But it is of use only if it succeeds. The mistake they make is to assume that who they target accept their omnipotence in the Prime Minister's shadow, and are shocked beyond belief when they do not. We not ever know the full story of YTL's "quality asset". I trust Tan Sri Francis Yeoh is thankful, even amidst his trouble, for "this wonderful asset, which we got from Goliath (sic) competition". Meanwhile, it would be politic for Tan Sri Francis to stay clear of Britain while this mess is unravelled.

Dato' Seri Anwar's wife, Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, met senior State Department officials for breakfast at the residence of the US ambassador, Mrs Marie Huhtala to discuss her husband's plight. Mr Powell would have been there but for a request from the visiting Ghaniain president to see him. The Malaysian government would wish Dato' Seri Anwar disappear into the woodwork, as no doubt Pretoria once of Mr Mandela and Britain of the Mahatma. But it cannot now go away. When the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, called on President Bush in the White House, it was made clear to him bilateral ties were linked to the travails of Dato' Seri Anwar. Malaysia can pressure other visiting dignitaries from calling on the Opposition, but it cannot the United States.

The original Great Game was between Great Britain and Imperial Russia. Both suffered horrendous casualties -- in one telling example, all that remained of a 16,000 strong convoy of British men, women and children, from Kabul when it reached Jalalabad was one doctor. The Soviet Union moved into Afghanistan in 1979, fought an unwinnable battle to be its Vietnam. Its plan to modernise the state was stopped by a combination of Muslim fundamentalists backed by the United States. The Russians were forced out.

But those who espouse this war on terror use it to contain secessionist pressures within its borders that has nothing to do with terror: Britain, with its cancerous sore of the IRA; Russia and Chechnya; India and Kashmir; the US and al-Qaeda; Israel and Palestine; China and Tibet; the Philippines and Mindanao, to name a few.

But is that why the non-Malays joined hands with the Malays to negotiate for independence from Britain in 1957?

The US immigration authorities have given their version of what happened. It varies widely from the complaint. So, why did not Malaysian officials investigate before Dato' Seri Abdullah shot his mouth? But it was more important for Malaysia to suggest the two Malaysians were denied entry because they were Muslims. There might be something to it, in the atmosphere of fear and loathing towards Muslims (and any non-Caucasian wearing a turban or beard). And there would be more of such as the US government ties itself in knots over its war on evil. But more than that is the general immigration belief that a man who comes in with no visible means of support would overstay. This is not restricted to US immigration. The British think so of Asians who land in Britain. The Australians of Asians. The Malaysians of South Asians. The Singaporeans of Arabs. And they are all probably right.

So, not surprisingly, my friend, Mr Shamsul Akmar, in his column in the New Straits Times today (16 Feb 2002), demands to know who the ex-minister is. This man, he contends, is a Trojan horse for American interests, and should be exposed. He arrives at this conclusion by way of how Britain established a beachhead in Malaysia by deciding upon Raja Abdullah as the Sultan of Perak from amongst feuding Malay chieftains, and kept Malay in British colonial domination. In other words, no one knows if the ex-minister is guilty, let us pillory him anyway!

At that time, UMNO and every Malay party or group fighting for independence were all wedded to the idea of a Malay Nusantara, its natural leader Indonesia. Which is why UMNO and PAS flags have the same 'merah-putih' design as the Indonesian flag; and why when Singapore left the Malaysian federation, it aligned itself to protection from Singapore against Malaysia, and adopted the merah-putih as its flag. Tengku Abdul Rahman took UMNO apart from this Nusantara view when Britain was prepared to hand over independence to people it could trust to look after its interests afterwards.

Afghanistan has tripped more powerful nations than the United States. Since Alexander the Great conquered parts of it in the 4th century BC, none, including Great Britain and the Soviet Union, could hold on to the country for long. Its history is a continuing tale of ultimate defeat of the foreign conqueror.

Mr Bin Laden forced the United States to attack Afghanistan to remove its government more lethally, though the methods used are the same, as the Soviet Union, raining bombs and anti-personnel sleeper bombs, as in Cambodia, for the killings to go on years after peace comes. He led the US and Great Britain into a quagmire in Afghanistan, in which the new government is aligned not to Washington but to Moscow; only the interim head is pro-Washington. Nothing changed internally but that, as Robert Fisk graphically notes, one set of murderers and warlords represented by the Taliban is replaced by another from the Northern Alliance. The euphoric statements out of Afghanistan these days equalled the euphoric reportage in the Soviet Press in Moscow's presence in Afghanistan two decades earlier.

