It is hard to understand the reservations expressed by various opposition and non-governmental organisations and intellectuals on the government's decision to set up a regional anti-terror centre in cooperation with the Americans.

PAS member of Parliament for Kuala Terengganu, Dr Syed Azman Syed Ahmad Nawawi, wondered "what kind of terrorism the centre intends to curb considering that the US has its own meaning of terrorism where Islam and Muslims are inter-linked with the word".

He believed the presence of the centre will prove 'disturbing' to the many Islam-related organisations as there is a fear that the US may not only discriminate the religion but also its followers ( Anti-terror centre raises fears, questions ).

I am sure it is PAS' position as it is the government's that terror has nothing to do with Islam but for those miscreants like suicide bombers of Sept 11 who hijacked it for their own political purposes.

So what better way for the government to make a statement that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism than to set up a regional anti-terror centre here and show how an Islamic nation that is committed to promote Islam can, with consistency, be equally committed to fight the menace of international terrorism?

PRM president Dr Syed Husin Ali said that "Malaysia's consent to form this centre is greatly ironical, in view of Mahathir's constant public postures against US imperialist hegemony in the past"( Anti-terror centre to forge US-M'sia collaboration? ).

Dr Farish A Noor discoursed on the "political chicanery" of Americans who advance their strategic geopolitical interests by supporting various client states, military and political factions "whenever it suited their interests" ( Pax Americana comes home ).

I think there is no dispute that the agenda of the United States to extend its hegemonic designs is world-renowned and well-known, and Malaysia has not been apologetic in international forums to condemn its manifestation.

But that does not mean that in this particular agenda of setting up a regional anti-terror centre, the US has, as its main focus, the extension of its hegemonic designs in this region. After all, just about every country in this region — the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, Singapore, Thailand and even Malaysia included — is friendly enough to the United States.

Instead, it is consistent with the intention of grappling with terrorism to attack it at its source of ideological recruitment and preparation so that its coordinates cannot take it several steps further to the point of attack.

Now, rightly or wrongly, the Bali bombing has been perceived as signaling the opening by terrorism of an eastern front in this region, and hence the need of such a centre to collaborate on intelligence sharing and gathering, and improvement of surveillance methods.

There is no involvement and stationing of American troops or military training here as Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had clarified, and hence the question of compromising national sovereignty does not arise.

Nor should there be a perception of this anti-terror centre being some kind of clandestine arrangement to make Malaysia a surrogate and client state of the US. If there were such a drift, our Asean friends would not so wholeheartedly support this venture.

DAP chief Lim Kit Siang's proposal that the anti-terror centre be placed under the auspices of the United Nations is ideal but not practical because to date the UN has not demonstrated that it has the will or resources to fight terrorism, being itself dependent in part on the US for money and military backing to implement its resolutions.

The US on the other hand has evinced a tremendous will, understandably because of self-defence when the attack was brought right to its home ground on Sept 11.

The Malaysian government is therefore making a very clear point that even if the US is well-known for its hegemonic intentions, Malaysia is prepared to collaborate with it in the setting up of this anti-terror centre for the limited objective confined to terrorism — that although Pax Americana is to be deplored, it is however a different issue from terrorism and ought to be de-linked.

Although Malaysia, being a small country, cannot do much to stem the hegemony of the superpower, she can however do much with the help of the superpower to tackle international terrorism, the abhorrence for which should not be lessened merely because of equal abhorrence of American hegemonic designs.

To confuse and to blend American imperialism with its other but distinctly separate commitment and will to fight terrorism, as if they were both one and the same thing, equally to be resisted, is not only a flaw in perception but is downright dangerous because it brings us down to the level, rationale and ideology of some terrorists who has hijacked the religion, attacked, and evinced commitment to further attack precisely on moral justification of opposing American imperialism as extended to Muslim lands, affairs and peoples.

If as what Farish pointed out, "the US has been a key strategic ally to Malaysia and both governments have been working closely behind the scenes" what is the big deal of this open collaboration in the anti-terror centre? Perhaps, the problem of political costs.

Dr Chandra Muzaffar who heads the International Movement for a Just World had expressed the anxiety that the move would focus terrorists' attention on attacking Malaysia. To Farish, "coming as it does at a time when the government's own Islamist credentials are at an all-time low (a fact made worse thanks to the Islamisation race initiated by the government itself since the 1980s), the ones who are most likely to exploit this latest move will be the Islamist opposition who will merely use it to attack the government's reputation even further".

For this, he cited "the results of the latest elections in Pakistan, where the Islamist opposition parties managed to exploit the groundswell of public anger and frustration against the Musharraf government which was seen as leaning too close to the US and Western interests".

Pakistan is not Malaysia. The type of "leaning to western interests" by Gen Musharraf was in the form of allowing Pakistan to be the launch pad for American weapons of war in their Afghanistan campaign whereas Malaysia opposed the war. Besides, Pakistan has a history of American patronage in her then Kashmir border problems with Soviet-backed India.

Especially when Malaysian government is well aware of American hegemonic record and stands forewarned of terrorists attack by collaborating with the US, the only convincing way the Malaysian government can show unstinting support for the moderate face of Islam, and the differentiation of the religion from terrorists' agenda, is to demonstrate — in spite of political costs and the price of possible terrorist attacks — the will to fight, even alongside an imperialist superpower, against those who would not hesitate to use and hijack religion for their extreme political purposes perpetrated through blackmail and violence on innocent civilians.

This is an approach grounded on principle and not political expedience that factors in political costs, and is an approach, I would argue, deserving support especially from those who would normally accuse it of being unprincipled.

How are we to demonstrate to the international community, whether investors or tourists alike, and allay their anxieties to come back here if we put political expedience and concerns about Islamists' political mileage more important than the principle of fighting and curbing terrorism?