakts or something...see where i am going here?(& dont use QUOTEs copying my messege...they are made for something more then that)
& poknat i just love challanges but....Give me something what i could call like that next time!

Dont just take when cant give...
Dont ask for more when you have a bucket full...

serve the country

I used to think Mahathir was cool. Now I know better. He was always saying ridiculous things about his own Malay people.It seems to me his idea of a clever Malay is a mixed blooded one like himself and no pure Malay could be competitive. I think coz old generation leaders like him have been thoroughly whitewashed and are totally ignorant of their own people's great achievements in the past. This mentality is reflected in the poor coverage of Malay history taught in school. All we were ever told is that the zenith of Malaysian history was Malacca.Malacca was nothing much compared to Malay innovations centuries before.We were not even told that Malacca's defeat to Portugal was simply because Javanese mercenaries literally stabbed us in the back during the battle. All Malaysian students were made to think Europeans defeated us just because they were white and not because their population were twenty times bigger.

If he was so clever why did George Soros succeeded in attacking Malaysian currency in 1997 ? He was even stupid enough to think that a squadron of Super Hornet fighters would be sufficient to defend Malaysia against her big neighbours like India,China and Australia. A significant portion of Malaysia's defence budget was wasted in buying two squadrons of Russian made fighters which are completely vulnerable against Australian F-18s just because he wanted to barter our palm oil with the Russians.When you are dealing with national sovereignty, such trivial matters should not even be considered at all. What we need in order to be secure against the Australian threat are at least 40 units of Super Hornets.We can pay cash.It's a small price to pay for our country's respectability.

During US ex-Vice President Al Gore's visit several years ago Mahathir was made to look like a wimp by Al Gore right in front of his own people. A patriotic Malaysian like myself naturally would have been pissed off but in this case I was kind of happy he got a dose of his own medicine.Deriding your own people would result in other people deriding you.

I am not sure about your school. The history textbook I learn 5 years ago are different from you mentioned about malacca(Javanese mercenaries ). I never learn about that portugal conquer malacca because they are much larger and white. Can you give me the textbook names?









Can you tell me which leader at that predict the economic crisis would strike ? I am no fan of DR M but your seem to regard Dr M as Superhuman being which can predict everything. Malaysia economy recover quickest compare other country and most of the important thing is that we did not borrow money from IMF.

As my professor tell me, what do we need all these F-18s for ? use against our people ? Why do India, china and Australia are Malaysia enemy ?Actually, many of us in malaysia actually critizes DR M why spent so much money on these fancy weapon. You are probably the a few in malaysia to say that we need a lot of those fancy weapon. If you visit some military forum here and read the janes defence, Russia Su-30 the cheapest fourth generation fighter far superior than most fighter in ASEAN . We have disagreement with Australia but does that mean we are going to war with them ? or are you saying that Malaysia should enter the arm race with Australia just like the cold war ?

NO, Malaysia doesn't have the cash. Malaysia are running a huge deficit for a long period. Most of the hard-earned revenue from East Malaysia was being used in building KL and funding these stupid project. Just go to and take a look at the East Malaysia, we are rich with abundant resources but undeveloped. Why ? Most our oil/gas money was being used in building KL. Sabah was once the richest state in Malaysia but now become poorest state. Yes, poorer than kelantan. Federal gov't simply won't want to admit their main failure.

I will reply to these later.

Yes Malaysia has. Last time I checked Malaysian foreign reserve was USD 75 billion

................................. nice topic to debate here butta i dont ve any idea to put on.

Every time the average Malaysians see Dr Mahathir, they see - Twin Towers, Putrajaya, KLIA, GDP growth of 7% during the early 90s, etc.

What they don't see - the cesspool of corruption, the lavish lifestyle of our politicians that rivals that of hollywood superstars, the plight of the rural folks, the slums around Selangor and KL, the Straight A non-bumi students who couldn't get into university, the Umno leaders that threaten to burn down the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, etc.

When I think of Dr Mahathir, I see what the average Malaysians don't see.

I want Dr Mahathir to pay for his crimes.
I want all his corrupt cronies burn at the stake.
I want Dr Mahathir to face the people who is lives has been affected by his actions.

