The real danger of that love letter to the CIA

“It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!”

- William F Buckley Jr.

I have been getting all these e-mails and text messages about how Najib Abdul Razak is a traitor to this country and reading about how people are shocked by the letter of the so-called intelligence unit to solicit any kind of help to bolster a failing kleptocracy.

This is not earth-shattering news, folks. This is business as usual for corrupt, racist and bigoted governments the world over asking Uncle Sam for a handout while demonising the US to the locals.

Back in the day when the current Pakatan Harapan grand poobah paid disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to arrange a meeting with George Bush Sr, DAP leader Lim Kit Siang railed against such interference. In a statement, Kit Siang wanted full transparency and wanted to know if government funds were used.

As cited in the international press, then deputy prime minister Megat Junid Megat Ayub was part of a “shadowy Malaysian group” that facilitated funds for the meeting. These days, it's the so-called “intelligence unit” in the former PM's office.

Like I said, whether it is cosying up to the intelligence apparatus of the US or canoodling with its presidents, using funds from god knows where, Malaysia, like many other strongmen “democracies”, has a history of sucking up to the US when it suits their purposes while demonising the US to stir up the local racial and religious base.

And let's be honest - compromised presidents or prime ministers are easier to handle than leaders who are actually pushing economic and regional security reform. Big business demands compliant local actors and the interests of the US trumps those of the local populace when dealing with corrupt potentates who lead race-based political parties.

Last year, in the CIA info dump of declassified articles, three pages concerned Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the BMF scandal. Mahathir claimed that such actions were meant to demonise him.

"Dr Mahathir also questioned the timing of the release of the CIA report, claiming it was politically motivated. 'These things happened way back, between 1981 and 1984, why are they bringing it up now? Can you correct what I’ve done before? The purpose is political. Maybe some people might benefit from it',” So, there is that.

The 'Great US Satan'

But what I found extremely interesting was the comment by "a source close to Najib" who said this: “Doesn't the current government have more important things to do other than to leak sensitive military intelligence letters between countries to the media in order to continue slandering Najib?”

I could care less about the slandering part but what I found interesting was the “sensitive military intelligence letters” aspect.

Well, it is odd that he would characterise this communication as “sensitive military intelligence”, but this leak has repercussions that go beyond just slandering Najib. I have made it clear in my columns before that the existential threat facing this country and region is Islamic extremism.

Open source intelligence and conversations with intelligence operatives who ply their trade here allude to a new theatre of operations for terror groups. Southeast Asia - with the exception of Singapore - is a soft target in a rich environment. Here in Malaysia, we have been lucky.

How people, especially young people, get radicalised has always been of interest to me. I have written a number of articles on this subject. If you read the literature on radicalisation, you will notice that young Muslims, here and elsewhere, have a profound hate for Muslim regimes who they view as proxies for the “Great US Satan”.

An important feature of the radicalisation process is to ingrain a distrust of the government but more importantly, that the government – an Islamic one – is colluding with a foreign power – the US – to erode the sanctity of Islam in the country.

There are two components to this indoctrination process. The first is that corrupt Muslim potentates are colluding with a Christian adversary to keep the “ummah” down and the second is that this is a failing of democracy in that this democratic process is what causes Muslims to stray from the path of whatever true Islam these extremists are peddling.

So what this damning letter confirms is that a so-called Muslim regime was colluding with the Great US Satan. Furthermore, the fact that one of the arguments used against Mahathir was that he was anti-Semitic is even more dangerous.

Because it places the Najib administration as a pro-Jewish hegemony which again plays into the hands of Islamic extremists. For the record, Malay mainstream politics is anti-Semitic but you cannot expect Islamic extremists to be cognisant of that, right?

A US proxy

Remember when a self-described moderate political party like Amanah wanted to know if Malaysia was having an affair with Israel. You can read all about anti-Semitism and Malay politics here.

“Anti-Semitism is mainstream in Malay politics. Anything wrong with the Muslim world is blamed on the Jews. We have hosted despotic theocratic regimes. We have welcomed religious tyrants. We have courted religious fanatics. We have embraced religious extremists who mock the religions of the non-Muslims in this country.”

Having a relationship with the US - and this includes a relationship with its intelligence apparatus - for mutual benefit has always been a problem with Islamic hegemonies here and elsewhere.

These theocratic or theocratic-leaning hegemonies have always demonised the US – rightly, in some cases – but mostly to sustain the anti-progressive and democratic narratives which are anathema to the Islamic narratives that ensure compliance in their local populations.

Characterising Najib's love letter to the CIA as treasonous is ahistorical, especially when you consider the kind of relationship we have had with the US, public and sub rosa. What this letter does is merely to confirm the extremist Islamic narratives that a so-called Islamic country like Malaysia is a proxy for the US.

The incompetence of the Najib regime and the joy of another “scandal” to use against Najib has repercussions that are far more lethal if the current Harapan government does not take steps to correct an eco-system where Islamic extremism has the potential to bloom.

---

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. -Mkini