Saturday, February 18, 2006

Two completely different wars

If I understand this editorial correctly, the need to share intelligence justifies the Australian Federal Police tipping off the Indonesian authorities to the activities of the Bali Nine.

The international nature of terrorism, and indeed drug smuggling and other criminal activity, means that countries must co-operate with each other. In this region, a strong relationship with Indonesia is vital.

But if the Bali Nine had been allowed to reach Australia would the Indonesians have been any the wiser? What is the author of this piece saying? That the AFP would then have to answer to the Indonesians for thwarting any drug intelligence they might otherwise have gathered from the Nine? But if intelligence was the aim wouldn't the drug smugglers be far more likely to disclose information under the promise of a return to Australian authorities? That wasn't on offer.

So, the Indonesian authorities want a few Aussie heads before they would provide terrorist intelligence that might save many more Aussie lives?

I don't believe it. The AFP shouldn't have shopped those kids to the Indonesians. A genuine war on terrorism cannot be used to justify the false war on drugs.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A cynical person may conclude that the AFP shopped the Bali nine to the Indonesian authorities because they would receive a much more severe sentence in Indonesia than they would in Australia.