A good leader may not know when currency speculators will strike but he would know it is possible and would have taken pre-emptive measures to prevent it from even occuring. All Mahathir ever needed to do was to secure the Ringgit at a fixed rate early on, just to make sure no one can change it; but he didn't.


What I'm saying is :

Our history books never teach us exactly why Malacca lost.

Whatever was said about the defeat give students the wrong impression that Malaccan Malays were inferior to Portuguese.

Did our history books tell students that the battle lasted forty days and was lost only because Javanese mercenaries betrayed their employers ?

Did our history books tell us Portugal had a population of 2 million while Malaccan empire had only a few hundred thousand ?

Did our history books teach us that the initial Portuguese force of 19 ships and nearly 2000 men was further reinforced by thousands of Indian and Chinese sailors and their ships ?

Those lousy Portuguese and their Asian allies were still no match for Malaccan defenders.

Thats why in the first half of the 40 day battle they easily pushed back the attackers.

Even if those Javanese had openly crossed over to the Portuguese side to fight the Malays they still would have been no problem because right from the beginning of the battle they already proved to be the weak link in Malacca's defence. Had they left the Malaccan lines to join the Portuguese they would have been considered good riddance but unfortunately they did not.

Those worthless Javanese stayed on with the Malays until the middle of the 40 day war when the Malaccans were actually still winning. THE BIG PROBLEM arised only when the Javanese literally shot and stabbed the trusting Malays,Iranians and Turks from behind.

Malays were clearly superior to all of those races who were involved in the battle but they made the mistake of trusting the Javanese. History has proven that no matter how superior you are to your enemy, you WILL lose if your trusted ally betrayed you.

I'd like to add that after the defeat of Malacca, there was no more sign of Javanese mercenaries in any Malay armies throughout SEAsia. Malays quickly learned how weak and treacherous the Javanese are.

Keep in mind that the Portuguse only managed to cling on to Malacca simply because they were not the strongest power in the region. Acheh was. Thats why the Portuguese managed to form alliances with other Malay states like Johor for their common interest. Had there been only a two way fight between Portuguese Malacca and a Malay power those Portuguese wouldn't have stood a chance. Just look at what happened to their fortress in Ternate, Indonesia.The same fate befell their other colonies in east Africa, the Persian Gulf and Bengal.

The Acenese were not free from blame. They made a mistake of using their jihad force raised with money contributed by Muslims (for the purpose of fighting the Portuguese) to attack their Muslim commercial rival Kedah too. After that blunder no Malay state looked at Aceh the same way again and they were more willing to form defence pacts with the Portuguese.


As long as we are neighbours there will always be a possibility of military
conflict.Australia's prime minister has repeatedly hinted he would launch air strikes on SEAsian countries.

Having military inadequacies not only embolden our neighbours to issue threats but will also erode the confidence of big investors. If big time investors think the Chinese,Indians or Australians can succesfully attack Malaysia or take a chunk of her territory, they will be less likely to make billion dollar investments here.

The question is not "if we have a disagreement with our neighbour" or not but what we can do about it if it happens.

As we have seen all over the world, air superiority is the decisive factor in winning any conflict; and air superiority is actualy determined by radar detection and radar jamming capabilites. A Sukhoi may be superior to a Super Hornet in a dogfight but in real engagements they will not even be allowed to get close to a Hornet.The superior American electronic countermeasure equipment of an F-18 would jam the Sukhoi's radar and at the same time will send a medium range AMRAAM missile right through the Sukhoi.

Compared to China, Malaysia is fortunate to be a democratic ally of the US and this allows us to buy some of their most advanced fighters but we have so far squandered this advantage. China's inferior Russian fighters could still overwhelm our eight F-18s by sheer numbers.

Even if the govt add another 20 or so Super Hornets like they are planning to ,this amount is still too small to guarantee effective air defence against Australia, China or India. Australia has around 70 F-18s and soon India will decide whether to take up George Bush's offer to sell them 126 F16s or F-18s. If Malaysia doesn't buy at least 40 Super Hornets,we will always be seen as vulnerable by these neighbours and big time investors will shun us.

