Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

… I nearly forgot.

Eliot, would you be so kind as to provide us with a link for Simone de Beauvoir’s status as a Nazi collaborator, please?

Or – and here I am really interested – does publication and/or broadcasting suffice for you to deliver your judgment?

Dear dear, and I thought your expertise was in the field of health, not law.

But of course, you are also an autodidact (thanks, Jean-Paul, for introducing me to that word when I was fifteen) in economics, and world history, and …

Another thing, Eliot, given your well-known admiration of everything slightly to the left of Mr Howard, I am surprised that you don’t seem to be disappointed that Simone and Jean Paul weren’t put up against a wall or two and shot…

Just keeping a stiff upper lip, are we?

Dr Woodforde OAM: "How many Australians were killed fighting the neoCons' favourite foe, les TellyTubbies, while David Hicks was guarding his burned out tank?"

Us Hick's "apologists" are merely pointing out the inconsistencies perpetuated by the Hick's Haters.

You cannot have it both ways mate. You appear to fully support the process by which Hicks was convicted-or rather confessed under a deal which would see him out of jail in 9 months after being banged up for nearly 6 years ( I'd be saying yes as well) but just won't accept the outcome.

It's over now and cannot be re-done. Hicks cannot get back his time, nor can you be demanding he do something extra-like apologise. Writing something in a letter means as much as writing it on here. Perhaps it's true , perhaps it's not.

As for Australians being killed in Afghanistan-they have a choice don't they ?. They can refuse to go.  I assisted those who were not going to be part of the murder of Vietnamese in the 60's. Some went underground, some went to jail but they certainly weren't going to an illegal war.

PS: The FBI doesn't seem to share the great surety that you have that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. On their "Most Wanted" list which he tops for a reward of $25million (no takers ?-when Hicks was handed over for a thousand bucks ?. Maybe they know they'll never have to pay) the dramatic events are not mentioned unlike all the others on their wanted list where their alleged crimes are detailed.

Richard Tonkin: "Let's face it, Eliot, there's as much evidence that Hicks was killing Indians as there was that he was spying on the US embassy (charge dropped for obvious reasons ... no embassy), and Terry's suggestion that what David was writing was "thought crime" is as equally valid as what was in the letters until the matter is proven in a court of law."

Despite Henderson and others catagorising us as sympathisers or apologists of Hicks it's not about David or his actions GET it! It has been about taking a suspect offshore to a place designed to ignore fundamental legal rights as was/is Guantanamo Bay and being held indefinintely without charge until a charge could be found. And then about the flawed process that occurred until his eventual release.

Michael de Angelos: "The completely humourless Henderson says Hicks may or may not have killed someone - well yes ,he may or may not have climbed Mount Everest, Gerard "

Except the completely humourless David Hicks boasts in a letter to his father about how he, David, did indeed kill people. Deliberately. A couple of perfectly innocent Indian guys. He brags about it. He killed them as part of his war against Jewish world dominance, or whatever. As a mercenary. Using an RPG that time. Not even Terry denies this. David wrote to him about it before he was caught by the Northern Alliance.

Perhaps Geoff Parhof, the guards at Guantanamo Bay could apologise to David Hicks for penetrating him with objects- or do you think they weren't getting a thrill from it- just doing their duty ?.

Until everyone is prepared to publish their private letters then whatever Hicks said in them is of no consequence no matter how unpalatable his thoughts.

His father released the contents of these letters- possibly not the wisest move given that Hicks' critics are pouncing on any tit bit to justify their support for his illegal incarceration. Then again, Terry Hicks was fighting an arduous battle to get his son released.

Nor were people fighting for Hicks' release "fans" as the dotty Henderson calls them-rather citizens of Australia demanding just and legal treatment for anyone incarcerated without trial. And that included every bar association in this country and every state Attornery General.

Hicks need not apologise because no-one jailed has ever yet been forced to. Not in the entire western community.

 However there is an extensive list of those who should apologise to Australia for asisting the PM take us into two illegal invasions; Afghanistan and Iraq.

Or could we start with the AFP apologising to Dr Haneef over that farce?.

Amongst the war supporters are Gerard Henderson who supported John Howard's decision-along with plenty in the Labor Party including NSW's Bob Carr and too many others in the media to name.

Eliot Ramsey, Certainly this Hicks fellow should not be made to apologize for anything he has said or written - he has completed his time. That is not to say a true apology would not be the right course of action. The bedrock of any society that truly values free speech is accepting that some may say things most find highly offensive. I find that in the area of libel, freedom of information, and free speech, Australian law  embarrassingly lacks an international sophistication - something that should be remedied as a matter of national democracy and pride.

"Western society is controlled by the Jews with music, TV, houses, cars [and] free sex".

Any politician or human rights organization that has supported such anti democratic and illiberal European anti racist laws, whilst simultaneously supporting Mr Hicks, should be held accountable -Frankly, credibility in this area for such people is now zero. The ludicrous and pointless destruction of free speech is a crime in itself (yes, the worst crimes are paved with the best intentions), the selective use of such laws; is the behaviour of the fascist. All such people should be called on to resign their positions or at least publicly apologize for their extreme anti democratic values being used to erode true democracy.

Australia is extremely lax in this area and it poses the single biggest threat to Australian democracy and liberal society along with sending an absolutely disgraceful international message! All such illiberal and unjustified laws should be immediately dispatched to the graveyard of disgrace! Those that have pushed such laws should find themselves not far behind (not literally of course).

