The reports are for the leaders. In the West, and the Third World. We have quickly learnt to forget that the Western news organisations are all for President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and, lest we forget, Prime Minister John Howard, to go into Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein once and for all. That UK and Australia are US poodles does not Matter; the poodle barks louder than the master. So the chancelleries in the US, UK and Australia found reasons to invade Iraq, and it is the news organisations now that is pointing out that the reasons were false or non-existent, for the news organisations are now being questioned why they supported their political masters then. But Iraq is a nuclear-bombed country, and could be just another Lebanon in its politics. But is the Western news organisations interested? It has the South Asian earthquake, the Liberian elections or the former South African president charged for corruption to bother. That is the problem with the Western news organisations. They are as embedded with authority as their Third World counterparts. They have an agenda, like the Third World news organisations. And they are both owned by the corporate organisations or those friendly with those in power. Who is calling in the kettle black? The Pakistan Prime Minister, Mr Shaukat Aziz. complains in BBC to complain of the coverage of the Pakistani suffering in much the same fashion as President Bush complains of the coverage in Iraq. This is made possible by globalisation, it is true, but globalisation also tells us that governments and people are the same all over the world. The people in authority like to hide that while milking for all it is worth by another aspect of people all over the world, the aspect of giving what they can afford, and of governments and people all over the world who are the same.

PAK LAH HAS NOT RESHUFFLED his cabinet since he took office in 2003. He had said the cabinet ministers are appointed by the King and loss of positions, or rejection, by the party is irrelevant and is no cause to resign from his cabinet. He leaves it to the good sense of ministers to resign. He has extended this to deputy ministers, and applied this rules to parties other than UMNO in the National Front. It is a sign there is one rule for the rulers and one for the ruled. But there is another reason. His cabinet is composed of warlords, in UMNO or other members of the National Front. Two warlords have refused to resign. The UMNO wanita leader, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, has refused to resign after her role in issuing APs became a national scandal. Pak Lah dared not ask her to resign, for fear that Datin Seri Rafidah would point out the APs given to his relatives and supporters. She gave APs to Pak Lah's relatives and supporters to secure her position in the Pak Lah cabinet. Pak Lah had to shut up, and the cabinet had ordered her to answer the APs Matter in parliament. Newspapers, which once were against her now eat out of her hand. If she were sacked, she could go into the opposition in UMNO against Pak Lah. This is the reason why he has not reshuffled his cabinet. The warlords may go into the opposition to him. Dato' Isa Samad, the federal territories minister, is a warlord from Negri Sembilan. He was ousted from Negri Sembilan at the behest of Pak Lah's son-in-law, and UMNO obliged. But it is not that easy. Now the UMNO Supreme Council, headed by Pak Lah, has confirmend it. Dato' Isa comes from Linggi, where Adat Temenggong rules. By removing Dato' Isa from the cabinet, Pak Lah will have removed the Adat Temenggong and that could be disasterous in the 2007 UMNO presidential elections. Pak Lah does not have any moral scruples in this Matter, and that is why his opponents are in strong position in UMNO.

Datin Seri Rafidah had a much publicised meeting with Tun Mahathir after the AP problem was aired in public. She was adamant she did not apologise to Tun Mahathir. But in what language did she speak with Tun Mahathir? They would have spoken in Malay, as he would normally to a Malay. 'Minta maaf' in Malay means more than a mere apology; the words have cultural connotations. One apologies all the time when speaking in Malay. Was Datin Seri Rafidah speaking to the non-Malay press when she said she did not apologise to Tun Mahathir? Or was she painting herself as an non-Malay in wriggling out of the problem? Tun Mahathir is older to her, and 'minta maaf' is normal for a younger person to an older. She would improve her argument in this Matter if she tells the language she spoke in when she spoke to Tun Mahathir?

