Australia part of US drone strikes

It's probably not much news in Australia, as Pine Gap here has long been known to be part of US intelligence around the world. But this seems like the US is really pushing the friendship with Australia. It's been revealed now that the intelligence provided by Pine Gap is part of the US drone strike program.

Central Australia's Pine Gap spy base played a key role in the United States' controversial drone strikes involving the ''targeted killing'' of al-Qaeda and Taliban chiefs, Fairfax Media can reveal. 

Former personnel at the Australian-American base have described the facility's success in locating and tracking al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders - and other insurgent activity in Afghanistan and Pakistan - as ''outstanding''. 

A Fairfax Media investigation has now confirmed a primary function of the top-secret signals intelligence base near Alice Springs is to track the precise ''geolocation'' of radio signals, including those of hand-held radios and mobile phones, in the eastern hemisphere, from the Middle East across Asia to China, North Korea and the Russian far east. 

This information has been used to identify the location of terrorist suspects, which is then fed into the United States drone strike program and other military operations.  

The drone program, which has involved more than 370 attacks in Pakistan since 2004, is reported to have killed between 2500 and 3500 al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, including many top commanders. 

But hundreds of civilians have been also killed, causing anti-American protests in Pakistan, diplomatic tensions between Washington and Islamabad and accusations the ''drone war'' has amounted to a program of ''targeted killing'' outside a battlefield. This year, the Obama administration acknowledged four American citizens had been killed by strikes in Pakistan and Yemen since 2009. Read more

The gov hasn't got the balls to do it, but I'm sure I'm not the only Australian who thinks this is a bridge too far. Why should we, down under, be a part of something so wrong? Why should we be made targets from the hate generated by these killings? Why should we have any part at all in killing innocent children in an undeclared war?