ChannelNewsAsia,  Thu Jan 12 22:05:06 EST 2006

    SINCE the election of Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse last November, the West's double standards in the global fight against terrorism have been exposed.

Immediately following the narrow poll victory of Mr Rajapakse on Nov 17, the Western media dubbed him a "hardline" nationalist. When he picked another nationalist politician, Mr Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, as the prime minister, one headline read: "Hardline Sri Lankan president to swear in a hawkish prime minister".

Such terms have also been used by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) and non-governmental organisations such as the Norwegian-funded National Peace Council.
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- The Academic

The double standards of the war on terrorism (or its exposure) have nothing to do with Mahinda's appointment. These double standards have been there before Mahinda and will in all probability continue after him. They haven't been exposed "since his appointment".

The word "hawkish" is used to describe a supporter of a war or warlike policy (probably comes from a foe of the Dove - the bird of peace) which I would think is a very apt description of ratNasiri.

And Kalinga can't resist that word..... the famous landslide win. And this time to describe mahendra's victory. He must be one yokel who is still suffering agony at the real landslide defeat of the Bandaranaikes in the distant past. I have noticed that hardline SLFPers can't resist that term when describing UNP defeats.

The war on terrorism may as well be called the War for Oil. It would be just as apt.

Incidentally 15 of the 19 terrorists (9/11) are supposed to have been Saudi Arabians. Yet it was Afghanistan and Iraq (a country which incidentally had not killed a single US citizen) were made scapegoats..... because US already controls Saudi Oil.... and Iraq is the next biggest reservoir.... and the infamous pipeline thru Afghanistan.... Double standards? For the US, a terrorist is a person who can be blamed for Bush acquiring oil supplies.

Romeo is right.
War on terror is not simple equation that could be applied anywhere in the world.
War on terror is a complex formula consisting a lot of stuff like, geo-politics, oil, business, trade, super power priorities, Israeli factor et...
It is interesting the writer Kalinga Seneviratne being ignorant to these factor being a journalist.