A new start

At Oon Yeoh's urging - more like pleading - I am starting my very first blog. This blog is to expose what a fraud that cocky Oon Yeoh is. From what he has been writing on his blog, he is supposedly this "writer, editor and consultant" all three in one.

Lately, he has been writing a lot of Buddhist-theme postings, so from what I can tell, he is a really big believer in Buddhism. If this is so, then he may be the only Buddhist that I know of, who is a big supporter of G.W. Bush. How big, you ask? It is ass-kissing, blindly-following, I-Love-Bushie big. As a matter of fact, Oon Yeoh might be the only Bush supporter outside of the U.S.A. In fact, his love for GW Bush and his policies are so big that he actually described GW Bush as, please do not laugh, "Not since Ronald Reagan has the U.S. has had such a moral and ideological president". Damn it, did not I tell you not to laugh. OK OK, I laughed too :D

As a devout Buddhist myself, I cannot even fathom what goes through Oon Yeoh's mind daily. On one hand he constantly writes about Buddhism-related topics. On the other hand, he is this cocky SOB who claimed that he is a "damn good writer". I did not say this, check his response to my comments here. If that is the case, he is the cockiest Buddhist I have ever seen. Originally, I thought being cocky and being a Buddhist are mutually exclusively, but some how, Mr I-am-a-damn-good-writer Yeoh is able to combine the two, without revealing his devil's horns in the process. It is like GW Bush making claims that he is a devout Christian and yet he is constantly breaking one of the key Ten Commandments - "Thou shalt not kill". I am not one who hold up on giving credit when credit is due. Oon Yeoh is a good writer (may be not a damn good one as he has claimed). But unfortunately, he is the most unethical one that I have ever witnessed, next to some literary crown like Alan Dershowitz, who plagiarized heavily from a fraud for his book "The Case For Israel". It might be one reason why Oon Yeoh can never been a journalist - he claimed he is a columnist. I will explain why Oon Yeoh is not ethical later.

I have been reading Oon Yeoh's blog for the last three months, witnessing his repeated use of Buddhism-theme topics in his postings, and I finally have had it up to here, so I decided to leave him a comment on his posting about "The Meaning of Life". The comment track goes chronologically like this:

My first comment posted 27-5-2006:

So what does the Chief think about your support for the war on Iraq? Do you think the world, especially Iraq, is a better place now after the invasion more than 3 years ago? How do you, seemingly a devout Buddhist, justify it?

Oon Yeoh's response on 27-5-2006:

I support justice. Which is why I supported the Iraq war and still do. And how do you, Angry Man, whatever your religious persuasion may be, justify supporting Saddam Hussein?

Oh, and save me your "I don't support Saddam, I'm just against the war" crap. If the US didn't go in, your hero would still be brutalizing, raping and killing his own people. Would that make you a Happy Man instead?

Btw, why do you even bother to read my blog? Let me guess. Cos you find me so addictively fascinating. Don't thank me. Just send me some money, you troll.

Go get a life. Better still, go get a blog.

Comment by another Oon Yeoh's reader overtherainbow posted on 28-5-2006:

To use violence against violence? Gentlemen?

Response by Oon Yeoh posted on 28-5-2006:

Read this: The immorality of pacifism:
http://www.oonyeoh.squarespace.com/thesun/2005/1/15/the-immorality-of-pacifism.html

Quote:
The problem with pacifism is that it isn't about loving peace. It's about loving peace at all cost, including allowing murderous thugs to brutalise, rape and murder whole populations because "war is never justified in any situation".

As author Sam Harris puts it in his book "The End of Faith - Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason": "While it (pacifism) can seem noble enough when the stakes are low, pacifism is ultimately nothing more than a willingness to die, and to let others die, at the pleasure of the world's thugs."

Response by overtherainbow posted on 28-5-2006:

Well, when a bom exploded and a life suffered, it just does not make sense. My dad escaped execution before dawn, and that was during the Japanese occupation. His suffered with a big belly all his life. I am just against war, period. At this civilised age, brutality is solely babaric. There is no reason a person has to suffer because of human action, there is no justice for manufacturing suffering, we have enough natural disaster. When nature give us disaster, we cannot blame, but when human make disaster, there is no excuse.

My response to Oon Yeoh posted 28-5-2006:

There is no reason to call names - I do not think you get to where you are today by calling others names when you cannot seem to defend your position. I read your blog because I find that you are pretty decent writer.

Again, did you ask the Chief what he thinks about the war on Iraq?

You support justice? Selective justice may be. Why is it that I have never seen you calling for a invasion of Israel so that it will relinquish its occupation of the territories, as required by UN security council 242 and countless others? I don't see you calling for an invasion of China for its occupation of T!bet (intentionally spelled incorrectly here because I am not sure if I put the correct spelling it will go through)? How about an invasion of Myanmar? May be there should be an invasion of Sudan for the genocide that is going there?

