God Bless, John Howard

I really like the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. John Howard. He is an honorable and worthy ally.

Here you can read his remarks from his press conference with President Bush at the White House on 19 July.

Here are some excerpts:

Australia and the United States have never been closer than they are at the present time. But the reason that we are so close is that we are engaged together in quite a struggle against some forces and elements of evil around the world that threaten not only the people of our countries, but also the people of other nations.

Terrorists indiscriminately murder people irrespective of their race, their nationality, their religion, their political party, or their political belief. And those who doubt that, I invite them to look at the casualty lists of the London Underground and the bus. You will find not 55 people of Anglo- Celtic-Protestant composition, but you will find 55 people of different races, different ethnicities, different attitudes and different beliefs. And I say that to encapsulate the view that I hold very strongly, that to see this as some kind of struggle between the West and the rest is to completely misunderstand and completely misread what's involved.

And:

Now, the great burden in Iraq is being carried by the United States, and I feel very deeply for the American people the burden they are carrying. I also pay tribute to the burden that's being carried by the British. Our commitment is significant, but, obviously, it's much smaller than that of those two countries. But we will stay the distance in Iraq. We won't go until the job has been finished. And you've heard me say that before. That's been my view for a long time, and it will remain my view.

And 21 July, in London, while meeting with British PM, Tony Blair:

Once a country has allowed its policies to be determined by terrorism it has given the game away.

And:

Howard said the London attacks were not "incident-specific" and noted that 88 Australians had been killed in a night-club bombing in Indonesia months before the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

"I do not know the minds of terrorists ... I can only look at objective facts. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq," he said.