WAR AGAINST TERROR CAN'T BE WON BY SOPHISTICATED WEAPONS: DR MAHATHIR

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20 (Bernama) -- The war against terror, which the Western
powers profess they are fighting, cannot be won with the sophisticated and
costly weapons that are pouring out of the western indu strial plants, former
prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Wednesday.

He said such war essentially was a guerilla war and could only be won by
winning the hearts and minds of the people.

"Guerilla wars cannot be won by armies, navies and air forces equipped with
the most sophisticated destructive weapons. The world has not realised this yet.
The guerillas always win in the end," he said in his keynote address at the
General Conference for the Support of Al-Quds here.

Citing the Vietnam war, the numerous wars of independence of the colonies
and the ongoing crisis in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dr Mahathir said governments
might surrender but guerillas would fight on.

He said the mess that the world was in today had its origins in the western
imperialism of the past when they had no compunction about drawing borders which
divided people and changing demography by moving large numbers of people to
occupy other people's land.


"If they choose to make every Muslim a terror suspect, they would have to
accept that they have 1.6 billion enemies lurking in every corner of the world,"
he said.

But he stressed that if the Western powers chose to eliminate the primary
cause of the present violence and indiscriminate killings, then there was a good
chance that the world would become secure again.

The former premier, who spoke at length on the history of the Palestine
people's struggle, said that one of the greatest injustices done was to take
Palestinian land to give to the Jews to create the state of Israel.

In seizing the land of Palestinians to create a homeland for the Jews, the
West had launched the longest and the biggest guerilla war of liberation, he
said.

"The West has made a grievous mistake by doing this. It is continuing to
perpetuate the mistake by supporting a state that is leery of international
practices and laws," Dr Mahathir said.


He said the world needed to take cognisance of the root cause and concern of
the Palestinians' sufferings.

"It is the misery of the people of Palestine who have been forced to live in
primitive camps for the past six decades. It is the denial of their right of
return to reclaim their lands in occupied Palestine."

He also said that the world today was made to feel insecure because everyone
must fight the war against terror.

"Billions of dollars are being spent to counter terrorism. Air travel in
particular has been greatly affected with governments and airlines losing
billions of dollars from the decline in air travel," he said.

At a news conference later, Dr Mahathir expressed his disappointment
in US President Barack Obama because none of his election promises had been
kept.

"He promised to get out of Afghanistan but he ended up sending more troops
there instead. He promised to close down Guantanamo but he has not closed down
Guantanamo. Even other things he has not been able to do," he said.

-- BERNAMA