The US says, in effect, that it alone has the right to kill Iraqis – and 40 years ago, Vietnamese. It was nationalism that defeated them in Vietnam; the war was lost when its chief enemy, Ho Chi Minh, died mid-way through it. As far as the Vietnamese were concerned, the US were fighting a dead man, and could never win. The reaction is different among the US and its foreign troops, on the one hand, and the Vietcong, Vietnam, North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese, on other. Similarly, in Iraq. The inforMation is in the hands of the US, but the war, as in Vietnam, is in the hands of the "enemy". It was nationalism that drove the Vietnam war; it is nationalism and religion that drives the Iraq war. Islam is on the defensive because the West has targetted it as the enemy. Those living in Muslim countries find they are targetted by immigration officers in the West. In Malaysia, the a/l and a/p (for 'son of' and 'daughter of' is removed from the passpost of Indians in Malaysia because computerisation does not allow the back slash in computer searches, and the al that comes out is often viewed by immigration officers as belonging to Arabs. I have been told by immigration officers that 'al Gopal Pillai' is a strange Arab name. It is, for it belongs to an Indian. So I will get my passport with an additional name. But it does not get over the fact that Islam and Muslim countries are targetted. The loss is the West's, as well as the Muslim countries. Schools are closing down in the United States because its embassies are reluctant to give visas to Muslims, and more important, Muslims do not want to go through the hassle of getting a visa. At the personal level, it works both ways. But as Tun Mahathir has put it succinctly elsewhere the West has taken Islam for an enemy.

THIS IS THE INFORMatION war. Lance Price, who has published a book of his role in lying to journalists in Great Britain under Tony Blair, said he routinely lied to journalists and the press on Tony Blair and his government. Those of the journalists who knew them as lies were immediately dubbed "conspiracy theorists", as I was for my piece yesterday (04 October 2005). It is conspiracy theory in 1965 to say that Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong would win. But not ten years later. But journalists take the line of least resistance, and write what they are told. John Kenneth Galbraith summed it well years ago: "The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking." We are not allowed to question what we are told. The United States do not want us to think too deeply on Iraq. It was Gen. Tommy Franks who told us that the United States do not 'do body counts'. But it is the United States which does so, to tell the world it is winning the war in Iraq and the war on Islamic terror. But it forgets one very important facet of life among the insurgents: they do not like their country to be invaded, they will do anything to drive out the invader at much cost, they will get foreigners to support it as the United States will only after armtwisting. It tells us, daily, of how it is winning the war, and it cannot tell that without telling us of how many insurgents they have killed, how many Iraqis they have misplaced, how many cities they have displaced. They spin the story around, and we lap it unquestioningly, that the United States is winning the war in Iraq. And the only way it can tell the world that 'good' news is by telling us how many Iraqis, insurgents and locals, they have displaced or killed.

The war in Iraq is an inforMation battle. The collapse of the two towers in Iraq is blamed on the Moslems, but, as we learn, how why were the Jews and others moving away from the twin towers a week before the attack? They knew something the rest of the world did not. In Britain, an Algerian pilot is arrested while he is resting from a regular flight because his name mistakenly appears in the American records on the 9/11 disaster. But it is the West that controls the inforMation. So it thinks. But the people around the world, Muslims and others, see a West cracking up, plugging inforMation hole after another, to see that its press releases get pride of place around the world. But education is a great leveller, and the great unwashed are mostly educated, though not in Western universities, and certainly not in the Western tradition, and they think for themselves. The Al Jazeera reporter in Spain is jailed for interviewing Osama bin Laden. It puts out a dangerous signal for Western media reporters, especially if they are caught by the insurgents. It is a de facto statement that the Western reporters are bedded with the Western governments all over the world. I have always had a suspecion this is true, but the Western governments, by its action, confirms it.

TUN MAHATHIR GOT IT RIGHT. He did not apportion blame on the Bali bombings to Al Queda or the Jemayah Islamiyah or to other Muslim groups. But the ease with which both these organisations were blamed, and that this has been on the news particularly round-the- clock ever since the bombings last week, and the defensive posture of the Indonesian government followed by the British blaming the Australians for not letting it know of its 'early warning' to Australian revellers in Bali, and the constant berating of those who would listen that Al-Qaeda was involved, suggests something has gone wrong. The Western governments, or its intelligence agencies, are behind it, and keep at it because the people on the ground in Indonesia and elsewhere do not believe the events in Bali last week. The United States (and Australia, among others) created incidents in South Vietnam in the 1960s, blaming it on the Vietcong. There is no unanimity among Western reporters that Al Qaeda was involved, Jason Burke of the Guardian thought that Al Qaeda could not be involved, and the discordant voices in the Western media is Matched by the ordinary people around the world, Muslim or otherwise, having doubts on the official story of the Bali bombing.

