PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH OF THE world's only superpower met with his 'Coalition of the Willing' vassals, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain in one the few places on earth they could without fear of angry anti-war demonstrations or public oprobrium: the Portuguese island of Azores, 900 miles off the coast of Europe and 2,100 miles off the East Coast of the United States. Mr Bush would have faced massive anti-war protests if had come to London or Madrid; Mr Blair and Mr Aznar to Washington would affirm their status as vassals. Meeting as thieves in the night revealed their isolation, bumbling ineptness, and arrogance in forcing a war with Iraq no one wants now. Spain there confirmed their impotence. It was a council of war no less. Otherwise, it would have asked the other permanent members of the Security Council, or at least their Cold War ally, France. Curiously, Bulgaria, the other nation itching for war, was not there. It did not qualify, even as a vassal.

But as the leaders faded away, many in coups d'etat, and the countries they inherited often denied of even the basic needs by the former colonial masters -- when President Sekou Toure defied France's attempt to form a commonwealth of its territories, and opted for independence, it left Guinea in high dudgeon, taking everything, even the telephones, desks and tables with them -- -- ethnic and tribal tensions, fanned by the aligned worlds, and newer members joined it, NAM lost its substance and meaning. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1989, what little of that also disappeared. With one global superpower, NAM has no place unless it re-engineers itself into a sounding board for those unhappy with the United States.

But it did not happen. Pak Lah did not chair the UMNO committee; he was in the United States to be with his wife, whose deteriorating health causes much concern. Instead, the UMNO vice president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, did. Since the Pak Lah forces want nothing more than ensure his retirement from politics, this could have been a Najib riposte at these plans. Pak Lah would have taken account of this. Pak Lah is careful not to step on Dr Mahathir's toes, so he would have discussed it with him before drastic changes like this. He knows only too well what happened to his predecessor. Since his trip to the United States was sudden, Dato' Seri Najib chaired it. It is possible, though improbable, he would deliberately create the crisis to put his rival on the defensive. But he is is on the outside in the committee, and he does not have the numbers to push it through.

With the Non Aligned Movement summit in Kuala Lumpur next month, it showed not a Malaysia which provides the democratic space for its citizens that is denied in many a non-aligned country, but a country which deliberately curtails that freedom so that it can join the crowd. Malaysia, for all its support of President Bush's war on terror, has shifted the blame on to the opposition PAS, and its acolytes, for fuelling the war on terror, and acts hard against them. But Malaysians are in that select group of Muslim countries who are under sufferance when they visit the United States. Until this view is ameliorated, the summit of Islamic nations in Putra Jaya at year's end will pander to the West's misconceptions of democratic space in Islamic countries.

THE United States, AS THE ROMAN EMPIRE in its heyday, is in search of enemies to destroy. The Roman Senator, Cato, would end his orations in the Senate with the stirring call: "Carthage must be destroyed", as President George W. Bush, in his speeches, wants Iraq to be. The Roman Imperial Armies marched in on Carthage when it misjudged Rome's intentions. Washington hopes Baghdad would misjudge it as in 1991 to provide the figleaf of an excuse to attack. Superpowers and empires, through history, crush small nations that dare to confront their might as a hammer crushes a fly. It is a way of staying in control. When they are stretched too thin, as the Roman Empire then was and the United States now is, they hide their military weaknesses by focussing on an easily demonised enemy. Carthage was one. Iraq and North Korea now are.

But the more one looks at the Bali bombings, the more the official explanations looks skewed and plainly wrong. Far from Al Qaida and JI being the culprits, subsequent events point to other more sinister groups. There is the nationalist Indonesian with a bone to pick with Australia for its role in forcing East Timor out of Indonesia. There is the Tentera Nasional Indonesia (the armed forces) still smarting from the secondary role they are forced into after President Suharto was forced out of office in 1997. What about those groups which lost power when President Megawati Sukarnoputi took office, and who want to isolate her? It could be comeuppance, as John Pilger says in a commentary, for the close co-operation Australia has with Indonesia in security matters that enables Jakarta to rein down hard on Muslim groups, and this is a retaliation for that. And let us not forget, that it could be a deliberate attempt by the United States to force both Indonesia and Australia firmly on its side in this war on terror that loses steam by the day.

But states also awards dato'ship on the principle of "ambu bodek", to curry favour, by the state political leadership recommending federal leaders and their wives for high awards. So, the deputy prime minister wife, Datin Seri Endon Mohamed, is awarded titles from three states in succession after her return from cancer treatment in the United States. As Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, was before her. This is nothing new. It is common practice for all states to award the wives of the prime minister and deputy prime minister. What have they done to deserve the honours? None. But it is infra dig for a state BN chief minister to not award one to the wives of the UMNO president and deputy president. When attention is focussed on it, something is wrong. Such awards are in bad taste, and on par with buying titles.

