In case you missed it, over the weekend the US Ambassador enquired if Malta wants to be the flower child of the international state system: all love-beads and hymns to peace and progress but banking on the sacrifices of others to put bread on the table.

Of course, Douglas Kmiec did not quite put it that way in his opinion piece for The Sunday Times.

He asked if Malta could be neutral with the pursuit of peace; identified it with the Afghanistan strategy announced by US President Barack Obama at West Point on December 1; said it was only fair that everyone who stood to benefit from the defeat of terrorism should contribute to the effort; and asked (obliquely) whether Malta might not lose credibility if it closed its eyes to the concerns of the present.

In other words, he is suggesting that Malta would be free-riding the international security system unless it takes up the invitation to contribute to the international civilian efforts to build up an Afghan state and society where today there is a key struggle against terrorism.

Note that he is not meddling in Malta's internal affairs. He is asking for a clarification concerning our participation in the international community.

His question assumes that if we share America's convictions about freedom and human rights, then we should share its responsibilities in Afghanistan. Some people have retorted by denying that America genuinely holds those convictions. But we do not have to go that far, let alone demonise the US, to show that Malta ought stay out of Afghanistan.

We can share the many fundamental ethical convictions with the US but still not share the same political responsibilities. To assume otherwise, as Ambassador Kmiec does, is to confuse agreement on ends with the politics of means and the practice of power.

To see why, let us take up each point he raises in turn. First, what does Maltese neutrality mean?

Despite the anachronistic Cold War language, the conviction embedded in the Constitution can still be articulated clearly in the words chosen by Fr Peter Serracino-Inglott a few years ago, when he was the government nominee at the Convention for the Future of Europe: Malta's neutrality means "qualified pacifism"; that is, we do not take sides in any armed conflict (not even in "peace-making" as distinct from "peace-keeping") except in support of a UN resolution.

In itself, this conviction arguably does not prevent us from civil participation in Afghanistan.

Suppose we were invited to do so by that half-imaginary creature, the Afghan state. Would neutrality still be an issue?

We are not neutral with respect to al-Qaeda, which is a sworn enemy of every Muslim state neighbouring us.

If we were, then we would breach our neutrality every time we cooperate with these states, since al-Qaeda and its terrorist franchises want to bring them down. (Whether we should be neutral with respect to the Taliban is a more complex issue but maybe one should wait till someone has the nerve to argue for it.)

What should keep us out of Afghanistan is not our pacifist conviction but the means we have available to pursue peace responsibly.

No recent politician has better underlined the distinction (and tension) between the ethics of conviction and the politics of responsibility than Mr Obama.

It is central to his identity as law professor, Chicago Democrat-machine operator and President.

The difference between what you would like to do and what you can responsibly do keeps coming up both to attract and to antagonise supporters, whether they are anti-abortion Catholics, pro-gay marriage social liberals, environmentalists on climate change and supporters of meaningful healthcare reform.

And he brought it up directly in his West Point speech on Afghanistan:

"As President, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means or our interests.

"And I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces. I don't have the luxury of committing to just one. Indeed, I'm mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who - in discussing our national security - said: 'Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programmes'." The "peace" the US is pursuing in Afghanistan is really stability: a containable conflict that prevents the Taliban from winning in Afghanistan and being very effective in Pakistani politics but that does not exclude political compromise (including perhaps on civil rights) and which denies al-Qaeda a strong operational base but without necessarily bringing about its elimination.

The Maltese response to this should not be that we do not have a dog in this fight. On the contrary, we do. Indeed, it is because we do that it is our responsibility not to participate.

If the US succeeds in its aim, there will be many al-Qaeda soldiers returning back home, which for many would be a Mediterranean Arab state.

We know this is what happened after the war with the USSR came to an end in 1989.

What followed was an upsurge in violence across the southern Mediterranean as the returnees found new targets, including Western tourists.

Malta's politics of responsibility, given its means, should centre on initiatives to strengthen the kind of political dialogue needed to make al-Qaeda less attractive to would-be recruits in our region.

It is a contribution to the pursuit of peace, of which Afghanistan is a part; but our direct participation in Afghanistan, given popular sentiment in the southern Mediterranean, would vitiate our capacity to pursue peace in the most effective way open to us.

ranierfsadni@europe.com