Dr M: 9MP projects good for the people
The Star – 2 April 2006
KUALA LUMPUR: Many of the projects under the Ninth Malaysia Plan are very good for the people and will be beneficial to the masses, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.  
However, he said he was not a clairvoyant and could not predict whether the projects would be implemented within the Plan's period.  
“The intentions are there and the programmes listed are very good,” he said when asked to comment on the Plan which was tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in Parliament on Friday.  
Speaking to reporters after opening a peace conference in conjunction with 15 years of soroptimism in Malaysia at a hotel here yesterday, Dr Mahathir said he could not comment further on the Plan because he had not read it in full.  
Earlier in his address at the conference, he said many people in developed countries had skewed values.   
He said they were willing to spend a lot of money and effort to protect animals, yet supported wars that killed people by the thousands.  This distorted view of what was right and wrong, he added, had perpetuated the use of war as a tool to settle disputes.  
“We need to think of other ways to settle problems. Killing each other is not the right way,” he said.  He urged women groups to intensify their anti-war programmes and create greater awareness on the evil of wars.  In the United States, he said, there was already a very strong movement for a pro-peace candidate and for a leader to be rejected unless he had an anti-war stand.   
Such movements, said Dr Mahathir, might not be able to stop wars but with enough momentum, they could be a step towards making war a crime.  World peace, he said, would remain elusive if the international community stood by passively when war-mongering leaders decide to attack another country for whatever reason.  
“Peace will only stand a chance if those who start wars can be hauled up and charged for killing innocent people. Justified or not, war should be made a crime,” he said.  
He also called for the definition of terrorists to be extended to countries that committed acts of terror.   
Source: The Star | http://thestar.com.my