It is made the worse in this ubiquitous war on terror, in which Islam is the enemy. It is not, we are told relentlessly in the globalised television that we are all addicted to. Islam is not the enemy. Nor are Muslims. But you understand, there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. The Muslims do not accept this definition, that it is the Judae Christian principles imposed on them selectively and by Orientalists who insist the world should only accept Islam and Muslims within their narrow definitions. What this tells you is that if a Muslim challenges the might of Judae Christian civilisation, as Osama Bin Laden did, then it is Islam that must be blamed. If a Muslim cuts off the head of an American, it is proof yet again of islam's backwardness; if a Judae Christian soldier leads an naked Iraqi prisoner on a leash or gets several to perform unnatural acts, it is the individual soldier who must be responsible, not the civilisation he or she comes from.

Let us look at the state of play in South Asia at the turn of the millennium. Washington shifted its support from Islamabad to New Delhi, forcing Pakistan leaders to justify what it was once taken for granted. Afghanistan was firmly in Western hands, the last victory of the Cold War, the Taliban, supported no doubt at Washington's request but which it continued after the war. The rise of the Muslim parties threw Washington's goodwill in Islamabad at risk. The destruction of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001 changed the confrontational world view from the Soviet Union and communism to Islam and Osama Bin Laden. But on the basis of what is known, or rather published, it does appear that Dr Khan's activities could not have gone the way it did if it was not approved. The Pakistan armed forces is in control of its nuclear weapons programme. It would not allow a rogue scientist of even national acclaim to do what Dr Khan did. It did not. He was forced to take the blame, but for one who, if the charges against him are true, is guilty of treason is let off with a light slap on his wrist. There is more to it than meets the eye. Dr Khan could not have sold his wares to North Korea without official authority, even if it is for the money it would bring in.

A case is built on British and US paranoia, this fear that Islamic militants and rulers they trained and paid to destroy the Soviet Union, could bite the hand that fed them. So Afghanistan is invaded. Iraq is invaded. The Muslim world is thrown awry. Washington and London seek a common link amongst especially Muslim countries who disagree with their plans to control the world and its oil. All it has done is to put all nations it regards as potential enemies at edge and, under pressure, agree with its global agenda; but with a citizenry hostile to the very idea. Neither Washington nor London understand the enemy they fight, but they are sure they can be contained. They believe that their enemies operate as they do, with computer graphs, long-term plans, detailed war plans, contingency planning, when as tribal societies, they dance to a different beat, linked only by a common enemy and sense of injustice, often working independently and without a central direction. When the dust clears, it could well be while Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network took the blame for blowing up the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001, an offshoot planned and executed it independently. But in the Western mind, that is impossible.

How did Washington get into this mess? Panic set in on the 11 September 2001 attacks on its financial and military nerve centres and - if the fourth plane had hits its target - the political centre, the White House. Every move at the time suggested it did not or could not think through. In confusion and fright, it insisted upon a policy of putting the Muslim in his place. But it did not know how to. It showed. It decided it was the Al-Qaeda network of its once-favourite terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, and waged war in Afghanistan to teach him a lesson. It threw out the Taliban government in Kabul, installed an American citizen, Mr Hamid Karzai, as president and worked to turn Afghanistan into an American conclave. it does not understand the dynamics of Afghanistan. The superficial peace one is told Afghanistan is, is the quiet before the storm that must come. So in Iraq. Its first choice as Iraq's new leader, after the fall of Saddam, is another citizen, Mr Ahmad Chalabi. Washington wants to micromanage every aspect of life underf its control, only to lose sight of what it aims for. But at least it is in Afghanistan as an intervener in a local dispute, as in Vietnam, and therefore could bring the international community with it. It could not for its unilateral military invasion of Iraq. When it needs help, it is the enemy which gets it.

THERE IS MO MISTAKE ABOUT THE Election Commission's impartiality. It is as impartial as the United States' promise of a fair trial for Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein if and when they are caught. The EC will deal only with UMNO, not even the National Front (BN), certainly not the non-BN parties. The Opposition parties are there to tell the world Malaysia is democratic and, incidentally, provide post-retirement sinecures for the EC commissioners. In practice it is anything but. Its chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, is clear on this: the Constitution does not require neither him nor the EC to be impartial. He is appointed not by the government of the day but by the Yang Dipertuan Agung. It gives him and the EC immunity from mindless attacks from politicians as he goes about ensuring an electoral system the world can be proud of. He cannot be removed from office except by an involved procedure. That is so he could do his duties without fair or favour. He does not believe in that. He has decided, against the weight of constitutional opinion, that he is to serve UMNO. When he defines his role in these contested terms, the gloves are drawn, and he and his commission is fair game for an opposition assault. As now.