Whats the use of having 75 billion Dollars if we don't spend some of it on the most basic need of a nation ?

40 Super Hornets will only cost roughly USD 4 billion.A defence deal of this size usually allows the buyer to demand an offset investment of around 30% the value of the contract.

Since Malaysia has been trying to develop her biotech industry, I think the govt should ask the entire offset investment to be channeled towards biotech manufacturing plants.Imagine a USD 4 billion fighter deal fetching USD 1.2 billion worth of biotech manufacturing investments. Such a desision will not only secure Malaysia's sovereignty but fulfill Malaysia's biotech aspirations as well.

Thats why I have been wondering, what is our Prime Minister still waiting for ?!!!

BTW I would like to add that I'm not too concerned with India because they will always be too ocupied with Pakistan. They may even capitalize on their soon to be new-found air superiority over China to retake some of the Himalayan territories they lost in 1962.

Argentina,Mexico and Thailand try to do it before but fails miserably. This doesn't mean the gov't didn't want to help but impossible for them to do it. If you study economy, fixing the dollar require large amount of foreign reserves. WIthout large reserves, it is impossible for government to do it. This could take forever to explain. I suggest you to read the articles two great economists from US that Rogoff and Fischer on the crisis. The reason the SEA economy fail is because the central bank fails to act as lender of last resort and not seem as inflation-fighter like the western central bank.




I think the history textbook do mention how malacca fall. I still remember the history book said the portugis first wave invasion fail but then launch second wave attack with much larger forces armed with more cannon and troops. The books states that the malacca forces are brave and fierce but was no match for the portugis which was armed with cannon and firearms. I think the major defeat of malacca was that they have no cannon or firearms.





I think the major problem right now for malaysia military is the training and maintaince problem. Acoording to the report, 50% of the Malaysia MIG-29 is in poor condition that it is not combat-ready. If Malaysia unable to maintain these equipment , it will be useless to buy more. I believe the training is more important. Look at Israel, they can wipe out the entire egypt air forces in a few hours mainly because their pilot was the best. Even the US air forces admit that.

Why buy Superhornet if the US is not going to sell you their AIM-120 air-to-air missile and limit the technology transfer to you. Without AIM-120 missile, F/18 are will not be effective. This is one of the factor why malaysia prefer Su-30MKM because the Russia are willing to sell their R-77 and transfer some of the technology to malaysia.

I am not worry about other country. The only country are I worry about is US, they can be your friends today but enemy tommorow. Do you know why Iraq would dare to attack Iran in the 80's and kuwait in 1990? This is mainly with the support of US. The US ambssador even tell Iraqi that they have the american blessings, after the iraqi tell them that they are going to invade kuwait.


US$75 billion reserves are only for emegency. The large foreign reserves was meant to deal with the economic crisis if it arises. If you study economy, these reserves are extremely important. CIA factbook even says with these reserves, the crisis will unlikely to hit Malaysia.

Do you read about the news that PSC (malaysia company) fail to build the 27 high-tech vessels for malaysia navy and wasted more than $200 million. This money come from the taxpayer.
http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050716090333.2pfeaxkb.html

If what you say is true how come Malaysia managed to get the Ringgit fixed at 3.8 ?
What I'm saying is such actions should have been taken many years before speculators attacked, like in 1995. Mahathir only did so after the Ringgit had been pummeled.

See what I mean ? This is what I have been complaining about. Your history book even implied that Malacca did not possess cannons and handguns.

The Portuguese did not have much technological superiority over the Malays. The only advantage they had was at sea in the form of ships fitted with several gun decks. The concept was so new that some northern European countries did not even have that kind of ship in 1511. Malay ships were bigger but was not fitted with guns at all because it was not necessary before the Europeans arrived.
On land the Portuguese fought on equal terms because the Malaccan army had cannons and arquebuses.

What report ?

The 1973 war has proven that Israeli pilots are inferior to their Egyptian and Syrian counterparts. During the first half of the war Arab fighter casualties were zero because the old generation F-4 Phantoms of the Israeli air force were not able to jam Arab MiG radars or shoot them down with beyond-visual-range missiles.They were forced to engage in dogfights with Arab MiG-21s and were totally outclassed by Arab pilots. The war only turned in Israel's favour when the US shipped newer generations of Phantoms equipped with long range missiles and more powerful jammers.

