So why did US Ambassador Michael Malinowski object when the King expressed an interest in negotiating with the Maoists to allow multi-party rule and bring peace to his impoverished, war-torn kingdom? Could it have anything to do with the recent contract with American oil companies to drill in south Nepal? Is that why the US government labeled the Maoists 'terrorists' and told the King to fight on? Given the fact that Mr. Bush's dread 'axis of evil' seems always and everywhere to run parallel to oil pipelines, it's a safe wager. After all, Saddam Hussain, the Bushes' erstwhile client and current demon du jour, has done far more good for his people in a few years than the Shah family has for ours in two centuries. Before you bombed their power and water plants and hospitals and imposed your sanctions, he had developed the kind of impressive educational, health care and utilities infrastructures that we can only dream of. Saddam is a thug and tyrant by anyone's reckoning, but your newfound concern for his ethical shortcomings has yet to extend to Gyanendra. The US is repeating its pattern of support for such brutal dictators as Pahlavi (the Shah of Iran, whose cruelty gave rise to Muslim militancy), Somoza, Noriega, Marcos and Pinochet.