Will Islamists try to exploit tsunami disaster?

With warring factions in Sri Lanka momentarily putting aside their differences to deliver relief to tsunami victims, one would hope that the Islamists would do the same.

It isn't enough simply to hope, though, so the US and its aid coalition partners must keep an eye on the Saudi Red Crescent and other relief groups run by Wahhabis and other Islamic extremists.

One shouldn't be surprised that the United States is already being blamed for the disaster. US-generated global warming unleashed the killer quake, some say. Others accuse the US of engineering the seismic shock to destroy Islamist movements in Thailand and Indonesia, which happens to be the world's largest Muslim country.

We shouldn't laugh off these idiotic conspiracy theories. The people who spread them are serious. A good propagandist on the Islamist side would spin these theories for all they're worth - knowing full well that Washington still hasn't the spleen to wage a decent public diplomacy campaign, let alone a political warfare operation, in its own defense.