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 money that makes the world go around. No where is this clear publicly than in the United States, and now Iraq. It is so in other parts of the world, but the world is told it is more important in these two countries. The publicity surrounding the release of Jill Caroll, a Christian Science Monitor reporter, from a Iraqi group, was a piece of good news for the United States in an otherwise bleak Iraq. Both the US government and the Christian Science Monitor was emphatic that no ranson was paid. We are told to believe it, when we know any problem they have is solved by money. Journalists, especially American, are prime candidates for kidnap in Iraq, as it is in Afghanistan, even Pakistan. This is why they stay in their hotel rooms in Iraq, or in the so-called Green Zone, where the US and its allies are coccooned in apparent safety. To show that Iraq is in control, people like the US secretary of state Condileeza Rice and British foreign secretary Jack Straw visit Iraq often to show that all is well.

We live in an age of public relations. What the spin meisters say is more important than what is. This is true for Malaysia as it is for the United States. What happened is not important, what the spin meister says is. The United States went to war in Iraq on a lie. But the world is told by the United States the lies do not matter, what was important is that Saddam is gone. In the runup to destroying Iraq, the United States let out that if Iraq continued to be ruled by Saddam it was a disaster for the United States. But is the United States more in more danger after Iraq had been destroyed? American proxies are now in power in Baghdad, those who govern cannot leave the former Saddam administrative centre, the so-called Green Zone, without being armed to the teeth, they do not travel to the countryside, except rarely but only if they watch their step.

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 insurgency in Iraq is fuelled by the Sunnis, of whom Saddam Hussein remains a leader. The bulk of the insurgency is a Sunni reaction to the United States providing the legal mechanism to ensure the Shiias are in power in a land the British had ensured Sunni dominance more than 80 years ago. The last prime minister before the Baathists took over was a Sunni under British overlordship dressed himself in women's clothers when he was killed the crowd. Saddam was the fourth leader after that, and had remained in office from the early 1970s until his overthrow. The Americans were more interested in having Saddam under its control than seeing him dead. CNN is still showing pictures taken at the time of his arrest of soldiers peering into his mouth. US attempts to humiliate Saddam has fallen flat. Saddam, the street fighter, has taken over, and made mincemeat of his prosecution. There will always be a feeling that his trial in Baghdad was flawed.

THE UNITED STATES IS losing badly in Iraq. It does not release news of any kind from there. In the past, before the reality struck in, one could not escape from Iraq, which it saw as evidence it is winning, whatever that means, the war. The government there is bothered about bird flu, as if that is the most important thing amid the mayhem the US has caused, is causing, in that country since it invaded it in 2003. The citizens have become the insurgents, and more join them daily as they see their life more hopeless day by day. There is the occasional talk from Washington of cutting down troops, but the aim of the invasion, based on false reasons like Iraq's nuclear capabilities, was to set up a permanent base in the Middle Eat in Iraq. That alone will make sure the continued insurgency. The Sunnis, in power since 1920, accepts that it will never rule Iraq again, so it will destroy the country, probably more viciously, than the US armed forces have done.

SADDAM HUSSEIN IN THE dock challenges the United States and its plans to make Iraq in its image and get at the second largest oil reserves known, after Saudi Arabia. He is on trial for his life, orchestrated by the US. He is in their custody. It decides when or how the trial will be held. The US must censor the trial reports and photographs before it can be published. He has too many supporters in present day Iraq, and they should not ever know he is putting up a fight. But Saddam Hussein in the dock is so threatening that witnesses give their evidence behind a screen; the judges and the prosecution can see them but not the defence. The trial of Saddam Hussein and his men is holding to ranson the US invasion of Iraq. The trial was decided to be in Iraq. The US made his first mistake when it charged him with minor offences, when they should have charged him and his men for the offense they have kept to the last. It did not know what it was doing, allowed Saddam Hussein to take charge. CNN and other television reports that the people of Iraq are not convinced. The judges, who except for the chief judge are kept hidden, can pronounce only death, the sooner the better. If he is acquitted in his first trial, the US is more on the defensive. It cannot afford that. Saddam Hussein has said he would expect the death sentence, and prepared for that. An Arab ruler expects to be killed if he loses or is overthrown. But he is arrested by an invading army, which did not know what to do once it had Iraq. The Invasion was done for false reasons. There was a rush to claim credit for the invasion, and the officials in Washington and their proconsul in Iraq did not agree what to do next. The decision was taken to create a government from start, with lthe Sunnis, who have ruled since the 1920s, excluded. the Sunnis saw the writing on the wall, decided they would never rule again, went against the US, and the country is in chaos.

