In Thailand, the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was stopped in his tracks months after his return to power. The middle class, especially in Bangkok, went against him, and he went. The king played a conciliatory role, who decided in the end Thaksin should go. So it was in Italy, where the former prime minister Berlusconi, to remain in power, altered the rules so that the middle class who went overseas could vote, but who in the end turned him out. This has split Italy down the middle, but it showed the power of the middle class more than anything else. In the United States, President Bush is in trouble because the middle class in up in arms over government policies, of which Iraq though the most important is one of many. He faces difficulty in Iraq because the Iraqi middle class, bar those who joined the Americans for personal gain and power, are against the American occupation. Washington has finally realised that Iraq cannot be won, and amenable to bringing in others with more clout in the Middle East for talks on the future of the country.

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S TRIAL IS an example of victor's justice: First the trial, then the execution. That he will die is certain. But Iraq would be even more volatile either way. But putting to trial former leaders for what they have to do as leaders – that of Saddam Hussein is one, of Slobodan Milosevic another – would redound on US and European leaders once the worm turns, as it will. The United States realises this, and have offering aid in return for not clamouring for Americans to be tried in an international court. The publicity surrounding the trial of defeated leaders is deafening, giving the impression they do not have a case. But they do. And present it effectively. The Milosevic trial at the Hague was seen by Serbs as a punishment for not following Western dictates. His death, and burial in his country estate in Serbia, was a national event in his country, and the Western agenda over what was Yugoslavia is in shambles.

It is not, of course. Iraq under Saddam Hussein kept the religious divide between the Sunnis and Shia out, and ran a secular state. The Americans dismantle that, gave the Shias power, and believed it could have a state in which the majority ruled. It has resulted in chaos, and the old enmity between Iran and the Middle East, part of this conflict, is that one is Shia and the other Sunni, both of the Muslim religion, one is Arab and the other not. The British is their long presence in the region understood this, and behaved accordingly. Iraq could only be ruled by the Sunni, it decided more than four decades ago, but it lost out in the end by ordering the Middle East in its image. The last British-controlled prime minister of Iraq was flayed alive when he has caught in the late 1950s, trying to escape in a woman's clothes, which included the chador. The king was overthrown and killed. But the group that took over was Sunni. As was all leaders until the Americans decided that should change. But it is against the Shia leadership now.

PRESIDENT BUSH WAS CROWING two years ago that Iraq is a democracy, that it is a far better place that when Saddam Hussein, who is now facing trial for his life, was in charge. But US destroyed the framework, made enemies of the Baathist Party, opened the country to be run by Shia, made sure that the Sunnis would never have a place in the government. The civil war is fuelled by the Sunnis, Iraqi nationalists (both Sunni and Shia), the youngsters who see no future in an Iraq under American control. President Bush has had to eat every one of US optimistic statements. Sure, there are foreigners amongst these insurgents, but so has the Americans. The world hears only one side of the story, the insurgents are not allowed, but the appears on Arab television stations, even if they do not report the more horrendous American atrocities, is had enough. In less than two years, the Americans have made themselves unpopular not only in Iraq, but elsewhere in the Middle East and Iran. But they want a foothold in the Middle East at any cost. Would they get it?

THE SADDAM HUSSEIN TRIAL, like Slobodan Milosevic's, is political but conducted in Baghdad as a legal trial. The motto seems to be: First the trial, then the execution. It is presumed the defendants have no no case, so it is presumed by the prosecutors. And are shocked when the strong defence is made. They are tried under laws that did not exist at the time at the time the officences were allegedly committed, and became laws only after he was overthrown. The British. in its imperial glory, would have hanged them all before they were faced with scenes now shown to the world, if they thought they would get into the mess the Americans are now. But it is the Americans who rule, and they believe in the Queensbury's Rules even when fighting a war. The procedures of the court have not been fixed. Every hearing of the trial has been a slanging match between the judges and the defendants over whether the court was legal. The witnesses are allowed to make their statements in absentia. The witnesses are afraid to show their faces twenty years later, and when it clear Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants are history.