AMROZI IS SENTENCED TO DEATH, his brother soon would be. As many more in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the months and years ahead for sundry acts of terror. Now the alleged mastermind of the Bali bombing and other sundry acts of terror and an alleged associate of Osama Bin Laden no less is in US hands. It is touted as yet another feather in the US worldwide campaign against terror. How was he caught? No one knows. Where was he caught? The Thais and Malaysians claim credit. Should he not be extradited to Indonesia? Not on your life. The US demands the right of first interrogation - and trial at its option - in its war on terror. Should not Indonesia be upset at it? Why should it? The global policeman accepts no national boundaries - indeed it has on more occasions than one can count gone into countries to seize whomsoever they want, in once instant the president of that country, who now languishes in a Florida jail.

In this war on terror, the West in portraying Islam in its Orientalist format - which means the enemy operates as the West operates, and proven by the non-Caucasian reworking of the Orientalist myth, which the Sri Lankan, Dr Rohan Gunaratne did with brilliance with his book on how Al-Qaeda organised itself. But one important concept is misunderstood: that of jihad. Anyone call for a collective jihad, which the Orientalist view as typical of Islam. But jihad in Islam is a personal commitment. A Muslim answers the call for Jihad not because Osama Bin Laden calls for one but because he believes it is right for him.

MALAYSIA IS HOST TO THE SOUTHEAST Asia regional centre for counter-terrorism. It was formed after a panic-stricken United States, after the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, decided this war on terror is best conducted at source. Since then, the United States, with its ally, the United Kingdom, has gone on a frolic on its own, find terrorists in the most unlikeliest of places, attacked Iraq on a whim and now cannot even provide the justification for it. Last year, the US secretary of state, Gen. Colin Powell, proposed the centre be in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur accepted, and tried to have one in which the United States has no say in it. That cannot be. However one looks at it, Washington needs a centre in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is the only Moslem country who would have allowed it. After all, in the government's contested view, Malaysia is a hotbed of Muslim fundamentalist terrorism, of the type Osama Bin Laden would gladly recruit.

This is why Singapore breaks confidentiality of negotiations and documents by revealing not once, but several times, to "prove" Malaysian leaders are unreliable, do not adhere to contracts and, in the current US-sponsored war of Islamic terror, which it accepts without question, subtly implies that since Malaysia is an Islamic nation, its leaders are more likely to behave as Osama Bin Laden than Donald Rumsfeld. In Singapore's view, Rumsfeld can justifiably cause all the havoc he desires, but not Osama. So, she paints her northern neighbour in the blackest of colours for local political fence-mending, in fright, so that her citizens would rush to back the PAP's stand. Why does Singapore take this view? The PAP's promise of continuous growth and unparalled wealth is but a mirage for the younger Singaporean, and as other underpinnings of the PAP-structured state crumble, the possibility of a non-PAP government is as possibile, indeed probable, in Singapore in the next decade as a non-UMNO one in Malaysia.

IN THIS COLONIAL WAR the United States fought in Iraq, invading it to rearrange the political map of the Middle East, Washington presumed that only one worldview is accepted: its own. It would not allow any opposition, amongst its citizens or international bodies like the United Nations, not for the weapons of mass destruction it claimed Iraq had, but to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. The United States has a long history of destroying its clients when they get to act independently of Washington's dictates. And Saddam Hussein was once a client, as Osama Bin Laden was, and many a third world dictator it now finds would not continue to dance to its tune.

THE SOVIET UNION TOOK TWO MONTHS TO seize Kabul in Afghanistan on Christmas Day 1979 and a decade to withdraw in ignominy. It ruled by the sword to subdue a proud race only too quick to defend their tribal allegiances and foreign invasions in the best way they knew: by spreading fear into the hearts of the invaders. Aside from the usual ambushes and harrassment in a country well suited for guerilla war, they seized young largely Central Asian recruits of the Soviet invasion force, buggered them and sent them back, with or without their throats slit. One ambassador in Tashkent said this more than military defeats or bombed airports ensured the end. The United States rushed to arm the very people it now fights again, created a rag tag army of Islamic fighters, mostly of Middle Eastern descent which now targets Washington's imperial agenda. This is not unusual: President Saddam Hussein, Colonel Muammar Ghadhafi, Osama Bin Laden were all creatures of the CIA, whom Washington used when it served its prupose and discarded when it did not.

MALAYSIAN POLITICIANS SURVIVE on a bountiful diet of "wayang kulit" or shadow play that they cannot often separate fact from fiction. It does not matter if they are from a party in the multi-coalition National Front (BN) of one in the opposition. All believe that what they say in public is the absolute truth, and all else lies. If one dares to point out that the truth is, in reality, a lie, all hell breaks loose. So the Internet newspaper, malaysiakini, is in trouble for writing lies. It does not matter if it is not. Those with the axe over its head has decreed it is, and that is all that matters. Anyone who rises in its defence must be aligned, in the current idiom, not with President Bush but with Osama Bin Laden or President George Bush.

