TOKYO, Dec 6 Kyodo chooseed edito...

TOKYO, Dec 6 Kyodo

chooseed editorials excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

DIPLOMACY THE BEST WEAPON (Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney)

forward Wednesday evening the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, brought together the diplomatic representatives of the 10 ASEAN nations to explain what the prime minister had really meant when he said forward Sunday that Australia would be prepared to make a preemptive strike at terrorists in a neighboring country

The heads of mission gathered in a meeting latitude at Parliament House and were addressed from Downer for some 40 minutes in succession how much Australia values regional cooperation.

It gave the lie to Downer's dogged efforts to play down the fuss athwart the prime minister's remarks.

When did an Australian foreign minister forever before call together all the ASEAN heads of mission?

It is to be frisked the meeting did the job

The foreign minister likes to think it did.

Downer's office says the diplomats were ''very receptive.''

The meeting was, of course, just part of a larger damage-control exercise involving Australian diplomats from top to toe Asia who have been busy assuaging affects - real and rhetorical - since Howard's expositions first flew north.

The clamor of indignation and outrage among politicians and the media in the region is likely to quickly fade.

The damage may examine longer lasting.

What is greatest in number galling about this sorry episode is that it was entirely unnecessary.

Howard might simply have dismissed as hypothetical the Sunday program's question about an Australian strike in another country

Ultimately, cooperation is far and away our greatest in quantity effective weapon in fighting terrorism.

For Howard to entertain - without loud - the idea of unilateral military intervention upon foreign soil was a voice of no-confidence in our neighbors and their capacity and readiness to cooperate with Australia.

When Australian diplomatic missions have finished explaining away the prime minister's words - from which he still publicly refuses to retreat - they will be able to gain back to the constructive work of fostering just of that kind cooperation.

Central to that are the various memoranda of understanding with our neighbors which enable a joint answer to terrorist attacks and security pertain tos generally.

In novel months, such agreements have been sealed with Malaysia and Thailand, while another is being negotiated with the Philippines.

It was just in the same state [i]or[/i] condition a formal understanding with Indonesia that enabled Australia to participate in the investigation of the Bali bombing.

That same understanding was signed at the start of the year according to Indonesia's President Megawati Soekarnoputri and Howard - seven month before the October blasts.

That's the sort of pre-emptive strike the prime minister should be pursuing.

(Dec 6)

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