It is today a test of wills. Washington's inopportune attack on Iraq for reasons other than stated was aimed at a military presence in the Middle East. Its military presence in Lebanon was ended 25 years ago with a car bomb and 241 US Marine deaths. It wants to set up one in Qatar to keep an eye, it is said, on Al-Jazeera. It does not trust Saudi Arabia any more, wants to put the Saudi royal family out of business. But it has touched more than it chew in Iraq. It put Saddam Hussein on trial for crimes he is alleged to have committed when President 25 years ago. It has been stressed time and time again that his trial is not vendetta, that the rule of law will prevaile all of Iraq. But the trial is in shambles. What happened in Halabja is not as interesting as what happens in court. It is an impartial tribunal, so the Americans claim, but it chief judge, a Kurd, cannot stand the heat, his successor is found to be a Baathist, and his successor is from Halabja. Whatever happens to the trial, Saddam Hussein has won. He has already written himself into Iraq, and Middle Eastern, history as a Sunni martyr.

The second link is away from Johore Bahru, between Jurong and Gelang Patah, and its army would have to fight on touching Malaysian territory. But the Singapore army cannot fight, like the Americans, and depend on modern warfare, which has no relevance in Malaysia. In the year 2061, the water agreements expire, and would have to be renegotiated. But Johore, and Malaysia, may not want to extend the agreement. If it wants the water agreement extended, Malaysia would probably ask Singapore to be part of Johore, a much smaller entity than Singapore was when it was in Malaysia. Sixty years is a long time in politics. But for Malaysia, intensely political, it is a short time indeed. It may not happen as predicted, but then it may!

In Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh led the Vietnamese resistance. In Iraq, the United States created Saddam Hussein. He was put on trial on false grounds. It was not a crime for the President to do what he did. It is now a crime for what he did as President, and he is charged for that. He has put up a stirring defence, as President Milasovic did at his trial, another victor's justice, at the Hague. But killing Saddam Hussein will pose difficulties for the US. There is already talk that he would be hanged in other Middle Eastern country. His hanging in Iraq is said to be too divisive for the country. So long as he is alive, the insurgency will be active. Once he is dead, the insurgency will be more active. His death or his living will turn the insurgency once way or another. But the US in a mess in Iraq because it did not believe that Americans who thought otherwise or spoke Iraq fluently had a point of view that could be useful in the negotiations. A wise general said the exit plan must be planned before the invasion. Now it is ad hoc. It has put its quislings, who will take over when they leave, in an impossible situation. They might follow the invaders out. But what would happen to Iraq, once a European country in the Middle East, nut now an impossible country to govern, with racial, religious, secular forces fighting for a stake, often killing the others in the process. Saddam Hussein and his men will give them some respite, but not if they are killed, as the US would like them to.

THE BIRD FLU, ONE of sixteen strains of the HN virus, has been known for a century. One strain killed six million people in the aftermath of the First World War, but most have lied dormant or would not mutate to affect humans worldwide. The bird flu is in our minds, and we rush to get ourselves and our children infected against it for no reason than to make the pharmaceutical companies rich and the Western countries their peace of mind. The present attitude is that others can die but the Westerner should not. The Tamiflu antitode has not been tested. It is a vaccine to be used only after the bird flu strikes. But hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the vaccine, controlled panic has been spread throughout the world on what could happen, but the aim is to ensure that no American is dead by the strain. Fifty Asians and Africans have been killed, but it does not matter. No Westerner has been killed. And no one should die. So bird flu has got into the APEC discussions, and its members, the majority of its members are Asian, have allowed the bird flu into the discussions. But this is part of evolution. The Aids virus was once carried by monkeys, but one strain of it has mutated to affect humans. It was also part of the US biological warfare. And the Americans got infected, and they were homosexual and lived in California. It took the place of bird flu then. It became a world wide fear of AIDS. But we do not hear of it now. Nor has the non- Western countries taken the necessary health measures to make their concern real.

