Australia asserts right to pre-emptive strike
Australia, one of our staunchest allies that most Americans seem to take for granted, has upped the ante in the war against terrorism.
Prime Minister John Howard stated over the weekend that Australia would take pre-emptive action against terrorists in neighboring countries. “It stands to reason that if you believe that somebody was going to launch an attack on your country, either of a conventional kind or a terrorist kind, and you had a capacity to stop it and there was no alternative other than to use that capacity, then of course you would have to use it,” Howard told an Australian television station.
Asked if that meant pre-emptive action in a neighboring country, Howard replied, Oh yes. I think any Australian prime minister would.
Indonesia, site of the October 12 attack in which Islamists killed 87 Australians and a hundred others, immediately protested, along with other East Asian countries.
The Australian leader says the United Nations charter is obsolete and must be updated to permit pre-emptive action against terrorists.
Australia and the United States have been military allies for more than 50 years, having fought together in World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and unflinchingly today in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
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