Gotcha! Raja Petra

Reproduced from Publius Melayu

I'm almost taken by what Raja Petra has been claiming these past few days following his questioning by the police at KL's Dangi Wangi station.

For one, lets take a look at his explanation that all the profanities posted against Islam and the Yang DiPertuan Agong were done by the co-called UMNO 'cyber-troopers'. What begs to be answered now is, if it is true those dastardly deeds were 'penned' by UMNO mercenary scribes, why have they now almost come down to a trickle if not stopped suddenly in their tracks? Given that the battle zone that is politics would most likely never see any let up in subversion, offensive, counter-offensives and psy-war efforts, it would be a most lame excuse for Raja Petra to point his fingers to an unsubstantiated and groundless claim such as that.

However, I, being a regular follower of Malaysia-Today and other SOPO blogs, would agree to a certain degree of subversion by some over-enthusiastic, albeit childish and shallow attempts by UMNO 'cyber troopers' to try some clearly futile attempts at flooding the website's server with hundreds of repetitive postings as well as the alleged 'planted' comments that have become the bone of contention presently.

If the alleged cyber-fifth columnists do really exist and occassionally succeed in posting their uncouth and criminal comments and, given their ability to cause quite a disquiet on both sides of the Malaysian political divide, I wouldn't think that they will stop.

I would think that the reason for the sudden disappearance of the bulk of such postings is because they were not carried out by the people that Raja Petra strongly alleged. They were actually carried by some over-zealous cyber-anarchists aligned to the blind (blinkered) spirit of Raja Petra's claim to social and political righteousness.

As such, following Raja Petra's clear advice before his being summoned for questioning by the police last week that he would appreciate if the readers of Malaysia-Today would refrain from posting profanities and anti-Islamic comments, the attacks suddenly came to a slower pace and almost zero. In most probablities this may be attributed to the culprits taking heed of his appeals as well as the unfounded fear that by continuing to do so would cause what they perceive as their only channel of free speech to come to an end. Another possibility is the fear that by persisting in maintaining the momentum of profanities and vulgarities, they may cause their scapegoat, i.e. Raja Petra to be arrested, hence losing their presumed anarchic alter ego.

So based on all these, Raja Petra's contention that the attacks were carried out wholly by the so-called UMNO cyber-troopers does not carry any weight. This theory becomes even more plausible – even real, given that earlier he had admited he could not control such postings that came from abroad,and in yet another instance, that he should not be held responsible for those were just comments made by others and not himself as the operator of Malaysia-Today.

After going through the three 'defences' mentioned above, Raja Petra suddenly zeroed in on the 'wholly-carried-out- by- UMNO-cyber-troopers' scapegoating stance. And with that he felt that he was treading solid ground as almost all his blind flock of followers would unhesitantingly jump on the bandwagon and go on an all out counter-offensive to re-direct the blame to external forces.