UMNO, or the UMNO Baru today, is not the nationalist political organisation that brought this country independence. UMNO that brought this country independence died in 1987, by court order, and in its place rose UMNO Baru. That UMNO Baru is formed is orchestrated by leaders of the old UMNO who led UMNO Baru. They were still in power, and they ordered the registrar of societies to declare Tengku Abdul Rahman's request for UMNO to be re-registered. He had filed the application several days earlier, but it was Tun Mahathir's UMNO Baru that was registered. As it happened, the founder of UMNO, Dato' Onn bin Jaffar, and the first UMNO president of Malaysia, and his son, the fourth president and third Malaysian prime minister, went to their graves without joining UMNO Baru. The flag of UMNO Baru is of different dimensions than of UMNO, but at first sight, they seem similar. In the Johore Bahru byelection, when UMNO Baru warlord, Dato' Shahrir Samad, stood as an independent but with strong support of the old UMNO adherents, the present Prime Minister, Pak Lah, told me at that time that when the two processions met at the crossroads before the nomination station in Johore Bahru, tears came to his eyes, for he saw two UMNO processsions where the two parties had met. It goes without saying that it was the independent who won. It is UMNO the political party that rules, and Dato' Shahir joined the party afterwards, and remains in Parliament as UMNO Baru MP. The question asked by diploMats and even UMNO bigwigs and members is whether Pak Lah would be challenged. I think he would, Dato' Shahrir Samad being the last minute candidate if the other warlords decide not to. Pak Lah is UMNO Baru president held hostage by UMNO warlords, which is why he has not sacked from his cabinet the two warlords - Dato' Isa Samad, found guilty of money politics; and Datin (or rather as she would prefer to be called, Dato') Rafidah, who was guilty of giving her son-in-law a monthly wage of about Rm 1.5 million by giving him sufficient APs. (It is said, and not in jest, that she should be known as Rafidah AP Aziz). But both will not resign from the cabinet and neither will they be sacked. They hold enormous power in their areas of strength, Isa in the Linggi area and possibly Malacca; and Datin Rafidah, in the Kuala Kangsar area that she is MP of. Fearing that either or both would go to those opposed to Pak Lah in UMNO is why they both remain in the cabinet.

Tun Mahathir spoke what was happening in the world, but it was not what Western diploMatics, including the EU representatives and the British ambassador, wanted to hear. They walked out. Earlier, the NGOs, which prescribe their narrow points of view on rest of the world but not in their eventual countries of origin, protested Tun Mahathir's human rights record before the event, and most boycotted the event. As they would. They thought that their protests would stop Tun Mahathir, so the Western diploMats would not have to walk out. I fault Tun Mahathir on a lot of things, but speaking what is right, especially of Matters Islamic and the Middle East, is not one of them. He is part of what is wrong with UMNO's rule of Malaysia, but his role in the larger picture was ignored until he resigned as Prime Minister after 22 years. Today, he is ignored at home, the changes at Proton, where he is adviser, took place without his knowledge, as he himself, had admitted, but his comments on wold topics are eagerly awaited. He is, like Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a Prime Minister was not educated in England. He is the best example of an UMNO leader who could throw fear into Western eyes in what he says, as the human rights talk last Friday revealed.

