Unlike Lao Fu Zi, I am not offended by Scott South's criticism of the Malaysian and Arab press. I can't say much for the Arab press other than to suggest to him to read al Jazeera. As for the Malaysian press, with the exception of malaysiakini, it's a well-known fact that most if not all are owned by political parties of all persuasion. Naturally these papers would root for their owners.

There's nothing strange about this, as a somewhat similar (though not quite the same) situation occurs in the US and Britain, where some, if not most newspapers adopt a particular political stance and back one of the political parties. One then obtains more or less a similar outcome.

It would appear that Scott South is on the defensive because he takes pride in the American press being free, which he claimed has a proud record of 220 years of practising press freedom. We all know that the American press is certainly a lot freer than the Malaysian one, but that is precisely the reason why the onus is on the American press to show that they continue to be free, rather than for Scott South to vent his frustration and vile on what is already a well-known fact in Malaysia and Arab countries.

But is the American press as free as South claimed? Leaving aside the influence of ownership controls, many of these so-called paragons of press freedom became what a minority of their colleagues called 'compliant' in the face of the Bush administration' war on Iraq.

Shocked by the Sept 11 incident, they left their analytical and probing journalism by the wayside and draped themselves with the Stars and Stripes like the rest of the great unwashed. That is fine if you just want to be an American layperson, and not an American journalist with a so-called proud history (220 years, mind you!) of press freedom.

Instead of being investigative and true to their reporting, most mainstream US press fell in line with Bush's propaganda war against Saddam Hussein, which almost everyone today knows had been a pack of lies.

If the American press was awake, one would not be able to lie one's country into a war against weapons of mass destruction and the so-called al-Qaeda link, resulting in the unfortunate deaths of some 60 to 70 thousand Iraqis, including civilian women and children, and several hundreds American and British soldiers, and then claimed that it was worth it.

During the Iraq war, the American press would not show any pictures, either on television or papers, of American solders killed or captured (fair enough!) but did not hesitate showing Iraqi soldiers in those conditions, some in the most humiliating manner of capture. When al Jazeera showed pictures of American prisoners of war to balance the picture, its site was hacked and disrupted so much for press freedom and sense of fair play!

The American military, leery of their own press whom they believed made them lose the war in Vietnam, finally controlled the media through the 'embedding' strategy. Did anyone in the powerful mainstream American press object to this arrangement? Nope, they went along with the game, willing accomplices.

What about the Jessica Lynch saga? The majority of the American press were guilty of being accessories of spin by the Defence Department. Even though Lynch's family had stated from the onset that she was never shot failed to invite any reasonable interest. Aren't the American press accomplices of deceit by the Defence Department by not checking the facts, even when the facts were presented on a silver platter by the Lynch family? I suppose the news garnered to high a rating to justify spending time on the facts.

The poor unwilling lady was shoved forward to be decorated with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Medal. She was turned into America's sweetheart to rally support for the war and to demonise the Iraqis.

I take my hat off to Jessica Lynch for her truthfulness in coming up with the facts. The so-called commando raid by America's finest to rescue Lynch was certainly well choreographed like any

Hollywood action film. Reminds me of the mentality that applauded Ronald Reagan's suggestion to send Rambo to Beirut!

Does press freedom mean the freedom to 'spin'? The recent case of Saddam's capture, which initially had him being captured while sleeping, soon metamorphosed that the dictator was yelping out in abject fear as he surrendered. Was he wetting his pants too? What happened to the freedom to report truthfully?

No, Scott South, we do not hate Americans. Rather, we admire them, but not necessarily all of them, and certainly not the Bush administration or their cohorts. We depend on the American press to tell us the truth, not lies and deceit.