He did not identify the countries, but in context, he could only refer to Southeast Asia. The United States does it in clear violation of International Law. Australia, as its deputy sheriff, avails herself of that power. Washington, as the sole global power, can get away with it. Australia cannot. He also wanted the Article 51 of the UN Charter to be amended so his vision of White Man Rule can be given international recognition. But that was put into the UN charter because a Mr Adolf Hitler invaded Poland more than 60 years ago because he disagreed with the views of that government and did then what Mr Howard now threatens to do.

There is horror at the carnage terror brings only when civilians from the West are targets. The war in Vietnam, for instance, was in one sense Washington's war on civilians, the effects of which are seen to this day. Who cared about them, then and now? So the civilian casualties of bombings and state-induced terror in Afghanistan, Palestine, East Timor, Nicaragua, Turkey, Iraq, Kashmir. The list is endless. And lest we forget, the United States's most important terrorist strike of the United States in its path to super power status: the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan was all but ready to surrender when the bombs were dropped, more it turns out to test the weapons than to force Japan into submission. American wars since had an important codicil of testing new weapons. It was in Iraq, in Afghanistan, now Iraq about to again. More frightening is Washington's view that, as the sole military global superpower, can annoy its allies as it pleases. Now its sheriffs demand that right as well.

The Bush mountains roared to bring forth a shivering Malaysian mouse. The FBI, by law confined to the borders of the United States, can work, by presidential fiat, after 11 September 2001, in distant countries if what it seeks has to do with its ill-thought war on terror. Therein lies its dilemma. This power could well be challenged for its constitutionality before the Supreme Court. The FBI was in Malaysia this week to ferret evidence against a French Morroccan, Zacarias Moussaoui, charged for conspirary to kill thousands. There is no treaty between Washington and Kuala Lumpur for this. It could have gone to the courts and have the evidence recorded by a judge. That could have been in chambers, with the public excluded. Especially when no extradition treaty exists between the two countries.

Canberra and Kuala Lumpur react in panic, find the Islamic agenda to turn South east Asia into one large contiguous Islamic ummah (community), which both after a fashion backed, now comes to haunt them. Both supported radical Muslim organisations in Southeast Asia and Washington's agenda of using fundamentalist Muslim clerics as the Taliban to destroy the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and the massive modernisation it had put in place there. The United States is in charge in Afghanistan, and forces through the same modernisation that Moscow put in place, and faces opposition from the very groups it once backed. And it gets worse as Washington takes its battle to the world, insisting Muslims are the enemy. Likewise, its satraps around the world, as Dr Mahathir in Kuala Lumpur and Mr John Howard in Australia, are only too quick to turn their venom on those they once nurtured and cultivated. And run into heavy opposition.

Laws, in practice, are to keep the citizenry under control, not those in power. Those who do not mesh with the the rulers are given short shrift, even where the "rule of law" is supreme. The needs of justice is balanced with the needs of power, suitably amended as needs must. Justice in conflict with power must, in the end, give way. It is worse when the cultures these societies represent is in conflict. It is as true in the United States as in Malaysia, in Singapore as in Zimbabwe, in Jakarta as in Ougadougou. The rule of law stands for nought in the United States now, where those it accuses of terror in foreign countries are huddled like cattle into transport planes and flown to Guantanamo Bay, denied of basic facilities and rights.

The United States and Russia stand diminished after the crisis in their capitals. Nothing is resolved when it was over. Each is sucked deeper into a quagmire of its own making: the war on terror in Washington and the civil war in Chechnya in Moscow. Both stand weakened, even if each tries hard to link its predicament to the bete noir of the moment: Al Qaeda. Neither can or could, but does it matter? Both divert attention from what they set out to do, not prepared to admit defeat, even when, as in Washington and Moscow in the past week, it is forced upon them. What it reveals is a United States with no clear understanding of its worldwide responsibilities, except as part of its domestic agenda; and a Russia whose equanimity is disturbed by a civil war that gets bloodier by the day.

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, said in New Delhi on 18 October 2002, Malaysia could be the next target following bombings in Bali and the Philippines. He has reason to worry. And he cannot rein in journalists overseas as he can in Malaysia, and he has to answer questiolns lobbed at him. Malaysia supports the United States in the latter's global war against terror, and Al Qaeda. She targets Malaysian groups whom she accuses of having trained in Afghanistan when it was ruled by the Taliban. He does not mention his government once encouraged to do so. He told a news conference during a lightning visit to the Indian capital that "terrorists respect no borders. They can operate in any country. Even the countries least involved might find themselves targets of terrorist attacks."