Now it is turn of the US to sink in a quagmire of its own making; the very promise it gave the Iraqis when it invaded, proved to be false. Its grip on the country slips by the minute. The War on Terror terrorises it, though it is not viewed as such because it controls the war through its media and deliberate official control of inforMation that seeps through. So its chief, President Bush, to the military commanders on the ground, from politicians and right wink think tanks, all praise the successes in Iraq. No one believes it. Least of all the Iraqis, and the rest of the Middle East. The leaders of the American run Iraq hold American or British or other Western citizenship, who had left Iraq because they could not stand the heat. The elections are yet seen as another US ploy to retain power through indirect means. Saddam Hussein, who had ruled the country since 1969 and never allowed religious differences to surface as it has under the American, and was was careful to align himself with the Arab Muslim, will soon go on trial for acts of state. will soon face trial for keeping the Kurds and Shia leaders more than 20 years ago. The US-appointed president, Jalal Talibani, a Kurd who has lived in the US and holds a US passport, has already said he is against the death penalty, and would leave it to the vice-president whether to allow it or not. This is an ideal cop out. Last week, the Iraqi regime hanged three thiefs, on the vice-president's say so. Meanwhile, the US has announced no plans for rebuilding Iraq it had first destroyed, and is destroying, while it annouces further plans to extend its control the Middle East by threatening to destroy all countries in the region which does not accept its view that it must control the Middle East.

The minister of international trade and industry and UMNO women's wing president, Datin Serii Rafidah Aziz is the next cabinet minister proven corrupt. The mainstream newspapers and mainstream TV media have confirmed it. Which means it is true. There are other stories of cabinet ministers and others corrupt, but if the alternate media write about it, then the laws of defaMation apply, and they are stopped in their tracks. One UMNO leader has said he would have sued a mainstream journalist, but would not since that fellow does not have money. In other words, money is used to bankrupt the fellow. If one the other hand, an alterate journalist seems to be winning or gets a fairer corum of jiudges, on appeal, then the case is delayed as long as possible. The cynicism extends to UMNO members who are used to defame opposition figures. They are dropped and they are not supported in court or are not helped with the amount ordered by the courts to be paid to the opposition figure. So, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, like the warlord before here in the cabinet, Tan Seri Isa Samad, is banned from UMNO for corruption but will not resign nor be sacked from the Pak Lah cabinet. The Prime Minister sacks from his cabinet only those who defy him personally: Tun Ghazali Shafie, Dato' Shahrir Samad and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, all by the then Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed.

UMNO, in power since 1955 - two years before independence, has had to alter its tactics over the years by PAS and the extreme conservatism of the Malay hinterland. The other races do not Matter, though they represent 35 per cent of the population of 20 million. People in Sabah and Sarawak, mostly Christians and animists, suddenly found they were in the minority although they form the majority in that part of Malaysia which is larger than the peninsula. Malaysian military officials have no concept of Sabah and Sarawak as part of Malaysia, as I found in their papers during my years as a lecturer at the Ministry of Defence, and it is UMNO which governs in the state of Sarawak. There was an agreement solemnly signed by the Malayan government and the governments of Sarawak and Sabah before their accession to Malaya to form Malaysia. The fact that only Muslims can be yang di-pertuan negaras in what is largely a Christian and animists rankles. Sarawak and Sabah would secede, if they are allowed to under the constitution. One third of parliament is to have come from Sabah and Sarawak, but that is in the document not in practice.

THE ROYAL MALAYSIA POLICE is up in arms about a crime committed. To make sure that it means business, it informs the press. There is only one problem with it: the story is false. But falsity about anything Matters little with the press, particularly the New Straits Times. There is before the RMP a slew of police reports – about cabinet ministers and their corruption, with assorted proof – that the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim had filed for which the judge who sentenced him in the sham trial and for which he has since been acquitted by the federal court has now been appointed to that bench – which the RMP takes no notice of. But it jumps at this report that Tun Ghazali Shafie, former foreign and interior minister, has been cheated by his former personal assisant. I did ask the Tun when he was in hospital recently about the state of his dispute with him former secretary, who has not returned him documents in her care, which he said he valued more than the "baubles" in her care, which his former driver told the police about, and which the New Straits Times reported in wrongful detail a few days later. The point is he Tun Ghazali did not make any police report, he had long ruled it out in this dispute with his former secretary, who is closer to his wife, from whom he is estranged.

The PAS change took place peacefully. The press, radio and television reported it, hoping against hope as the muktamar wound its way to its close for the fireworks would make it worth their while. And got more media coverage than it would have otherwise. But PAS leaders had decided that unless it made its message acceptable to both Malays and non-Malays they cannot hope to attain power except by accident. They succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. And got the best press coverage it had had in decades. For at the end of the muktamar, PAS emerged into the mainstream of Malaysian politics firmly as never before, and locked horns with UMNO for Malay support and, ultiMately, leadership. It accepted the principle that politics is the art of the possible, and invited the jailed former deputy prime minister and UMNO deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, to lead an opposition coalition in the next general election, and even called for a royal pardon without which he could well have to sit out the next general election.

