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| Southeast Asia |
| PM won’t apologise |
| 2002-12-05 |
| JOHN Howard rejected Opposition calls to apologise for his "strike first" terror strategy despite more anger from Asian leaders yesterday. Labor leader Simon Crean said the Prime Minister's remarks had put Australians at increased risk of terrorism and he should contact Asian heads of state to explain. But Mr Howard said apologising to Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad and others was an extraordinary suggestion. "You only apologise when you have something to apologise for," he said. Damm straight. Mr Howard's remarks that he would act against terror plots being hatched in foreign nations have sparked a storm of protest across Asia. Despite summoning Asian ambassadors to a damage control session on Wednesday, Mr Howard stuck to his guns yesterday. "I know exactly what I said, I said it deliberately and I said it because it was correct," he said. "It was a perfectly reasonable statement of a totally defensible principle. Those remarks were not meant in any belligerent sense towards our friends in Asia." Mr Howard originally said, when asked about foiling an overseas plot: "It stands to reason that if you believed that somebody was going to launch an attack against your country, either of a conventional kind or of 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." Here's to you, Mate! |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 I don't drink, but for this, I'll make an exception. Canada had better wake up, smell the coffee, or they'll be left behind when the Anglosphere begins to rumble... |
| Posted by: Ptah 2002-12-06 12:28:19 |