The CIA sending those it arrests to secret prisons is an election issue in the United States. It has become one purely because the US has broken all rules of government by making foreign politicians responsible for acts that were not illegal in office. Now it puts the US answerable. The war in Iraq brought this out. A wise general plans how to get out before planning an invasion. The reasons for the invasion of Iraq and the unseating of Saddam Hussein were false. The US did not want Iraq under Saddam Hussein to be an exemplar in the Middle East. Iraq was invaded because the world was told it was an ally of al-Qaeda. It is now, and admitted by the US that the invasion made sure of that. It had no policy except it wanted to control Iraq's oil, second largest reserve known. The insurgents, former rulers, having decided they will never rule Iraq again, will not allow any one else. It is a dangerous position for the US to be in, now matter how many CIA plants it brings into the government. It has turned a secular government into a racial and religious one and divided the country into minorities. The Kurds want a government of their own, their price for joining the anti-Saddam band wagon. The secularists, from the three racial minorities in Iraq, do not matter. The invasion has ensured Iraq will be religious and racial in the end. Mr Ayad Allawi, a secular Shia former prime minister, was beaten with shoes, a particular insult, when he visited Najaf shrine. He hopes to play an important role after the elections next week. The US thinks he can. The CIA thinks he can. But can he?

THE MESS IN Iraq today would not have happened if the United States had planned before Iraq was invaded. Their plans were of quislings, who were not given positions in the Iraqi government unless they held Western citizenship. In Australia, its citizens could not be in politics if they held dual citizenships. In Iraq, that was a necessity. Iraq had a working government, but that was destroyed for no reason than no planning. No one could be in the new government who held a Baathist Party membership. That restriction threw the experienced Sunnis out of the new Iraq. It was a precipe for disaster. The United States and those who followed it depended on quislings who had an agenda of their own, and who told lies without batting an eyelid. The United States was sucked into a quagmire. The Sunnis created an insurgency, knowing it would not be ruling power, and had no interest in a new Iraq. It got fighters from the Middle East, those who could not go back to their countries after fighting for the United States in Afghanistan against Russia. Osama bin Laden. a wealthy Saudi Arabian who is not allowed back, was, after all, once a CIA agent. So was Saddam Hussein, whose trial makes him a great figure in the Middle East each time the trial fumbles. And it has fumbled more often than not. The United States wants to hang him for what he did as a head of state. All his arguments are waved aside. They created a law that did not exist when he ordered the killing as head of state. The United States had, after all, supported Augustino Pinochet as president of Chile, and turned a blind eye when he allegedly committed the offenses for which he is now found guilty. The killings were done with United States connivance, in Iraq and Chile. The new circumstance in Iraq meant he would have to be killed.

The MMS clip showed that the police is doing the right thing, that what happenedd in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is normal in Malaysia, that the police here do routinely what the American military does to it prisoners in Iraq. The American military has justified stripping suspects it arrested, and the Malaysian police has justified its standing orders to humiliate anyone in its hands. The members of parliament are surprised and shocked when shown the MMS videoclip in Parliament house two days ago. They are angry, because the MMS videoclip makes them responsible, and responsibility is not what they were elected for. They say what they do not mean, and stay away from the one issue that caused it. But they cannot this time. No body talks of the Malay dominance - ketuanan Melayu - that caused it. It allows the government and civil servant to ignore the procedures if they carry out this hidden political role. It is this role that allows the police officer to do as he liked. He knows full well that he would be protected. The cabinet can only advise a policeman not to sue a non-Malay student for a complaint against him to the relevant authority. The policeman can do as he likes, and his superior, unless he is a non-Malay, is not punished. When that is the norm, then telling a woman to strip and do the ear squat will not be punished. No amount of soothing talk to the contrary will change that.

Today we face the Mahabharata in its modern form. What is invented today is a re-invention of what had been the norm in Atlantis so many thousand years ago. But there is a twist in the modern Atlantis. It can get its version out only by hoodwinking its people and others. The fight in the United States over Iraq is more vicious because of the public relations specialists. The journalists have been coopted, and they are angry. The public discussion of the Plame Affair and the role of journalists in the lack weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a sideshow to the real issue: the invasion of Iraq. It is being orchestrated by a new breed of specialist in public relations called perception management experts. The aim is to tell lies to the public. The Bay of Tonkin incident which caused the United States to be an active participant in the Vietnam War was found years later to be a lie. The weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is found to be a lie within a few years because of the presence of public relations experts. The inherent lies are found out sooner today because the truth is managed by public relations experts. The modern Mahabharatha is between Islam and the United States in which Islam represents the Rishi Kings and the United States Atlantis. It need not be said that the Rishi Kings won.

THE RIOTS IN FRANCE, of which there is much in television these days, has paralysed not just France and the Western world. I have yet to hear the argument that Muslim youths rioted as digits of the global war on terror against Islam. It may not be, and it could be just the reasons the French have so far given. But one cannot escape from the reason that is not stated. France did send troops to Iraq after the American invasion, as did many other countries, including Germany, to help the coalition forces. The Muslims score a victory in France. It tells the world that any country which helps the coalition forces and have a Muslim population can expect a retaliation. The Muslim youths throughout France had committed havoc in two weeks of rioting. The French government, like the British, have taken harsh measures against them. But will it stop the rioting? When the Muslim youths find it convenient to add the anti-Islam attitude to their list of grievances? The rest of Europe had better watch out. The European Union's rejection of Turkey is a hot potato but wrong for two reasons. One it should not have considered Turkey for membership. The European Union is a Christian grouping. It should have remained so. Turkey has applied for membership of the EU for domestic reasons. It should not have.

