Dirty tricks campaign targets Anwar too

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is being targeted by the same malicious on-line bloggers who have sought to defame former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former US Ambassador John Malott.

Research by Sarawak Report has identified clear evidence that the same team of paid writers have been working on a sustained campaign of deliberate vilification of Anwar, in an attempt to destroy his image in the United States and to give the impression in Malaysia that he is heavily criticised in America.

This dirty tricks campaign began shortly after Tsunami election result in 2008 that nearly swept Anwar and the PR coalition into office and it is clearly financed by BN.

The US-based blog New Ledger was launched in 2009 as the main vehicle for these commissioned attacks and throughout 2010 and 2011 this supposedly American website has focused more on Anwar Ibrahim than on any other subject!

Sarawak Report, therefore, challenges UMNO/BN to deny our inside information that its party leadership are paying New Ledger and a web of associated on-line attack blogs to defame its main political opponent.

Over the top!

The shrill, malicious and one-sided articles produced by New Ledger’s team of American writers can, on the one hand, be dismissed as laughably ridiculous. Rachel Motte, Christopher Badeaux, Leon Wolf and Brad Jackson are people with no profile in the United States or recognised expertise on Malaysia, however they vie almost daily to produce ever more vicious and obscene attacks.

'Vile anti-semite' and 'cowardly woman-abuser' - Christopher Badeaux sings for his supper!

On the other hand, the clear and deliberate agenda to create fear and hatred against Malaysia’s opposition leader, by exploiting prejudice and ignorance in the United States, is chillingly malign. New Ledger, which targets a right-wing Republican readership, continuously portrays Anwar as a “Jew-hating Muslim extremist” and constantly makes reference to un-proven sex allegations as if they were true.

‘Terrorist!’

The allegation that this team of paid name callers has worked hardest at repeating, however, is that Anwar is a dangerous Islamic terrorist. They describe him as a “strategic threat” to the United States, should the “moderate” BN lose the next election and be replaced by this ‘enemy of the West’. Readers of New Ledger could be forgiven for concluding that Anwar could become the next Osama bin Ladin!

These self-proclaimed experts repeat the same justifications to back these claims. One is that Anwar is a founder of the International institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), based in Virginia. Attempts to brand any Muslim organisation as terrorist-linked can easily gain support in the States post-9/11, however this claim bears little scrutiny.

Brad Jackson, self-proclaimed expert

A genuine American expert in Malaysia affairs, former Ambassador John Malott, has commented on this particular allegation and thoroughly dismisses it:

”Like many other Islamic/Muslim groups, the IIIT was raided by the FBI after 9/11 and was investigated thoroughly. The US Government never filed any charges against IIIT. The US Government has never listed it as a terrorist organization, and the US Government has never closed it down. Yet the charges of an IIIT connection to the Muslim Brotherhood continue to circulate, without evidence, on various right-wing blogs. What do these bloggers know that the US Government does not?” Ambassador John Malott

For this reason Malott explains there is no official or expert credence given in the United States to the sort of ‘analysis’ that the New Ledger writers come up with. “This is just a very narrow group of right-wing websites and I do not think they are having any impact on the body politic”, he told Sarawak Report.

Another website linked to New Ledger is Sarawak Report(s). It is equally obsessed with Anwar!

Target audience?

Malott also confirms that very few Americans are aware of or interested in matters to do with Malaysian politics and he is therefore sceptical as to why such a dominating proportion of the New Ledger website is devoted to this subject. The website, after all, claims to be appealing to right wing Americans. Their mission is:

”to sift through the noise to bring your attention to the news you need and want” [New Ledger]

Current line up of top stories served up by New Ledger for its conservative American readers - as always half are about Anwar and Malaysia!

In fact, few Americans would place endless articles about Anwar Ibrahim on a list of information they want or need, or indeed their Sarawak articles about Clare Rewcastle Brown.

The real target audience is, of course, the BN politicians who have expensively commissioned the articles and people who might be influenced back in Malaysia. BN leaders are anxious and jealous about Anwar ibrahim’s close contacts with Western opinion formers and his reputation as a liberal and a democrat, who was brutally jailed on false charges by his political enemies.

It is clear that BN politicians would like to see this image destroyed in America and in Malaysia and have engaged the writers of New Ledger to carry out the task. Ambassador Malott, who continues to observe Malaysian affairs and who has himself been vilified by the same writers, commented to Sarawak Report:

”Why have these people, who are unknown and not experts on Malaysia, suddenly become so interested in one issue? They are not writing about any other countries, only Malaysia. It seems obvious to me that they are being paid” [Ambassador John Malott].

To accept secret payments for articles that pose as genuine news and comment is the hallmark of a disreputable website and discovery of such a fact would be fatal to a journalistic career for any of these writers in any respectable organisation in the United States. Malott concludes that it has been a “highly ineffective campaign” and another example of money wasted by the Malaysian Government on PR. “For several million dollars, is Rachel Motte and Christopher Badeaux the best you can get?” was his comment to Sarawak Report.

More dirty web tricks

Rachel Motte - pleased to have found 'fame' in Malaysia!

Our research has established that the online PR campaign against Anwar has adopted exactly the same strategy as the campaign against Sarawak Report, commissioned by Taib. That game plan is to ‘bounce back’ the articles that have been placed in the United States websites into anonymously run blogs in Malaysia and then work on getting the stories into Malaysia’s mainstream media, as if they had originated from a reputable source.

In this way they are conniving to mislead the Malaysian public and trick them into thinking that Anwar is also despised in America and has lost his influence in the US establishment.

Malaysia Watcher is one of the key websites that is managed by the New Ledger team and which colludes in this practice. New Ledger writers like to refer to Malaysia Watcher as an ‘independent website’, which they use as a resource, but in fact the sites ‘bounce’ stories off each other to build them up.

Far from being independent or objective Malaysia Watcher sets out its agenda as “keeping a close eye on Anwar Ibrahim” in its google search profile! Favourite contributors are Motte, Badeaux and Wolf and all the articles are hysterically one-sided attacks on Anwar.

- Sarawak Report