The United States has deflected the global war on terrorism a year after the Sept 11 attacks by unilaterally declaring its intention to strike Iraq in recent weeks, said an Australian political analyst yesterday.

Dr Alan Smith said he was not suggesting that the US should not invoke military response after it was attacked by terrorists, but that there must be a slow and cautious response in waging war against a country.

"When your house gets attacked, nobody thinks you should sit idle and not do anything about it. But you don't run down the street and beat another person who you suspect might be the attacker."

He was speaking at a public forum called 'Sept 11 and political freedom' at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur last night.

The event, organised by Strategic Information Research Development and Malaysiakini.com, was held in conjunction with the launch on Wednesday of an eponymous book co-edited by Smith ( left ), Singapore political writer James Gomez ( right ), and Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) regional director Uwe Johannen.

Conspiracy

Smith, who is now working with Burmese opposition groups under an FNF programme, said the US as the dominant player in the world should have abided by international protocol and exercised its diplomacy wisely even if it intended to strike on a regime suspected of sponsoring and funding terrorist activities.

"You (the US) can't declare a war on Iraq and then say you will seek the endorsement from the United Nations because there will be no multilateral consensus. If the UN endorses the war, it will be seen as a puppet. And if it rejects it, the institution will be consigned to oblivion.

"The whole 'war on Iraq' ends up looking like a conspiracy. That's not the way (to do it). Politics and diplomacy must be conducted with finesse," he stressed.

Smith also said that government leaders have generally adopted an unresponsive attitude towards the concerns of their people, especially those in the South, about an unjust world order.

"The people have always felt the threat of globalisation to their cultures and other aspects of life. But the elites see these concerns as short-term consequences that will pass. Because of the Sept 11 attacks, the leaders now feel the threat themselves for the first time and they respond by pressing all panic buttons," he said.

However, he stressed that there is no proof terrorism stemmed from world poverty and no justification for the action taken by the 19 hijackers who crashed the jetliners into New York's World Trade Center and Washington's Pentagon.

Quoting contributions in the book, Smith also said the Sept 11 attacks had given "opportunities and needs" to many Asian regimes to put on hold the trend for greater democracy and human rights, and even reversing it.

He said although Western countries have drafted and passed new security laws over the past year, the implementation and necessity of such laws were questioned and contested.

He noted that in Asian countries, however, the mechanism of checks and balances were just beginning to be put in place.

"The entire human rights agenda has now been hijacked by the Sept 11 attacks," he said.

Growing frustration

Speaking at the forum, Gomez highlighted the need for the people of Southeast Asia to be more aware of the ongoing debate on national and human security.

He said national security can sometimes mean preserving a particular regime and not necessarily putting the interests of the people as top priority.

He added that new security measures such as tighter checks and racial profiling at entry points of many countries have resulted in much inconvenience and discrimination against many people.

Gomez also felt that there is a growing sense of frustration among people in the region as their advice and opinions on different issues have largely been ignored by their governments in policy-making.

About 50 people, including several Special Branch officers, were present at the forum last night.