Based on your strange logic of "if I don't support the war, then I must be a Saddam supporter", then can I assume that you support the brutal Israeli occupation of the territories, the occupation of T!bet and what the government of Myanmar is doing to its people because of your silence ?

Why is it that everytime someone oppposes the war on Iraq, it always comes down to people like you calling us "Saddam supporters" ? I oppose the war on Iraq for various reasons:
- Is Iraq going to be a better place after the removal of Saddam? (Hindsight is 20/20 right?)
- The reasons given by the US before the war on Iraq:
-- WMDs? Saddam had WMDs back in the 80s and up to their removal by the UN inspectors back in the 90s. But why is it that the WMDs was not such a big issue during the Iraq war on Iran back in the 80s when Iraq was actively using mustard and nerve gases on the Iranians ? What country provided satellite images of Iranian troops deployment to Saddam so that he could more effectively use his WMDs on the Iranians? Who was meeting Saddam Hussein in Baghdad trying to improve the relationship between the US and Iraq when Saddam was actively dropping WMDs on the Iranians?
-- Connections between Al Qaeda and Iraq? Totally fabricated to rouse up support for Americans on the war.
-- To bring democracy to a region that desperately needs it? For me, democracy is not something that can be forced upon from the outside. It has to be something that is developed within. Each country has its unique way of developing a structure that works well for her and it is not necessary for every country to have an American-style democracy. Even if one can accept this as a reason for invasion of Iraq, why not invade a hosts of countries in the region supported by the Americans that are not only rule by dictators but also have serious human rights abuses?

Is your practice of "selective justice" what you meant by "Pick and choose?"

Another response from overtherainbow posted on 28-5-2006:

Yeah, no calling names, I agree:-) Don't take this personnal my man. Peace, no war here, hahaha. Have a good day, gentlemen. Maaf zahir dan batin. Am I using this appropriately. Hahaha, whatever, I hate to take things seriously. Life is like a drop of dew, comes the first ray of sunshine, it vaporised. Life is short, c'mon, chill:-)

My response to Oon Yeoh's comment about pacifism posted on 28-5-2006:

I have never claimed to be a pacifist. I think I am more of a realist. But it is interesting that you quoted your post on the "immorality of pacifism".

'(Pacifism) It's about loving peace at all cost, including allowing murderous thugs to brutalise, rape and murder whole populations because "war is never justified in any situation"'

No one doubt the fact that Saddam was a very brutal dictator, but the fact that most choose to ignore was that Saddam was most brutal and murderous up until the point of his invasion of Kuwait. For the sake of argument, let's exclude his purging of the rebelling Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis after being expelled from Kuwait by the coalition forces, since he could somewhat make a legitimate claim that he was putting down a revolt. For those that have a mental lapse about the revolt, the Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis rebelled against Saddam Hussein at the urging of then US President George H. Bush and yet while they were being slaughtered by Saddam's forces, the coalition forces stood by and did nothing.

Why is it that during the period when Saddam was most brutal and murderous, I don't hear it from people like you (sorry I am generalizing here)? The period between the end of the Kuwait occupation and the start of the US invasion in March 2003, Saddam was probably the least brutal and murderous. If the only reason that you supported the invasion of Iraq is for the removal of Saddam Hussein, since all other pre-war reasons turned out to be bogus, why not call for the removal of Saddam Hussein when he was the most brutal and when he actually had WMDs and was actively using them against the Iranians and Kurdish Iraqis?

I'll refer you to the recently declassified National Security Archives document on Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam Hussein. (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/). According to the document,

"By the summer of 1983 Iran had been reporting Iraqi use of using chemical weapons for some time. The Geneva protocol requires that the international community respond to chemical warfare, but a diplomatically isolated Iran received only a muted response to its complaints [Note 1]. It intensified its accusations in October 1983, however, and in November asked for a United Nations Security Council investigation.

The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war [Document 24]. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against "Kurdish insurgents" as well [Document 25]."

By some estimates, most than half a million Iraqis died during the UN sanction period prior to the recent war on Iraq, and more than 100,000 Iraqis have died during and since the US/UK invasion. The Iraq today is rife with sectarian violence, and the situation is so bad that some Iraqis actually prefer the days when Saddam Hussein was still in power.

Now this is Oon Yeoh's original response to my comments. I said original because Oon Yeoh actually shamelessly went back to this comment and re-edited it after I posted two more comments, so that he could "legitimately" removed my comments since he was not able to hold his water. So here is Oon Yeoh's original response posted on 28-5-2006:

Angry Man, you are welcome to continue reading my blog since you find it so enlightening. But you are wrong about me being a decent writer. I'm a damn good writer.

Out of the kindness of my heart, which you don't deserve, I've allowed you to use up my commentary space to upload some of your anti-war demogoguery. It's the same ol' shit that the Left has been spewing for the past few years. To someone who is not intimately familiar with the Iraq war, your points might actually sound convincing. But all the points you've raised have been adequately fact-checked and refuted by none other than yours truly. So, I'm not going to repeat myself. Use Google and search for articles I've written about the Iraq war to realize how wrong you are.

