Bread for children, bombs for fathers

The paradox is not lost on at least one American comedian who says the US is dropping 60 pound packages on 40 pound people.

The 37,000 individually-wrapped food packages — carrying the stars and stripes American emblem — are the daily gift rations unloaded on Afghanistan even as US fighter planes and combat helicopters sustain their bombing raids on a country ravaged by more than two decades of military conflicts.

Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabic language television network which is on the verge of winning the Arab propaganda war against the US and Britain, ran a hard-hitting interview with British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week. 

Sami Haddad, executive editor of Al Jazeera, pointed out the growing anger of the Muslim world on the disproportionate use of firepower by the Israelis against Palestinians and the deaths of some 500,000 Iraqi children resulting from a 11-year-old UN embargo sustained primarily by the US and UK.

The US decision to drop food packages on Afghanistan, Haddad argued, was being viewed with scepticism by the Arab world.

Striking a note of sarcasm, he asked: Were the food packages meant to feed the children, while the cruise missiles were aimed at killing their fathers?

The element of political scepticism is also evident here in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country, which has condemned terrorism but still refuses to support US military strikes on Afghanistan. The argument adduced by most Muslim countries, including Malaysia, is that you don't devastate an entire country — and in the process kill civilians — in order to lay your hands on a single individual or a government that provides safe haven to that individual.

But last week even the possible capture of that individual — Osama bin Laden — was in doubt judging by remarks made by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld told reporters that American forces may never catch bin Laden, who is accused of masterminding the terrorist attacks on the US last month, although the US may succeed in toppling the Taliban government which supports him.

"It's a big world. There are lots of countries. He's got lots of money, he's got lots of people who support him and I just don't know whether we'll be successful," Rumsfeld admitted. (Later at a news conference, an embarrassed Rum-sfeld said he had been quoted out of context in the USA Today interview.)

During his meeting with President George Bush at the APEC summit meeting in Shanghai last week, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad agreed to disagree with Bush on the US military strikes on Afghanistan.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that Malaysia's every stand on international issues has traditionally been misconstrued as being "against America."

But the APEC meeting between the two leaders helped clear that misconception, he added.

"They (the US) seem to understand us better now. They realise that we just don't take sides but we merely speak the truth without fear or favour."

In Malaysia, as in most other Muslim countries, the anger is also directed at the international news media for equating terrorism with Islam, although President Bush has consistently spoken up against such racial profiling of Muslims.

As Imran Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, told the London Financial Times recently: "What the terrorists did in New York and Washington has nothing to do with Islam." "But the West doesn't blame Hinduism when Tamil Tigers launch suicide bombers in Sri Lanka. So why are they so quick to blame Islam when there are actions such as this?" he said.

At a two-day conference of Muslims and Christians in Rome last month, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based Islamic theologian, pointed out that although the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh "was an American and a Christian, his guilt was not generalised to all Americans and Christians."

And it is equally wrong to blame Christianity for what the Ku Klux Klan did in the deep South — lynching black people, burning their houses and planting burning crosses on their lawns.

While visiting the ruins of the World Trade Centre in New York last month, former heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali was asked by reporters how he felt about the terrorists sharing his Islamic faith.

Never at a loss for words, despite his affliction with Parkinson's disease, the fast-talking champ hit back: "How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?".