Islam has become the opponent in the American crusade on terror. We saw a glimpse of that in the bombings of the three American hotels in Amman last week. Those killed were Arabs, but the news networks failed to mention that they had more in common with the West than their compatriots. There was hardly any reaction to the already suffering Muslims in Jordan. When the Americans and later King Abdullah of Jordan blamed the bombing on a dead man, and went into detail of how an Iraqi couple was involved, the point was missed. Al Qaeda or Muslims would attack American and European institutions anywhere in the world at will, just as American does now. "Al Qaeda in Iraq" has subsequently taken responsibility for the attack, erasing any doubts who was responsible. And the West has taken that as proof. But a bomb which exploded was in the celing. These Al Qaeda fellows are so smart that they put the bomb there, we are told. The intelligence agencies are on the ball. They found that out. They are guarding the hotel round the clock, as is common in the Middle East for decades. How come they did not catch them? The 57 Arabs who died and 300 wounded in the bombings will only be relevant if the United States can treat the 100,000 it killed, often at weddings, during and after its invasion of Iraq.

AL QAEDA has said it is responsible for the bomb attacks on three American-owned hotels in Jordon. The Americans call this group Al Qaeda in Iraq. If you listen or read what they have to say or write, they do not tell you the most important fact: that as the war on terror on Muslims is worldwide, the response is too. They ignore this, and suggest the Jordanian Arabs were the ones most affected. But 100,000 Iraqis have died in American bombing. There is no word of that now except that they deserved it. The US Senate has passed a resolution that the American legal system should not be available to those sent to Guantanamo prison from countries in the Third World. The Americans have latched on to Al Qaeda's statement that they are responsible. They are playing an information game as the Americans are. They have found a new organisation called "Al Qaeda in Iraq" and its leaders responsible and therefore gulty. The war on terror against Muslims requires less standards of proof of guilt than murder, for instance. But this is a fight unto death, with both sides having access to the same methods. If the Americans can attack a defenceless country headed by a CIA agent, after months of telling the world a pack of lies, the reaction is equally swift. When it justifies the invasion of Iraq also as a war on terror, and alientate the Sunnis, in power since the British put them in power more than 80 years ago, the reaction was swift. Iraq is in a civil war. It would never be a country again, with handouts from the United States to keep it going, and unsafe for any who supports it. The Sunnis have waged a civil war since they were removed in a fit of anger. They don't want to return. Their aim is to destroy. Four or five Iraqi Sunni organisations supporting the elections next month is neither here nor there. But the Americans and their cohorts in Iraq and elsewhere look upon every Sunni move in their favour as evidence of grasping any floating in the sea. The bombing of the three hotels in Jordan is a direct response to the invasion of Iraq. The hotels would not be bombed if Iraq was not invaded.

The information war is to paint the enemy as Al-Qaeda, with bombings like the three Jordanian hotels and the killing of the Arabs highlighted. Two questions must be asked here. Whether the Americans and its allies have the right to kill Arabs to capture a country for economic reasons? The people have a right to prevent it, and bring in foreigners to fight the invader as the invader has asked for foreign assistance. The insurgency in Iraq has the destruction of the oil facilities as its main aim. This was clear after the ruling Sunnis were not allowed in the new government. The Sunnis now know they have lost Iraq, perhaps for ever, so it will do anything possible to prevent others from ruling. The invader realises it had taken a wrong decision to root them out. So all effort is made to bring the Sunni in, and lay great stress on a few Sunni organisations joining it. But the invader has made the mistake, and given the country to Muslims other than Sunnis and a racial minority, the Kurds who traditionally even the Shias hate. There is a civil war taking place in Iraq. Nothing can hide that. The more it is cornered, the more gung-ho the invader is, and more reports are released often by embedded reporters that the invader and its allies are doing well. But one mistake is enough to negate their presence. And it has made several enemies, among Sunnis, Shias, racial minorities like Kurds, Turkomen.