Btw, I'm not interested in getting into an online debate with you on the merits of removing a genocidal madman, so don't bother adding any more comments. I normally get paid to write commentary on current affairs, so if you want to me to enlighten you on why Saddam is a nasty piece of work, you're gonna have to pay me consultation fees.

And in case you want to get high and mighty on me about freedom of speech, let me enlighten you on something else. Freedom of speech is not about giving you space in my blog to post your pontifications. It's about supporting your right to start your own blog, which I do. So, go start your own blog or better still, try getting a newspaper column.

While his original response was being posted, I wrote another comment that was posted after his:

Mr.I-am-a-damn-good-writer-Yeoh, I tried to find your articles on google.com and most of them are on this malaysiatransition.blogspot.com domain, but unfortunately, blogspot.com domain is blocked here (just like BBC).

From what I am able to see from the partial output on the search result of google.com, I did see this snippet from one of your posts: "Not since Ronald Reagan has the U.S. has had such a moral and ideological president."

I almost laughed my pants off when I saw that. Reagan, ideological may be, but moral? You have got to be kidding me. Where was his morals when his administration was actively supporting Saddam Hussein during the Iraq war on Iran, knowing that Saddam Hussein's forces had used chemical weapons on the Iranians and his own Kurdish population? Where was his morals when his administration was secretly training and supporting a bunch of right-wing military regimes in central American during the 80s? May be you have forgotten about the atrocities committed in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras by some of the graduates from the Schools of Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5852

If Reagan is a "moral" president, may be Saddam is really not that bad after all. To associate the word "moral" with Reagan is a travesty. Reagan might not have blood on his hands, unlike Saddam, but there is no question he and his administration were indirectly responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed during his two terms as the president of the U.S. If your description of Reagan is an indication of your "absolute rightness", I shudder to think about what you wrote back then.

Then when I saw his original response, I decided to post one last comment since I could tell Oon Yeoh was already very pissed off at not being able to rebutt me:

I apologize for taking up your precious comment space trying to spew my "anti-war demagoguery", as you so eloquently put it. I promise this is the last comment you will ever hear from me. As a devout Buddhist myself, I find it very hard to agree with your reasoning and your version of justice. You don't have to respond to this or any of the facts I mentioned earlier.

Because you can't.

No amount of fact-checking will allow you refute that fact that the Reagan administration actively supported Saddam Hussein while his forces were using chemical weapons on the Iranians and the Kurdish Iraqis. No amount of fact-checking will allow you to deny the fact that Donald Rumsfeld, who was then a special envoy from President Ronald Reagan, was shaking Saddamn Hussein's hand in the picture taken on December 20 1983, in his attempt to improve the relationship between the US and Iraq.

Don't even try.

You cannot justify the unjustifiable.

After these two comments were posted, I went back to check if Oon Yeoh had responded. Instead of adding a note or something of that matter that he had removed my last two comments, he went back to edit his earlier response:

Angry Man, you are welcome to continue reading my blog since you find it so enlightening. But you are wrong about me being a decent writer. I'm a damn good writer.

Out of the kindness of my heart, which you don't deserve, I've allowed you to use up my commentary space to upload some of your anti-war demogoguery. It's the same ol' shit that the Left has been spewing for the past few years.

To someone who is not intimately familiar with the Iraq war, your points might actually sound convincing. But all the points you've raised have been adequately fact-checked and refuted by none other than yours truly. So, I'm not going to repeat myself. Use Google and search for articles I've written about the Iraq war to realize how wrong you are.

Btw, I'm not interested in getting into an online debate with you on the merits of removing a genocidal madman, so don't bother adding any more comments (they will get deleted). I normally get paid to write commentary on current affairs, so if you want to me to enlighten you on why Saddam is a nasty piece of work, you're gonna have to pay me consultation fees.

And in case you want to get high and mighty on me about freedom of speech, let me enlighten you on something else. Freedom of speech is not about giving you space in my blog to post your pontifications. It's about supporting your right to start your own blog, which I do. So, go start your own blog or better still, try getting a newspaper column. But then again, you're not the writer I am, are you? Maybe in a few lifetimes. If you're lucky.

Notice the difference? He actually went back and edited his response, adding "(they will get deleted)" and "But then again, you're not the writer I am, are you? Maybe in a few lifetimes. If you're lucky." I do not know what kind of Journalism school he went to, but that is one serious ethic violation that I can smell from miles away. It is one thing to remove my comments without informing his readers, it is another to go back and change the meaning of his original response so that it appeared that he had warned me about the deletion of any future comments from me.

So I went back and added one last comment referring to his unethical behavior:

Shame on you. You not only deleted two of my comments. You actually went back to edit your own comment so that it appeared that you have warned me about the deletion of any future comments from me.

Out of desperation, Oon Yeoh removed that comment as well, and added this:

Note: Angry Man's last three comments have been deleted. He needs to get a life... or at least a blog of his own.

So that is why we are here, at my very first blog. Thanks to Oon Yeoh.