Mr Downer, for those of you fortunate enough not to know, is our foreign affairs minister. Mr Brereton is the Opposition spokesman on said affairs.
The image of the US invoked here is astounding. Captain America.
Catherine
------------------------------------ Mr Downer says there is a lot of resistance in the United States Congress to committing American troops to a peacekeeping force.
"We really would want the support of the United States," he said.
"I don't think countries like Australia, the US, other liberal democracies around the world can just turn a blind eye to the slaughter that is going on in East Timor."
Mr Downer said the US was reluctant to commit troops because of other military deployments such as the Balkans.
"There is quite a lot of resistance in the Congress to US involvement, that's certainly been the feedback I myself have had from Congressmen I've spoken to in recent times," he said.
"But there again I don't think a country with the depth of moral commitment and strength of liberal democratic traditions like the US would want to turn its back on a people who are being slaughtered."
He says Indonesia must do more to stop the militia rampage in East Timor.
"They have to get the militias off the streets," Mr Downer said.
"They have to get the militias disarmed and apparently the militias are well armed. They have no shortage of supplies of ammunition and they have no shortage of fuel for their vehicles.
"The Indonesian military have to bring those militias under control and they have to bring them under control within a matter of hours, not in a matter of days," he said.
The Federal Opposition says Australia must use every fibre of its relationship with Indonesia to force action in East Timor.
The Shadow Foreign Minister, Laurie Brereton, says the Government should be prepared to put its defence and aid relationships on the line.
"Why have we not used our defence relationship and put it on the line?" he asked.
"Why have we not put the question of international monetary support on the line? Why have we not I repeat tested every fibre of the bilateral relationship?"