I'm not sure about the US not willing to sell us AMRAAMs. Could you provide a link to confirm this ?

Even if this is true, a fleet of 40 Super Hornets armed with Sparrows will still be the best deterrent against Australia,China or India that Malaysia could get.

If I remember correctly, Malaysia have no large foreign reserves before the crisis struck. Malaysia only have about US$33 billions foreign reserves in 1997 which is far smaller compare to US$75 billion today. When there is large capital outflow and inflation during the crisis, a country value will drop signifcantly and large foreign reserves is needed just to stop the value from dropping too fast. When you run out of reserves, the gov't can't do anything at that point but watch their currency value drop.

Malaysia greatest decision was to control capital outflow allowing Malaysia to fixed the dollar at 3.8 with the help of limited reserves Malaysia have at that point. Many economists critizes this would result in make the investor lose confidence in Malaysia but this does not happen. So, Malaysia was very lucky compare to other countries.

The major problem was during the early 90's, many leader and economists believe the economy growth is unstoppable just like US great depression 1929.



This problem has been long. There are already one MIG-29 crashed. I will try to find a link.



Even the German pilots admit that Israel have beat them hard during the exercises. I don't think there are technological gap between F-4 and MIG-21. DO you remember korea war and vietnam war, many F-4 was shoot down MIG-21. If you look at the articles below, the ahievement of Israel should not be underestimated

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Air_Force



US only sell AIM-120 to its allies like Singapore, and Australia. Just go to any military forum and raised this question, their answer will be the same. I think there are many local newspaper mentioning about this.

The crisis struck Thailand first. Mahathir had sufficient time to attempt capital control before those speculators turned on malaysia. Furthermore he allowed the previous central bank governor to keep his job even after he lost billions of US Dolars in unrelated currency speculations long before the crisis.Bank Negara governors are picked by the PM so it was Mahathir's fault that Malaysian foreign reserve was stuck for several yrs at USD 30 billion in the mid 90s.

Air force planes crash all the time. Not just in Malaysia. The bigger the fleet, the bigger the chances of mechanical failures and pilot errors.

Did the Germans fly the sluggish Tornado fighters against Israeli F-16s during that exercise ?

Umm, military forums are not good enough.

haha. sounds like dalawapo

its a very sensitive topic allright











dunt really know what to say...im scared...

LOLZ

well..its true..i am scared..cos this topic sounds so serious..


cos what i think is..i think Dr.M was cool..i think he did his job welldone


he deserves every good thing he's having now..


but i dunno y people are against him at times

I used to think he was a good PM too but now I'm angry enough to bash him in the biggest forum a Malay could join.

why?

Read my old reply here

Post #10

ohh..

The Malaysian forex reserve now is USD 79 billion.

My friend used to say this: Malaysia and China are equally corrupted. The only difference is……….if one gets caught in China, he or she is dead.

But back in Malaysia, you cannot get caught unless you have lost favour with the powers that be. Somehow you can escape and move to rake in more……….and more.

I agree. What happens to the so-called 18 sharks mentioned by the Pak Lah?

In the West, corruption means embarrassment, it means downfall. In Malaysia, corruption means prosperity.

No wonder our public projects are crack here and crack there.

How can we fight corruption if the top leaders are corrupted?

Politics exist all over the world. It is how we manage it. USA, UK, and other developed countries do practice some kind or a form of corruption, however they managed it quite well.

I don't understand, after 22 years in power, Dr M doesn't seem to get it under control? Or maybe he does but the bunch of swine under him do not know the value of pearls thrown or given to them.

What was he trying to do for 22 years as PM? Trying to start a new religion? Trying to introduce a new culture or to change one was not his remit was it? He was supposed to run the country without corruption and if there was anyone who was corrupted then it was for him to sack the guy, arrest him and to put him in prison.

After 22 years of milk and honey, and now are complaining after 1 year of misery! What nonsense! Arresting a problem after ignoring it for 22 years is stupid.

