In the last few days a variety of comments have appeared in malaysiakini related to my original letter entitled Don't push PM into Washington's hands . Some of these comments demand a response.

Muaz Omar's Chandra living in the past is a blatant distortion of my position. Muaz says that I had accused 'the sole superpower of wanting to colonise Malaysia' and even harbouring 'the intention of invading Malaysia'. Anyone who has read my original letter will realise that these are utterly baseless, totally preposterous allegations.

He also suggests that I was using Anwar Ibrahim's medical condition as a 'punching bag'. If I chose to discuss his medical condition in the context of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's visit to Washington, it was only because others had pushed the issue in that direction. I was merely expressing my concern about its impact upon inter-state ties.

Muaz is also completely illogical when he suggests that I may feel 'that my previous detention under the ISA as an activist is very much justified' simply because I am critical of Malaysian groups that turn to Washington for succour in matters such as the ISA detention of KMM members .

My criticism of their action does not diminish in any way my rejection of the ISA. Even a cursory reading of my track record would reveal that I have been constant and consistent in my opposition to that law.

By the same token, just because the US and Singapore are among our most important trading partners, it does not mean that we should set aside our principles or sacrifice our national sovereignty in order to please the superpower or its regional ally.

After all, even some of the US' European allies took a stand against the Anglo- American invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. As a leading member of the OIC and NAM, Malaysia could not have done less. Neither could it have ignored the glaring fact that Singapore was paying Malaysia a mere pittance for its water.

Muaz also gives the impression that Malaysia can only move forward in a globalised, borderless world by being competitive and by reaping maximum benefits from a close relationship with the US. While competitiveness and technological innovation are important, globalisation has also revealed, in the last decade or so, the other, less pretty side, of its face.

Today, more than in the past, people everywhere are becoming acutely conscious of how globalisation has resulted in growing economic and social iniquities and the marginalisation of communities and cultures.

Indeed, if there is a single feature that denotes the globalisation process in the last few years, it is the increasing opposition in both the North and the South to its predatory dimensions. So one wonders who is living in the past and who is attuned to the present - and the future?

Grifil James' Not practical to ignore the US which is a response to my People shouldn't beg Washington to rescue them is yet another example of how easily many of us accept a certain reality, however unjust it may be, and then seek to wrap that injustice in a cloak of moral legitimacy.

It is because Washington has been an hegemonic global power since at least the end of the Second World War that it has been able to intervene in the politics and economics of so many countries. Most of the time its intervention has been detrimental to the lives of the people it seeks to 'liberate' as episode after episode has proven from Vietnam to Nicaragua to Iraq.

James has chosen to highlight only those episodes which seem to project the US as a saviour of humankind. But even these are complex events in history events which show that Washington had its own motives for 'doing good.'

The Marshall Plan for instance was not only an attempt to meet the communist challenge but it was also designed to ensure that capitalism triumphed in Europe. Likewise, Washington acted in Bosnia only after tens of thousands of Muslims were killed because it wanted to ensure a certain geo-ethnic balance in the Balkans.

And in the case of Darfur - a tragedy for which the Khartoum government is directly and indirectly responsible it is obvious that Washington is more concerned about imposing sanctions upon Sudan than expediting humanitarian assistance to the needy.

Incidentally, it is the Western aid and human rights organisations and not Washington that have been at the forefront of the endeavour to help the people of Darfur.

The truth is that as the world's sole superpower - the US - is more interested in perpetuating its might rather than upholding what is right. Invariably, justice and humanity are subordinated to power and wealth.

Jimmy Wong in his Chandra wrong in shielding PM from Anwar issue asks how President George W Bush can use ISA detentions against Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi when he employs the Patriot Act and other such legislation against his own people and the citizens of other countries.

Wong forgets that the US' own dismal human rights performance in certain areas has never deterred Washington from admonishing others for their alleged human rights failures. More specifically, in spite of the Patriot Act, the US State Department retains its moralistic, somewhat supercilious tone in its annual evaluation of the human rights record of other countries.

In simple language this is called double standards, or hypocrisy if you like. Very few political leaderships are immune from this disease.

Which brings me to the question of the Anwar 'plea for treatment overseas'. This is the central focus of Wong's letter. Let me state at the outset that even when I was in Keadilan, I was not enthusiastic about Anwar's plea and conveyed this on a number of occasions to his wife, Dr

Wan Azizah Ismail.

I felt that since the operation that Anwar required could be done in the country and the government was adamant about not allowing him to go overseas, it would be better for Anwar's own sake to undergo treatment here before his condition deteriorated further.

This is why I encouraged a friend of mine, an expatriate specialist residing in Penang with a brilliant track record, to examine Anwar and offer his services to him way back in 2000. But unfortunately Anwar rejected the offer.

This also goes to show that, contrary to what Wong suggests, my basic stand on the former deputy prime minister's overseas medical treatment has nothing to do with shielding Abdullah.

In this regard, it should be emphasised that even in recent months, whenever I am asked by individuals from the Western media (who incidentally are about the only ones in the foreign media who are still concerned about Anwar) about the Anwar issue, I would reiterate the position that I have always adopted: namely, that his incarceration was wrong just as his assault in the lock-up was callous.

Nonetheless, having seen at close quarters how he operates as a politician, I would not want to have him at the helm of the nation.