Dr Gunaratna has become an expert because he is prepared to make the allegations that confirms the demonised credentials of the enemy of the global superpower. He has the qualifications for it. He is from a third world country even if he lives, and practises his craft, in the first; he is not a Caucasian; he comes from a country which has had an violent and seemingly irreversible irredentist confrontation for decades, and therefore is known to be knowledgeable about such matters; he has the gravitas, and demeanour, of an expert, able to hold his ground in television interviews; he repeats his allegations and supposition with such confidence and assertion that one has no choice but to accept what he says as the gospel. So, is it surprising that he had had an hand in the UN report which repeats the same allegations and aspersions he does, and he is consultant to the United States, Australia, the United Nations. He is now a visiting fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

There is a worldwide conspiracy, backed by the United States, to link, still without evidence, Al Qaeda and its tentacles for the bombing. Within hours of the blast, President Bush was clear in his mind it was the Al Qaeda network. And others fell in line. But the Australian prime minister, Mr John Howard, waffled his way through a BBC interview when pressed on it. There is as yet no beep from the Australian foreign minister, Mr Alexander Downer, on the challenge the Jemaah Islamiyah leader and alleged Al Qaeda operative, Mr Abu Bakar Bashir, to repeat his allegations to his face. Nothing in the news these days would deviate from this official line. It is the single-minded demonising whom it wants demonised. But is that proof it did what the world says it did?

When the United States wanted a Muslim citizen studying in Malaysia, it leaned heavily on Malaysia to hand him over, or be damned for disinterest of its ill-founded war on terror. It was political blackmail. No more, no less. Washington must prove, in normal circumstances, a prima facie case before the Malaysian courts before it anyone, Malaysian or foreigner, is extradited to face trial. It does not matter if an extradition treaty exists; if there is none, as between Malaysia and the United States, the provenance is stricter. Washington has extradited Malaysians and foreigners but the courts had to be satisifed first before they could. All that is thrown to the winds now. Washington wanted an American citizen of Saudi descent, Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal, for alleged terrorist connexions. He was studying at the International Islamic University outside Kuala Lumpur. When Malaysia asked for proof he is involved, Washington revoked his passport. He was technically an illegal resident.

The United States wants Malaysia to hand over one of its citizens studying at the International Islamic University. But could Kuala Lumpur without an extradition agreement between them? Malaysia decides not. But Big Brother cannot be offended. So a way out is found. Since the US has withdrawn the fellow's passport, the deputy prime minister and home minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, decides he is therefore here illegally. As usual, he and his officers reacted without thought -- as indeed they did when they recommended, and pushed through parliament in the usual haste, mandatory caning for illegal immigrants and those who harbour them. All this is ignored, while Malaysia rushes posthaste to deport him for in her view, he is here illegally. As far as the Prime Minister and his cabinet is concerned, it is an admirable solution to what could turn out a messy affair.

Democracy in Malaysian political parties, indeed in Malaysia, is the unfettered right to elect the president or party in power for life. Electing the opposition is dangerous to one's health. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah found himself on the outside when he challenged Dr Mahathir for the UMNO presidency. Dato' Seri Lim Ah Lek is on the outside when he acted to oust Dato' Seri Ling as MCA president. When BN was defeated in Kelantan and Trengganu and lost control of the state governments there, and especially UMNO found itself challenged by a enervated and rejuvenated PAS as to make its future doubtful, it was the people who are wrong. The BN-led government takes especial pains to insist the main Malay opposition party, Parti Sa-Islam Malaysia (PAS) is led by or supported by those who believe that Malaysia's multiracial polity must be led by bearded Islamic radicals of the 8th century. The sudden emergence of fundamentalist Islamic groups, who rose to prominence when BN is at its electoral weakest and confined in a straitjacket of its own making, nearly undid BN. But President Bush's war on terror saved it. So as the United States and Canada and other Western countries look upon Malaysia, in this hysteria to discover the perpetrators who challenged the United States' military, financial and political power, as an enemy, the Prime Minister is quick to blame that on its political opponents.

The world went mad on 11 September, two days ago, in ceremonies marking the wounding of the global superpower, with no attempt to address what caused the brilliant co-ordinated attack on the citadels and symbols of the United States' military, political and economic power. Who caused it is not as important as its impact. It exposed the underbelly of the United States in ways that a year later it cannot come to terms with it. In typical no-nonense fashion, the United States quickly identified the culprit, Osama bin Laden, the fugitive son of the Saudi billionaire, and his ubiquitous Al-Qaida network. But not his grievances: the 'desecration' of Islam's holiest sites by a United States-United Kingdom-led armada; the mind-numbing misery of Palestinians under Israeli occupation; an Iraq breaking down under the weight of US/UK-led sanctions. All that mattered is that Muslims are responsible, and they must be put in their place.

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