It is a reflection of Mahathir’s continuing “heft” in the Malaysian government although he had stepped down as Prime Minister more than five years ago and the corollary weakness of the Najib premiership that Mahathir could still cause enormous embarrassment to the country with such a conspiracy theory of the 911 terrorist attacks.
Why was Mahathir inspired to embrace the conspiracy theory that the 911 attacks in the United States was staged to fan a world-wide war of Islamophobila just because of the technical wizardry of James Camerons’ “Avatar”, when there had been many other Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters with landmark visual-effects (VFX) scenes even during his years as Prime Minister?
This reminds me of two episodes.
In his biography of the fifth Malaysian Prime Minister which is still awaiting clearance by the Home Ministry to get into the Malaysian bookshops, “Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times”, former Asian Wall Street Journal correspondent Barry Wain wrote of the Mahathir characteristic in his “ability to work both sides of the street”, on the one hand his display of “a public antipathy on general principles at the Americans while his jungle was crawling with US troops quietly training for jungle warfare” from a secret military understanding with the US administration.
The other was the procurement of a special meeting between Mahathir and the incumbent US President Bush in the White House in February 2002 when the Malaysian Prime Minister visited the United States– at the cost of a RM4.6 million lobby effort involving the then Malaysian Ambassador to the United States.
Mahathir should weigh his words even in retirement and avoid undermining national interests with some of his idiosyncratic views.
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