The Government, internally, has dropped the "bin" and "binti" from Muslim names, and the "Anak Lelaki" and "Anak Perempuan" for the confusion it causes world wide. A bin to one's name, is proof, to many an immigration officer in the United States, of a link to Osama Bin Laden; and Kuppusamy a/l Periasamy is an al Periasamy and therefore an Arab to be treated extra harshly! Now this attack on Malaysiakini has added Malaysia into the United States' terror bin of profiling Muslim nations.

ALL WHO MATTER in this global war on terror are in no doubt that what happens anywhere in the world that smacks, in their view, of Muslim terror must be the handiwork of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaida and his ubiquitous network of dissipated terror. Find a Muslim group that disagrees with Washington's right to damn it, and you have, almost certainly, a ready made terror network with, surprise of surprise, links to Al Qaida. No one know what the Al Qaida is, or what Osama Bin Laden is up to, or indeed if he and his network are behind this terror. But it is taken as read that he is, he must be, and since CNN, BBC, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Times, President Bush, Mr Tony Blair, and the Al Qaida specialist, Dr Rohan Gunaratna, has decreed he and it is, how could it not be true?

THE AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER, Mr John Howard, picks a needless if understandable, in his view, necessary, fight with Southeast Asia when he insisted, in a radio interview this month, on his nation's right to pre-emptive attacks against terrorists in foreign countries. The Bali bombings provided the backdrop. About 200 died, half Australians, as many Indonesians, and a smattering of other nationalities. Seven or more groups, including dissident Indonesian armed forces, even a high-level power play between the armed forces and President Megawati Sukarnoputri, and one to warn off Australia for its overt and covert meddling in Indonesian politics, could have been responsible. But within days, the elusive Muslim Pimpernel, Osama Bin Laden, is proclaimed guilty, condemned, Indonesian Islamic clerics allegedly linked to him are arrested and quickly blamed. So far, nothing is proven. When Mr Alexander Downer was asked, in a BBC interview about the involvement of Al-Qaida, he fudged it. The best President Bush has allowed in apportioning blame is he "believes" Al Qaida is responsible.

THIS WAR ON TERROR IS, like a chameleon, now a war on ghosts. For all the rhetoric, threats, warnings, military buildup, we do not know who or what they are or want. There is Osama Bin Laden, who Washington and sundry terrorism experts eager for their 15 minutes of fame decided is the terrorist-in-chief who dispenses at will mayhem and terror. His regional consultants and supporters, in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, are another army of ghosts which Washington, and Australia now, want to bomb. The world has gone mad after the brilliant terrorist attack on the remaining global superpower's symbol of military and financial might. The Bali and Mombassa bombings attacked Washington's regional sheriffs, Australia in Southeast Asia and Israel in the Middle East.

The Arabs would come here in their traditional dress. They do that because the Malaysian Malay would treat him like a king. Is it any surprise that every suspect in the Bali Bombing, and the Caucasian arrested in Australia for attempting to blow up Sydney Bridge all had their rendezvous in Malaysia. Malaysia's actions, however much she may deny it, makes her a prime candidate as a terrorist state. We are now told one suspect in the Bali bombing taught weapons training to recruits in Ulu Tiram, in Johore. How is that possible, when death is the penalty if found with unlicenced weapons? Or did the nearby Jungle Warfare Training School or Pulada help out? A Malaysian minister visiting Australia or any country that could face Osama Bin Laden's wrath, should expect severe checks, yes, even worse than New York's. And rightly so. In Malaysia, these checks are relaxed and rules bent when a high ranking official or an Arab turns up.

Of 113 Malaysians now detained under the ISA, all but a handful are Malays. Most are detained because they belonged to an oppositon party or are accused of involvement, often without proof, in the Bushian war on terror. In other words, the ISA is used to harrass Malays and Muslims, and the average Malay looks upon that, however irrationally, as a deliberate slur on him. He feels UMNO-led government invokes the ISA against any Malay who challenge its worldview. The Special Branch, which once harrassed the Chinese in its search for communist agents, now targets the Malay for anti-government and mystical and often mythical connexions to Osama Bin Laden. The undergraduate is told he is not allowed to be even vaguely critical of the government, but support for the government is implicitly welcome.

What frightens is what it portends. Malaysia is caught in its own rhetoric. It is in this war on terror to put its political opponents in a spot. But it is UMNO and the governing National Front coalition that is. It allowed Arabs to get their visas on arrival in Malaysia at the airport. The US intelligence agencies have evidence of Arab groups meeting in Malaysia. Mr Yazid is, nominally, Moussaoui's employer when he was arrested. Mr Osama Bin Laden lived here for months and is believed to have property in Malaysia. And so the pendulum swung from the Opposition to the governing National Front. But it was too late. It could not backtrack or withdraw. And it bent backwards to be seen as an Islamic country of note. Hence the official schizophrenia.

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