I find it all a joke. You left behind good legacies for the rakyat but it is just take one mistake that people will always remember you! The negative elements will always have a lasting impression on people's mind.

Mahathir made more than just one mistake.

Malaysian foreign reserve is now 305 billion Ringit. (around USD 81 billion)

The reserves is not a good indicator for the economy, we should look at the balance of payment. So far, Malaysia's balance of payment is in surplus but erratic over the years, for now economy is in good condition. The reserves were meant to safeguard against future crisis that might arise during the Ringgit peg and after the de-peg. however, Malaysia need not fear the currency speculators as they's prefer going to China than Malaysia. ZRight now, Malaysia needs to reduce the budget deficit which is quite difficult with the current oil price. Malaysia also needs to diversify its economy and move away from industrialization and develop the agricultural sector with biotechnology.

Overall, Mahathir is OK , but he did some problems to the country like corruption and spent a lot on mega projects which backfired and proven a burden during the 1998 asian crisis. but that was beyond his control .No leader is perfect anyway.

About the notion that its KL's fault Sabah is underdeveloped,we need to hear the opinions of Sabahans , i'm worried with this kind of sentiment which seems to suggest that Sabah is undeveloped coz of KL, this kinda give an impression that Sabah should be made independent. remember, if Malaysia did not get Sabah, either the Philippines or Brunei will.And look at the Philippines now, not impressive at all, but as for Brunei, i dunno.Anyway, Sabah have cities like Labuan and Kota Kinabalu which is relatively modern than Kota Bharu is.

I relly think foreign reserve is a good way to measure economic health

but I seriously disagree with some economists who tend to compare forex reserve against the value of import and say this or that reserve is enough to sustain 10 month or 20 months of import. It sounds so stupid.

Big trading nations like Malaysia have a disproportionate amount of import due to multinationals importing semi finished goods into Malaysia for final assembly as well as investors bringing in expensive machineries for their factories. These kind of imports are entirely financed by those investors and not by national reserves.

Why can't they understand that ?

Despite our large reserves,Malaysia's public debt is quite high, about US$50billion, Thailand ,Indonesia and the Phillippines also have the same level of debt or higher. Most of the debts are from the public sector, but it is quite a lot for a country with 25 million people. Anyway, almost all countrie have debts, SG's debt is 20billion dollars, but their surplus are huge. Anyway, no use having big reserves if everything in malaysia's getting more expensive with our inflation hitting 3%.

Malaysia needs to earn surplus from other sectors like agriculture or new nichesin our economy like the sevice industry and biotechnoly , we can't always depend on exports now with the RM depegged, now, its time the GLCs and public sector find sources of money abroad by buying stakes in oreign companies, like SG who earns a lot from its overseas operation. Malaysian investents arms, Khazanah and EPF and GLCs like Telekom Malaysia are flushed with money (our money,=) and should make significant purchases overseas like Telekom Malaysia which just bough a significant stake in Singapore's Third largest telco and Khazanah which is considering buying Lippo Bank,, one of the biggest Indon banks.

But most of all, we need entreprising Malaysian to open businesses and do R&D, nowadays the skilled workforce of the country is more important than factories and tall buildings.

For countries with grossly undervalued currencies, high inflation might be a good thing bcoz the GNP will appear bigger in US Dollar terms. That means higher GNP per capita as well.

Speaking of biotech, govt officials need to know that making herbal and other natural products are not as prestigious as making genetically engineered products like vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. They shouldn't waste public money developing those cheap and unmarketable low end "biotech" stuff. We should spend the bulk of R&D on developing monoclonal antibodies and vaccines; not stupid herbal products.

In the meantime we also need to get big foreign companies to set up large manufacturing plants here.
Even though these genetically engineered product manufacturing investments are hard to get, we can still get them if we really want to. Malaysia have to import almost all important medications and these drugs are very expensive.We need to reduce this deficit any way we can.

From now on, all big defence contracts given to foreigners must be reciprocated with big offset investments in biotech or pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing. We must not make the same mistake of accepting low quality offset investments in previous deals.

where mahathir live now ?