THE FURORE OVER AN ambassador's memoir is creating a scene in London. Sir Christopher Meyers had submitted his draft of DC Confidential, to be vetted, as Sir Jeremy Greenstock's was. Sir Jeremy was head of the British delegation to the UN and took part in the runup to the war in Iraq, and is now in Iraq. It was made clear that Sir Jeremy's account was not what he would write; the book was published with parts removed. But Sir Charles' memoir has hit the ceiling. Not that, apparently, what he said was wrong but that his book contained descriptions of cabinet ministers that would reduce their public view of them. Sir Michael Jay, head of the British foreign service, has taken the unusual stance of telling British ambassadors in a private note that they should not write anything that will damn British policy. The memoir it seems has set back British policy. The British foreign secretary, Mr Jack Straw, has called for Sir Charles' removal as chairman of the Press Protection Council. But his colleagues in the Foreign Office saw nothing wrong with what he wrote. They took bits of Sir Jeremy's book because they said it would damage relations with foreign countries. They did not with Sir Charles' book. Either they have lost, like many in Britain today, confidence in the Labour Government, or they have taken a step further and tie the Labour Government in knots. Even the civil servants could not follow government policies.

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.

AL-QAEDA SUICIDE BOMBERS ARE blamed for bombing three Amman hotels. Abu Musab Al-Zarkawi, who is believed to be dead, is the agent directly responsible, the television news and talk shows try desperately to inform the world that this bombings are the trade mark of Al-Qaeda. There is great effort to blame Al-Qaeda for the bombing although there is no hard evidence. But the United States and others have decided that Al-Qaeda is responsible. And that gets world wide play. But is it? Jordan is a soft target who could cause mayhem in the West's war on terror. Iraq is to the left of it, Syria to the north, Israel to the East. It need not be Al-Qaeda or the believed dead Al-Zarkawi, it could be any of the myriad of countries and organisations that could be responsibe. It could also be the West, which is why the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which we are told can investigate it, is rushing to Amman to aid the Jordanian authorities. But is the FBI going there as the Australian police authorities are going to Bali to help the Indonesian authorities investigate the bombing in Bali: to remove the evidence of their involvement?

There is an upsurge of people fighting against authority for violating the law. The government and civil servants realise this for they have taken as their authority 'the people' in setting things right when they are highlighted. When things are done in secret, they go wrong, and those at the helm take matters in their own hands. We see it the world over. President Bush is in trouble over the war in Iraq. He withdrew the nomination of a Supreme Court justice because his own Republicans and the extreme right rebelled. Prime Minister Blair in Britain is in the same boat, over the war in Iraq, and the people are angry. In his watch, the police not only use guns but shoot to kill. He has turned right, and could well face the fate of the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay McDonald, the father of Malcolm (and so well versed with Indian independence that when he visited Chennai in the 1920s, he was told by an Indian that he thought his name was an anglicised form of Ramaswamy Macdonald!) The people are on the march against authority, especially when they are asked to pay more so that business men friendly to the government can fatten their bank balaces.

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.

A BAD PEACE IS EVEN WORSE THAN WAR, said Tacitus, about the Roman conquest of Britain. He also quoted the British chieftain Calgacus tell his troops about Rome's insatiable desire for conquest and plunder and to 'savage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; they make a devastation, and call it peace." He wrote this 2,000 years ago but it refers to the United States as well, now. Mr Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary and one of those who hurtled into the war in Iraq without an exit plan, said the United States was more powerful than Rome. The United States behaved now as the Romans then. And like the Romans, the United States are left wondering where they went wrong. It is perhaps trite to suggest now that you do not go to war with an adjective, but that is what the war on terror is all about. The United States did not want to sound racist, so the war against Muslims quickly became the war on terror. It invaded Iraq because of oil. It is a Muslim nation, so the adjective made sense in Washington. Its reasons at invading Iraq has proven false. There were no weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq had no nuclear plan. That it had both was why it officially invaded the country. It displaced the Sunnis and Baath party members from power, and put Saddam Hussein on trial. It had no plans other than ensure that the Sunnis and the Baathist Party did not rule. But in deciding that, it made sure that Iraq was not a oil producing state anymore, but a fourth world state which was like Vietnam in the 1960s. It war on terror made sure that all Sunnis world wide were targetted. In the Middle East, the Sunni sect of Islam dominated, and the Arab street was with the Iraqi, who did not like his country to be ruled by an invader, which the United States is. The coalition it has cobbled is a smokescreen, to make other countries join it in this war on terror. It went on an information war to regard those supported the Iraqis as foreign insurgents, as if they are not foreigners. The referendum on the American-drafted constitution may yet pass, but the insurgency would not end.

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)