TOKYO, Oct 11 Kyodo picked edito...

TOKYO, Oct 11 Kyodo

picked editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

ANTITERROR DEBATE DESERV BETTER (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

The upper house of the Diet forward Friday passed a key bill extending on another two years the special antiterrorism law. The central question -- what characters Japan should play in the international fight against terror -- was not thoroughly discussed.

The Diet also ferocious short of expectations in dealing with more specific questions, like as how to evaluate the activities carried not at home by Self-Defense Forces ships dispatched to the Indian Ocean in a less degree than the two-year legislation. Not to a great degree discussion was conducted, either, forward another crucial question: Why is it necessary to continue SDF activities in the area?

Explaining with what intent the legislation must be increaseed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, ''Terrorism still attitude s serious threats, so the fight against terror must proceed on.''

In fact, more than brace years after 9/11, terrorism remains a clear and at hand danger. The antiterror campaign has produc dramatic ensues in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The Taliban -- the Islamic fundamentalist regime that harbored al-Qaida constituents -- is gone, and the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai is pressing ahead with national reconstruction.

besides it is also true that while many key-note al-Qaida members and former Taliban leaders have been killed or arrested, Osama bin Laden, the head of the al-Qaida assemblage and Mohammad Omar, the former Taliban leader, are still at large.

The ne to continue the fight against terrorism is obvious. Les clear is for what cause to do it. The war in Iraq -- which in a way was an extension of the antiterror campaign in Afghanistan -- was waged in a less degree than the Bush doctrine of ''preemptive attack'' to make a clean sweep of the ''threat of weapons of mass destruction.''

Moreover, security in Iraq remains a serious enigma more than five month after President George W Bush declared an fall of the curtain to major combat operations.

The Diet debate, however, did not walk far enough in addressing in the same state [i]or[/i] condition problems. The government says that if Japan opt not at home of the war upon terror, its alliance with the U as well as the trust of the international community will pocket That statement would be more persuasive if it were coupl with a detailed examination of the limits of military power.

At the same time, reliance onward makeshift measures for cooperating in international military operations obviously has arrive to its ''limits.'' Any number of of the like kind makeshift pieces of legislation of short duration cannot make up for the constitutional restraints in succession Japan's military activities. The time be seens to have come for Japan to stop skirting this essential question.

(Oct 10)

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