In reply to Dr Tan's letter, 'Rebutting a 'terror' logic', Sept 27. US' own national, hegemonic, geo-political capitalist interest rather than humanitarian/Muslim interest was the reason for the US/Nato military intervention in the Balkans and Kuwait.

Kosovo has abundant mineral reserves, which include substantial deposits of lead, zinc, cadmium, silver and gold and an estimated 17 billion tonnes of coal reserves. But far greater potential for enrichment beckons in former Soviet republics Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan bordering the Caspian Sea to the east in which lie one of the greatest untapped oil and gas reserves in the world (estimated by the US Department of Energy to be 163 billion barrels of oil and up to 337 trillion cubic feet of natural gas).

Afghanistan figures in these calculations because it strategically borders Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and like Iraq's invasion, it will provide the moral pretext for naked US military intervention and capital gain of access to resources and markets in the aftermath.

Although US foreign policy is not driven by a blind hatred of all nations and things Islamic, the fact that when in pursuit of US interest, the interest of Muslim nations is harmed, it is this that matters.

Islam is of course a religion of peace that denounces atrocities of innocent women and children. But there are always some overzealots who once perceive that Muslims elsewhere are being persecuted, will interpret the applicability of jihad (holy war) against the one perceived to be belligerent to another Muslim interest.

American domination of global finance, and encroachments of big Capital in a world sharply unequal in development and distribution of wealth will always provide reasons for conflict between the 'have' and the 'have-nots'.

At the end of the day, whatever the high sounding banner (human rights, democracy or religion) that has been pitched to draw the lines of conflict, the roots thereof lie in money, which people and nations and groups fight, whether as aggressors or defenders.