Amy Ridenour (president of the National Centre for Public Policy Research, a non-partisan think tank who commented about ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim in a recent Washington Times report) seems to have forgotten quite conveniently that the Taliban and the Mujahidin in Afghanistan were supported and financed by the United States and even China through Pakistan, as freedom fighters against the Soviet invasion.

It was the duty of not only Muslims but peace-loving people of all faiths and beliefs to support freedom fighters against Soviet expansionism.

Also, Amy Ridenour seems to have ignored the fact that it was the fascist Shah of Iran, in his shameless oppression and persecution of legitimate and secular dissent, aided by the so-called secular modernisers in the Western world, who drove the people of Iran into the camp of the so-called Islamic 'fundamentalists'.

If the US and the West have any lessons to learn from Iran, it must be that they should no longer support oppressive and authoritarian regimes in the Third World.

The Western support for oppressive and authoritarian but unpopular regimes, for commercial and business interests, had eroded the moral authority of the US and Western democracies in the eyes of the people in the Third World.

In the post-Cold War world, the US and other Western powers should adjust their policies to accommodate different ideologies and belief-systems, and they should also learn from past mistakes of believing the ruling elites in the Third World too easily.

The most fatal mistake made by Amy Ridenour was in disregarding the fact that Anwar was not convicted and incarcerated for Islamic fundamentalism, as she inferred, but on allegations of sodomy.

Why did Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his supporters only discover Anwar's 'sodomy' side and 'Islamic fundamentalism' after the outbreak of the Asian Financial crisis? Why not before, between 1982 and 1998?

If and even if (for the sake of argument) Anwar knew and met 'Islamic fundamentalists' in the past, what is wrong with that? Didn't Mahathir join the left-leaning group like Saberkas in the 1930s that advocated the nationalisation of industries and commerce?

Wasn't one of the political secretaries of Mahathir, Sidiq Ghouse, arrested and detained under the Internal Security Act in the early 1980s for allegedly being a Soviet spy?

Mahathir's supporters like Kassim Ahmad and Abdullah Ahmad ( New Straits Times ' managing director) too, were alleged to be "pro-communists" and detained under the ISA.

Can we therefore suggest that Mahathir is a communist or a person with communistic leanings? Should we ask for a purge of 'communists' in the administration of Mahathir and the mainstream media, like the New Straits Times ?

Surely, we cannot and should not do that. 'Guilt by association' is wrong.

The people and leaders of the United States have learnt a great lesson from McCarthyism. They should be responsible and clear-headed enough not to help repeat the tragic history here in Malaysia.

During a crisis when many ordinary Malaysians are looking up to the US and the Western powers for moral leadership in the struggle for human rights and human dignity against xenophobic nationalism, the governments in the US and Western democracy must be firm and principled so that we are not disappointed.