THERE IS WORLD WIDE interest these days in bird flu as there was four years ago of bio-terrorism, each threatening, so health authorities maintained, the deaths of millions of people. Bio terrorism did not come to pass. Neither will bird flu. The only beneficiaries will be the pharmaceutical companies and the authorities who keep their people glued to television sets so that they can do as they like. If a pandemic is threatened, individual countries would have strengthened their health regimen so that it does not spread. They have not done so. The people panic unnecessarily at these health concerns made worse by authorities assuming the worst but doing nothing about it. The people are left with half baked advice on television, radio and newspapers on how to cope with the pandemic should it ever strike. But bird flu has killed less in the whole of Asia these past two years than daily road deaths in the United States. The United States have killed about 100,000 Iraqis deliberately and have lost more than 2,000 in the conflict there. But that does not count in these calculations. Saddam Hussein, we are told, is a evil figure and his people's death is necessary to him out. The only beneficiary of this bird flu scare is the pharmaceutical industry. That stories appear daily of the threatened pandemic. A pharmaceutical product is miraculously found which is out of reach of Asians Africans and Latin Americans. But the pandemic in time will be no more. Another one will take its place, and the pharmaceutical industry laughs all the way to the bank.

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION, ESPECIALLY, in conflict is normal. To suggest the Al Qaeda is split, as the Guardian suggests yesterday (26 October), is not unusual. Just as there is a split between the United States and its allies on how to conduct the war in Iraq. But this is information war and one side is told its opponent is split. As if both sides are not. We see the split within the leaders and between the leaders and the people. The splits are reported in loving detail by the people who started as handmaidens of the war but the splits, mistakes, and doubts and their own credibility caused them to take a neutral stand. So, the United States and its allies assume the worst in their enemy, and reporters voice them in their colums. They do not bother with the insurgents who do not give press conferences as the Americans do. The Al Qaeda network has shown a sophistication in its operations, that how can you be sure that its split is deliberately fed to the Western journalists? What we have learnt of Al Qaeda and the insurgents are suppositions from Washington, London and other capitals, usually in the course of a propaganda onslaught. Those who are not on either side of the fence in Iraq and elsewhere see through this propaganda battle, and those directly not involved in Iraq take a neutral if not a partisan stand against the United States. This propaganda battle is to reassure their own people that all is well. The level of propaganda rises as the insurgents, in reality the Iraqi nationalist and the Sunni who detest, among other things invaders in their midst, make havoc of the invaders and gain support around the world. The US assistant secretary of public diplomacy recently toured the Muslim nations to gain support of the war, which she did not get whatever Malaysian newspapers wrote of the visit.

BRUTAL DICTATORS IN IRAQ are not new. The British was one in iraq. So were the Sunni leaders that followed. Iraq had no free elections since the 1920s. And it showed during the recent referendum. The Americans, and its sidekick, the United Nations, are happy that all went well. As Saddam Hussein would have crowed in his day. The Iraqi know which way the bread is buttered, and voted accordingly. So it is not surprising that the Americans recorded, so they said, more than 90 per cent of the votes in many Shia and Kurd provinces. The Sunnis, having lost power, were expected to vote against. But the Americans added difficulties at the last minute. One would have required two thirds of a province to vote "no". The people did not know the details of the constitution they were voting for. The ministers did not go to the ground in a country which CNN had a think tanker in Washington say is better than during Saddam Hussein and and security improving day by day. But the Americans are caught in a Catch-22 situation: The Sunni and the Iraqi nationalist, who include Shias, Kurds, Turkomen and others, have vowed to make it difficult for the latest dictator in Iraq to succeed. The Sunnis know they will never rule Iraq again, and they will make it difficult for others to rule. Their task is made easier by the invader dismantling what existed in government and not putting its own in force. Now it is too late. Iraq is in the throes of a civil war. The invading force, the United States, will have its troops in Iraq for decades for it will be worse after they leave. Iraq is now a fourth world state, with anarcy and no government. You would not hear it in the newspapers.

