Antisemitic and anti-Western former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad hosted a freak show in Kuala Lumpur with gaggles of moonbats in attendance, calling Bush and Blair “fascist war criminals” in the midst of a propaganda display reminiscent of the worst of the Soviets: Blair branded a ‘fascist war criminal’. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad delivers his keynote address during an anti-war conference in Kuala Lumpur February 5, 2007. About 2,000 peace activists applauded on Monday as the leaders of the United States and Britain were branded ‘fascist war criminals’ at a conference hosted by Mahathir featuring gruesome exhibits of their alleged crimes. REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad (MALAYSIA)

Outspoken former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad, who hosted the conference in Kuala Lumpur, won a standing ovation after opening it with a call for George W. Bush and Tony Blair to be tried by an unofficial tribunal for war crimes in Iraq.

“We shouldn’t hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty,” said Mahathir, who seemed to save his strongest venom for the British prime minister in an hour-long speech illustrated by pictures of wounded children, deformed babies and tortured men. “He should always carry the label war criminal, killer of children and liar.”

Mahathir, a controversial figure whose own government was accused of human rights abuses bordering on torture, has been leading a campaign to highlight what he calls the human-rights abuses and hypocrisy of U.S.-led forces fighting for democracy in the Middle East. That campaign reached new heights of graphic intensity on Monday, with an exhibit of alleged war crimes by U.S. forces and their allies over the decades, from Hiroshima to Iraq.

As Mahathir spoke in the main conference room, packed with students and legions of his supporters, tape-recorded screams of tortured men and orphaned babies echoed around the War Crimes Exhibition, a house of horrors on the floor below.

Visitors to the exhibition start by walking through a mock spray of white phosphorus, a chemical agent that burns flesh, before entering a torture chamber labelled “Torture methods used here were used on prisoners of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib”. Here, figures of naked men were gagged and strapped upside down to a metal-framed bed. Another was strapped to a chair, his legs and arms bristling with nails driven into his flesh, while another was bombarded with loud, incessant disco music.

“Who would have imagined the cheerful music of Boney M. could be used as an instrument of pain and torture?” a label said.

I’ve always thought of Boney M as the worst form of torture myself.

Compare this Daily Mail report with Agence France Presse’s; AFP leaves out all the absurd and ugly details, and makes it appear as if Mahathir is a sober, well-reasoned critic: Mahathir condemns Bush, Blair as war criminals.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad condemned British premier Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush as “child killers” and “war criminals” as he launched an anti-war conference.

Mahathir, who has been nominated by Bosnian civil society groups for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for helping the country after its bloody civil war, said the pair should be put on trial for their military action in Iraq.

“History should remember Blair and Bush as the killer of children or the lying prime minister and president. What Bush and Blair had done is worse than what Saddam had done,” he said, referring to hanged Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Mahathir also turned his scorn on Australian Prime Minister John Howard, deriding him as the “pocket Bush of the bushlands of Australia.”

The 81-year-old firebrand was a strident critic of the West during his two decades in power, and has continued to hit out since stepping down in 2003, seizing on the issue of conflict in the Middle East during his retirement.

UPDATE at 2/5/07 8:38:19 am:

Others blogging this story:
The Ten O’Clock Scholar: Malaysian Moderate Muslim Mahathir
Hot Air: Jew-hating former Malaysian PM rips Bush, Blair at house of horrors exhibit