Not now. The failure of government policies, the BN political arrogance, the irreparable split in UMNO, the divide that separates the leaders from the members have led to those in public office ignoring that they represent a multiracial government and opt for a radical racial and religious platform. This is so blatant this year that the deputy minister in the prime minister publicly called for a ban on all entertainment during Muslim prayer times. This he said has been policy and he was making it known to a wider public. There has been no response – to be fair, that response would come only when reporters ask questions, but in Matters of Islam, few would dare – from either the prime minister or deputy prime minister, the non-Malay coalition partners in the BN or even the non-Muslim religious leaders. The most charitable explanation I have heard is that what is said is for political reasons and should not be taken seriously.

WHEN MUSLIMS ARE AT prayer, five times a day, all entertainment at those times – on radio, television, on stage, in night clubs, restaurants and elsewhere – must stop. Men and women at these places must be segregated at all times. The deputy minister in the prime minister's department, Dr Abdullah Mohamed Zin, says the Islamic development department's new rules demands it. It does not Matter if they are Muslims or non-Muslims, or if no Muslims are in the audience. It is a blanket rule all must agree, or face the consequences. The non-Malay and non-Muslim parties in the National Front (BN) did not object; the head of non-Muslim religions were not consulted. It sets religious freedom a step backward. The non-Malay parties in BN and non-Muslim religious heads and bodies kept a shocking silence.

The spin on the royal commission report ignores the police shortcomings, ignoring what the police force is for. A man is arrested in a crackdown on illegal immigrants and foreign workers. A Nepali, Mangal Bahadur Gurung, is caught. He has on him photostat copies of his documents. He does not speak Malay. He is in the company of those who did not have official papers. The super efficient police, we are told, could not find out that he had a valid work permit but had on him photostat copies of his documents, did not speak Malay, in fact made him confess the is an illegal – despite one speaking only Malay, the other only Nepali with a sMattering of pidgin Malay, rendering both questions and answers mutually incomprehensible – which the super-efficient attorney-general's chambers echoed to charge him.

He justified the attack on Dr Mahathir by insisting that what he said were all contained in the statutory declaration he made in connexion with his numerous trials for corruption and sodomy, that it was then he should have sued not now. That is not the issue. Dr Mahathir brilliantly waylaid him and had him tangled in knots so tight that he lost whatever advantage he could have gained from the interview. He brought down Anwar to earth as deliberately and conclusively as Anwar brought Mahathir to earth in 1998. Nothing Anwar does overseas now Matters for he has first to fight his battles in Malaysia. Especially since this episode has caused him to lose ground here.

So he lost several good opportunities to even the score. The former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, is unnecessarily tetchy and cries foul of Anwar restating his sworn affidavit during his trials that that the old man is corrupt. He kept quiet then. Lying in a statutory declaration can land one in jail for seven years. Why does he raise it now? The last thing the good doctor wants in his retirement to return to a public confrontation with his former protege in a cliMate he cannot control, in Malaysia or the United Kingdom, where any trial would have to take place.

For national service training is to BN's benefit. It is the brainchild of Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye, that once well-regarded DAP MP who exchanged principle for untold wealth and BN cronydom. He argued for national service, with weapons training. His good friend, the deputy prime minister, or rather his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, thought it a good idea. It was accepted with alacrity, and rushed through. It is an ill-kept secret that the good lady – and, lest we forget, Tan Sri Lee – has a decent share in providing uniforms and other necessities for the national service trainees. The cronies of the establishment got into the act for there was RM800 million to go around every year. If you look closely at its suppliers, you could trace it to UMNO leaders and satraps and, occasionally, other BN leaders. Its finances are secret. The latest budget estiMates do not provide for this RM800 million. When asked about it in Parliament, it was blithely told it is there somewhere. If it is a recurrent annual expenditure, it should be stated clearly. But it would not: its escalating finances must be kept secret.

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