The Sunnis, who held power in Iraq though in a minority, has declded that they would make it difficult for the US and its foreigners ever to leave Iraq. But it is not only the Sunnis who are fighting. There is the Iraqi who does not like his country divided, as it would under the constituition, and this nationalist includes people who are Sunni, Shia and Kurd. Saddam Hussein, for all his faults, was assiduous in keeping religion out of politics. He ruled with an iron hand, as the new rulers of Iraq would find. He is now on trial for his life under laws that were not in force at the time he is alleged to have committed them. He rejects it at his trial for he faces victor's justice. The West is surprised that he behaves as he did, and the CNN broadcast especially is surprised that he behaves as Milosevic or Mandela when brought to court by the foreign victor. They are surprised at his behaviour in court. And so the Americans in Iraq have taken to other means so that those outside would forget him. The death of a defence lawyer after his appearance in court is stage managed, and I would not be surprised it was. I have often been accused of being a conspiracy theorist, but that is the name given to anybody who does not believe the official version. But how can we believe the official version when British troops raided a police station nominally under their control to release two British soldiers in custody after they were caught redhanded in staging a car bombing, or when two Americans are now in custody for doing the same thing?

The insurgency is Sunni-based. It gets help from other Sunnis as the United States and Britain widens its arc of support by getting countries to join it. Al Qaeda is involved. Why should it not when Australia and Japan is involved? It gets new recruits as the US and UK gets other countries to join it in this war on terror. The US army targets in Iraq are Sunni centres. Even Tal Afar is Sunni, though the majority in that town is Turkmen. Mosul, in the north and an oil town, is basically in guerilla hands. The insurgency in Iraq also hits at oil pipelines and facilities deliberately, denying the US and the Iraqi government they set up use of oil. In the 1990s, Saddam Hussein (as proxy for the US) fought a war with Ayatollah Khomeini, but each were careful not to destroy the other's oil facilities. The war destroyed only the area where it was fought. Iran and Iraq, as states, could do that. But such an option was not available in Iraq when the US reduced it to a rubble. Iraq is now a fourth world state. The Sunnis now are determined it should be under a regime that is set up by the Americans. The anger is on both sides, and a mutually- agreed-destruction is not possible now. The US has lost the initiative in asking Sunnis not to touch the oil facilities. So, the insurgency has two aims: one, to drive the invader out; or, as now, make it more expensive to him to get out, and two, to make it impossible for the Shia or the Kurd to take his place. The US-led coalition has destroyed Iraq, and dismantled its bureaucracy. The US plans to federalise Iraq makes it another reason for the Sunni insurgency to continue unabated.

But tensions have risen since Malaysia declared itself a Muslim state and internationalised the problem in southern Thailand. It is not Thai Malays but Thai Muslims now. Malaysia has translated the constitutional definition of a Malay to a racial definition in a foreign country. But by this definition, Kuala Lumpur has lost control of southern Thailand. What makes it worse is that Malaysian agents are more interested in money than in getting the job done. Pak Lah is not interested, and vaccilates. Unlike Tun Mahathir, his predecessor who was decisive. "It was a joy to work with him," said one agent on another matter, "You briefed him, and he asked for options, and once the decision was made, you went and did it. He never forgot it either and asked you about it when he next saw you." In Pak Lah's regime, you did not know who was in charge, or if the officer who was designated to receive your report was on the take - by foreign countries mostly - that would put the agent at risk. Do we place agents in foreign countries? Of course we do. I have met these agents from countries as disparate as New Zealand and Burma. And so other countries, both over and under cover. The Thais have their agents here. So do the Singaporeans. and every nation which has in intrest in Malaysia. The British. The Americans. The Chinese. The Russians. The Singaporeans. The Indians. The Middle Eastern nations. The Indonesians. With the embassies, or with private concerns. The is the way that the nations find out what a particular nation is doing, recruiting local citizens, both civil servants and private individuals.

THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ vote in a referendum tomorrow (October 15), not knowing what they are voting for. The United States and Britain has given their blessings. But the president and cabinet ministers, secure (so they think) in the Green Zone and not daring to go out, even to the airport, for fear of assassination or ambush, discuss the constituition as if it is the US or Italian or Malaysian. The people do not know what it is about for no politician has discussed it with him. Not even in Baghdad. The referendum tomorrow has no relevance for the future of Iraq. It is surreal, the referendum is conducted to American home requirements, and will produce nothing. The moral will still remains with the Iraqi, who is fed up with seeing his own country invaded by foreigners. The Americans made the biggest mistake of all in refusing the Sunni any role. The constituiton was drawn up by the Shias and the Kurds. Iraq did not have a written constitution. But so does Great Britain. The Sunnis boycotted the election. Sundry Sunni groups are co-opted to write the constituiton, but these groups represent only themselves, if at all. The US is now trying to get Sunni groups not to boycott it. There is no or little coverage of the referendum the past two weeks. Even the invaders know that if the referendum is lost, they cannot withdraw their troops on their own timetable. If the referendum is won, then it is a hard slog to the next target, which is the elections early next year. The Sunnis, who are excluded from drafting the constition, are not likely to take part in it. The invading force, which is what the Americans and all its allies are, is stuck in a quagmire, much like in Vietnam forty years ago but worse. The Sunni Muslim is the dominant religion in the Arab lands. Saddam Hussein, once the CIA's great asset, has now become the Arab's, Iraqi Sunnis and Iraq's hero. He is on trial next week, but here again the invading force made a mistake. He is put on trial during the Ramadan fasting month, again to the American schedule. He has won the victory, whether he is hanged or not. Every miscalculation on him and the Sunnis are to the advantage of both Sunnis and Iraqis.

THE TELEVISION NETWORKS AND newspapers are all about the South Asian earthquake, a disaster engineered by nature. There is little talk now of the man-made disaster in Iraq. When it is all over, the man-made disasters will have killed more people than nature's. As it would be in Iraq and Afghanistan than in Pakistan. Those who are glued to television, as many Malaysians are these days, are shocked at the paucity of services in an emergency. But they say not a word about Iraq, where more people are dead or worse off than in South Asia, and the bombs have reduced to rubble what used to be pastiche of an European city in a way no natural disaster has. Imagine what would happen to Kuala Lumpur should it be reduced to rubble, either by nature or by man. The South Asian earthquake, the tragedy at New Orleons, the Guatemala earthquake show that if man continues to test nature, then the forces of nature would demand a catastrophic price. Man-made wars, as in Iraq, is to reduce potentially growing nations into rubble. The reasons may be justified, but the end result is the same. It is a question of power. Do we expect BBC or CNN to cover the ordinary people in Iraq who are made homeless, or cannot get a modicum of medical treatment? No, we don't. We expect either or both networks to show the power of the countries they represent. So it is Fallujah reduced to rubble, and no mention is made of the people made homeless in that town. We do not hear of the people forced to leave the town while CNN or BBC reports of another attack on the attacked town. But human beings are the same the world over. The refugee from Fallujah is no different from New Orleons or Balkot. The attention given to the South Asian earthquake and news elsewhere, particularly 'democratic' developments elsewhere, is due to difficulties the Americans face in Iraq over the referendum this weekend (October 15).

Pak Lah (1364)   United States (636)   Straits Times (412)   Samy Vellu (224)   Putra Jaya (200)   Chief Justice (200)   Saddam Hussein (188)   Vincent Tan (164)   Civil Service (154)   Parti KeADILan (148)   Islamic State (118)   Johore Bahru (100)   Sungei Buloh (94)   Bukit Tinggi (88)   Abdul Razak (80)   Pengkalen Pasir (68)   Ting Pek (64)   Armed Forces (59)   Soviet Union (58)

Malay Dominance (58)   Yong Teck (56)   Hong Kong (56)   Human Rights (56)   Syed Hamid (54)   Puteri UMNO (52)   Islam Hadhari (52)   Royal Commission (51)   Hussein Onn (51)   Rafidah Aziz (48)   Indian Congress (48)   Open House (44)   Vision Schools (44)   Shah Alam (44)   Malay Unity (42)   Chua Jui (42)   Abdul Taib (42)   Ampang Jaya (36)   Ras Adiba (36)

Osama Bin Laden (36)   Nik Aziz Nik (20)   Ling Liong Sik (18)   Lee Kuan Yew (18)

High Court Judge (14)   Wan Azizah Wan (9)   Lim Kit Siang (9)   Megat Junid Megat (8)

Mahathir (2960)

Anwar (2399)