Malaysia should not recognise any puppet government imposed o­n the people of Iraq by mercenary forces from the United States and Britain in the wake of their invasion and occupation of the country.

It must be noted that the aggression against Iraq not o­nly violates the United Nations Charter and international law but has created a dangerous precedent in the conduct of international relations.

Hence, it's too early to write off the Saddam Hussein-led government of Iraq. Indeed, we might even have to accord government-in-exile status to the Saddam government.

It is said that even a 'bad government' is better than no government at all lest the law of the jungle
prevails.

However, in the face of around the clock cowardly bombings by American planes to significantly degrade the Iraq government machinery, it was virtually impossible for Baghdad to continue to govern the country effectively while fighting off the invasion.

The occupation forces, having concentrated their aggression against the machinery of the government of Iraq, now have the unenviable task of preserving law and order in the country while walking a tightrope as 'liberators', selective (what about the people of Palestine?) self-proclaimed and uninvited, and occupiers. The world will soon bear witness to American and British incompetence and their moral decadence.

The invaders, the Americans in particular, are ill-suited to police Iraq. Besides, the longer the Americans stay in Iraq, the more it reinforces their image as occupiers, destabilisers, colonisers,
enslavers and robber barons.

No amount of propaganda footage shot by western TV networks, amidst a barrage of self-serving rhetoric, can mask this fact. We shall all soon know the truth and the truth will set us free.

Washington, held to ransom by the powerful right-wing military-industrial complex and the Zionist lobby, has perfected a killing machine which is not o­nly the most efficient of its kind in the world but is also the o­nly aspect of Americana which actually works.

Americans, with the British and Australians in tow, have degenerated into a society which has no moral scruples and swears by killing, murdering all and sundry, destroying, plundering, occupying, destabilising, colonising and enslaving.

The world has suddenly become an even more dangerous place with nation-states stooping to the uncivilised level of their unseen enemies and running amok with barbaric acts of state-sponsored terrorism.

The last thing Americans are good at, despite lip service and propaganda, is rebuilding, reconstruction, nation building and providing humanitarian assistance. Those who indulge in wreaking death, havoc and destruction find it extremely difficult to swallow any suggestions that they have to make good what their mischief has brought, nor do they have the patience and inclination for such endeavors. Hence, the attempt to shift this burden to the international community in general, the NGOs and the United Nations.

The self-serving bureaucrats at the UN in particular, despite the illegitimacy of the war in Iraq, have openly, publicly and shamelessly declared that they are anxious to get their hands o­n Iraq as soon as possible. Obviously, they want to strike while the iron is hot or risk losing an historical opportunity.

The UN is o­ne organisation which has brought so much misfortune, misery, pain and suffering to the ordinary people of Iraq through the punitive economic sanctions regime, the oil-for-food programme ostensibly designed to feed the people of Iraq and provide them with much needed medicines but in reality cynically designed to apportion a major portions of the funds to settle so-called war reparations to the Gulf War countries, and the never-ending inspections programme to destroy the weapons of mass destruction which have since entered the list of modern fairy tales, myths and legends.

The UN, like some permanent members of the Security Council, lacks credibility and must be kept out of Iraq along with other vulture organisations like the IMF and the World Bank. Any
attempt to crippling indebt the future generations of Iraq must be resisted by all nations who are willing to struggle for a more just world order.

Lessons that Malaysia can draw from the war in Iraq are that there is a greater need to pay serious attention to acquiring international calibre expertise in international law, work actively in a non-military sense to effect regime changes in the world if it further enhances our national interest, upgrade our air defence capability and satellite facilities, step up defence industrialisation and enter the international arms trade, build a 10-million strong citizen army and have an emergency underground network of tunnels from which the government of Malaysia can continue to function uninterrupted in the event of war being thrust upon us.

Diplomacy alone will not work in these uncertain times.

Indeed, the sum total and worth of our national wealth, progress and development and prosperity hinges o­n our ability to guarantee security of life, limb and property. The US, for example, will soon discover that it has not enhanced its national security by attacking Iraq.

On the contrary, the cost of doing business will skyrocket while values plunge in all key economic indicators, and the country will soon join Japan as a debt-ridden deflation-plagued economy. Wither Pax Americana!