The recent attacks on the world trade center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington due to their enormity and audacity have angered not only the USA but have been condemned most vigorously by almost all countries of the world.

It is quite understandable that in situations of this nature the initial reaction of any nation targeted would be outrage and demand for quick retribution and punishment of the culprits. Being aware of the extent of the outrage of the American people and their demand for quick satisfaction through exact reciprocation and punitive measures against the culprits, the US administration directed the attention of its public to Osameh Bin Laden, a dissident Saudi national living and operating in the Taleban's Afghanistan.

Bin Laden being a Muslim and the Taleban an Islamic group, the U.S. president very conveniently turned the issue into a conflict between the West and Islam by declaring the start of a crusade. The use of the word implanted the idea in the conscience of ordinary American people that the enemy was Islam and Muslims and their government was spearheading another religious war between Christianity and Islam. Issuing pictures of only two of the alleged hijackers with Arabic names and Islamic background, strengthened and supported the governments objective in implicating all Islamic groups and individuals to be potential terrorists.

The success of this strategy soon became apparent when random attacks started in the U.S.A and some other Western countries against anyone with fairly dark skin, an Arabic sounding name and wearing a beard or donning hejab. The majority of the American public has unfortunately come to believe that all Arabs and Muslims must be treated as latent terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

Subsequent attempts by the president to distance Muslim terrorists from the world of Islam through various speeches and a visit to a mosque in Washington were all part of a calculated political move in order to placate and satisfy some Islamic centers and groups within and outside the U.S.A. The initial intended damage however was done and ethnic and religious hatred against Muslims has been implanted in the average American mind.

The harm done through the use of the word crusade was later magnified when the president announced "infinite justice" to be the name given to the war operation being planned against a host of countries throughout the world. People came to believe that America was on the path of initiating a religious "crusade" for the purpose of imposing its particular brand of justice that was euphemistically called "infinite". During the past two weeks, through the agony and sadness of a great human tragedy, the American administration has been capitalizing on its political objective of inserting itself as the only superpower in the world whose plans, directions and aims must be obeyed implicitly. Declaring that "if you're not with us, then you are with the terrorists" is the manifestation of the arrogance that one government has presumed for itself and the petulance that allows it the right to dictate its whims and wishes to the rest of the world.

The reason for encapsulating information about the attacks and limiting the perpetrators of the hijackings only to bin Laden may serve the immediate political objectives of the White House in satisfying the hurt emotions of the American public, but in no way satisfies the world community who are being asked to blindly follow the U.S.A. in its still somewhat ambiguous intended military adventures.

The fight against terrorism needs universal consensus and cooperation. No one country can spearhead the action according to its own conceptions and definitions. The United States government must prove its honesty and integrity to the peoples of the world by lifting the clampdown it has imposed on dissemination of news about the recent attacks and publicly announce the results of their investigations. There are still many ambiguities that have not been resolved; many questions that have not been answered; many rumors and conjectures that have not been put right and many accusations and counter accusations that have not been corrected.

Terrorism is a global affliction. Relief from its execration needs global effort. One country's infliction of vengeance upon another country will only exacerbate a situation that is both volatile and highly dangerous.

In today's world of people power and people oriented politics, gun-toting diplomacy is doomed to failure. The survival of those with more arms and ammunition is no longer guaranteed and those who consider themselves the fittest will not necessarily be the survivors.