Unorthodox minds, in the government's view, upset the national agenda: their challenge to orthodoxy could make Malaysia proud, to use a much desired but increasingly unattainable aim. Only those the government chooses should dare win Nobel Prizes and international recognition, did you not know? But without these unorthodox minds, society would not change. Would Malaysia have got its independence if a few unorthodox Malay politicians decided they would not be dictated by distant London to remove the powers and privileges of their Malay rulers, and raised the flag of revolt. Without that, could Tengku Abdul Rahman have declared independence from Britain on the 31st of August 1957? The Tengku, you would recall, was the son of privilege, a playboy prince, uncle of the present Sultan of Kedah, but it was he who led the move to independence. In the view of his successors, no doubt the British was stupid in not reining him!

How Ramadan is marked reflects this sharp political change from an awowedly secular state which got its independence from Britain in 1957 to what it is now. The Malay political elite, given a chance to fashion a state in his own image, missed its chance: it opted for riches and greed without ensuring that the underpinnings of the state was firmly entrenched. The critical look that one came to expect in the early years was silenced. The May 13 racial riots in 1969 was the watershed in which this irrevocably Malay character of Malaysia became dominant. After that, in creative ways to deny the non-Malay his place, Islam came to dominate political thinking within UMNO. And Islam itself became more unforgiving in its application. When it entered the political arena, the non-Malay was faced with both an Malay, and political Islam, dominance. Especially when UMNO, the dominant political party, insists it is more Islamic than the theocratic PAS.

For all the support the United States mustered against the bombing of Afghanistan, curiously only Britain and its colonial staff-sergeant, Australia, committed troops.

For all the support the United States mustered against the bombing of Afghanistan, curiously only Britain and its colonial staff-sergeant, Australia, committed troops.

So, the critical look at the international coalition on terror comes from elsewhere, mostly in Britain. That it was to shore up doubtful support for a president who was, in fact, elected by the courts, becomes clearer by the day.

And so the United States and Britain march merrily, with trumpets blowing, into the quagmire of Afghanistan: For Washington, yet another folly in Asia after Korea and Vietnam; for Britain, her fourth Afghan war.

When Christian nations -- I take it as read that the United States and Great Britain are that -- bomb an already war-ravaged nation into more untold misery, and assuage their conscience by mixing the bombs with food parcels, it is acceptable, so long as the victims are Muslim. That when President Bush and Mr Blair sent in the armada of weapons for testing it on live targets in Afghanistan, they fulfil a Christian duty they would not allow their Muslim targets theirs? Because all I have read and seen in how clean the bombing raids were, that they were to punish a man who destroyed the United States' equanimity by bringing a war in which they have been at the receiving end for decades into the perpatrator's frontyard, that they were done clinically and surgically, that the pilots find it all gungho and very arcade-game like, and the surgical precision with which the strikes take place. We are also told to accept at face value Washington's and London's war aims as told through a propaganda prism.

That shook the British establishment to its roots, shedding blood for Malaysians, even if a former colony: today, all that exists is a toothless Five-Power Defence Arrangement in which the five "powers" -- Malaysia, Singapore, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand -- would consult each other if one is attacked. A far cry from the Nato promise to rush to America's aid in this hour of her vengeance.

No one knows who is behind it, with US commentators and analysts quick to suggest a Muslim fundamentalist like the Saudi Arabian fugitive, Osama ben Laden, be behind this most serious attack on the United States since Great Britain razed Washington in 1812. It is the automatic reaction to any terrorist attack on US soil. When the federal government building in Okhlahama was bombed, the Muslim fundamentalists were blamed before Timoth McVeigh, from a rightist group, was arrested, and executed three months ago.

1:23pm, Mon: Malaysia insists there is press freedom because journalists can interview cabinet ministers. Even the prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, is surrounded by them, unlike in Britain and the US, whose heads of government can only be interviewed, allegedly, from a distance. The inference then is that there is press freedom in Malaysia but not in Britain and the United States.

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)