The completely humourless Henderson says Hicks may or may not have killed someone - well yes ,he may or may not have climbed Mount Everest, Gerard

Nor does the Henderson mish-mash of weaving a tale of intrigue add up to much. There must be thousands of people who met the late Bin Laden including a good number of CIA personnel. Hell, George Bush even flew the entire Bin Laden family out of the USA straight after 9/11.

When has a person ever released from prison ever had to apologise for statements put into a letter in privacy to another person. Uhh?

Terry Hicks put it well :"thought crime".

And Hey Gerard and Eliot - go back and read what Hicks was charged with you dumkoffs - providing material support for terrorism by guarding a burnt out tank and an empty building. For all we know he may be responsible for Hurricane Katrina but IT WASN'T ON THE CHARGE SHEET. Got it?

Christ this so infantile but the only people obsessed with Hicks are those who cannot comprehend that he has snubbed them - mainly the News Ltd lot who now have the mincing Christopher Pine bleating about lack of "media access" to Hicks. Or are they desperately trying to force his hand into giving a freebie interview to dilute the idea of a David Hick's book in the future?

Well that can't be true if Random House are after the Hicks story (owner: R.Murdoch). Then again the same publisher tried to pull of the mad O.J Simpson scam "If I Did It" . No apologies from Murdoch and Co to the Simpson or the Goldman families over the terrible slashing deaths of their loved ones. Then again, OJ may or may not have done it.

In other words, Pine is screeching for the media to be allowed to break the gaga order on Hicks - an agreement reached in that bogus court that they claim on one hand is absolutely legit, but on the other want to pay no notice to the conditions imposed.

Pine, Henderson, Ackermann (and no doubt Devine and Albrechtsen will soon put their collectively left feet into it) are all calling for the breaking of the law - the ones they claim they support - as apparently you do as well Ramsey.

Off to Guantanamo Bay the lot of you (along with George Newhouse) for a few years torture - indeed, it's treasonous talk.

For those interested, the record of the Hicks "trial" is at the US DoD Military Commissions site. Be warned that it is a 110 MB PDF, with 544 pages.

I found the transcript on the disqualification of lawyers Dratel and Snyder fascinating, and supporting Mori's motion that the military judge disqualify himself for the appearance of bias.

Then there are the arguments on sentence, starting at page 250 of the PDF.

Also worth noting, as it keeps popping up on Webdiary, is the version of the shooting at India agreed by prosecution and defence in the Stipulation of Fact (at page 301 of the PDF):

13. Following the training at Mosqua Aqsa, the accused, along with LET associates, traveled to a border region between Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and Indian-controlled Kashmir where he engaged in hostile action against Indian forces by firing a machine gun at an Indian Army bunker.

John Pratt: "Hicks has been a victim and if he was in fact guilty of a crime he has paid a terrible price."

Actually, David reckons he's "doing fine" - although he's put on a lot of weight. Which is a bit of a worry.

All that high-fat chow the Yanks fed him at Gitmo, you know? In between 'torture' sessions.

Anyway, by his own admission in letters presented to the Federal Magistrates Court, David boasts that he killed some people in India while struggling against "Western-Jewish domination".

His dad reckons that's all in the past, though, and he hasn't hurt anyone. Lately.

But let me be honest, I don't share Gerard Henderson's view that David's supporters are in denial about him.  I'm sure they're fully aware of what he's like.

That's why they hold in absentia birthday parties and form cheer-squads for him.

"Western society is controlled by the Jews with music, TV, houses, cars [and] free sex".

- David Hicks.

Nope. Nothing to apologise for there.

 

Plots to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators.

We have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution.

We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

The government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.

Allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.

Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, were thrown into a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so that the White House could claim they were beyond the reach of American laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice.

In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning.

 

These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.

Hicks has been a victim and if he was in fact guilty of a crime he has paid a terrible price. We hear calls for an apology,  in fact we should demand an apology from Mr Bush and the other leaders who have tarnished the word democracy including John Howard.  Americans reading the New York Times today must be wondering what happened to their country. Is this any different than what the Nazis did in World War II? How do we get out of this mess? When we ask our soldiers to die for democracy, what do we mean?

Happy New Year to all. I woke up in 2008 to a screaming headline from the OZ: "Howard in war refugee snub: Fraser".

1977 - Howard in war refugee snub: Fraser - Mr Fraser claims Mr Howard approached him in a corridor following a cabinet meeting in May 1977 and said: "We don't want too many of these people. We're doing this just for show, aren't we?"

1988 - Howard’s Future Directions - his yearning for Australia (White Australia) of the 1950s where: "a happy family, a nice-looking couple with two nice-looking children, standing before their nice home with its white picket fence, with a nice family car in the driveway.”

1988 - His "I do believe that if it is - in the eyes of some in the community - that it's too great, it would be in our immediate-term interest and supporting of social cohesion if it were slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater".

1989 - “The objection I have to multiculturalism, it suggests that we can’t make up our minds who we are or what we believe in.” As is in his Future Directions, his yearning for a mono-WASP-culture Australia.

1996 - His tacit support of Hansonism: "that Australia was "in danger of being swamped by Asians" due to high immigration, asserting that Asian immigrants "have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate."

2001 - His stance and demonisation of TAMPA, Children overboard and the Pacific Solution for the refugees from Iraq and Afganistan

2007 - Yes, there are too many Asians, they remembered well him in Bennelong.

I was kind to him in "Time to say goodbye". I should have said "Good Riddance" or f@&^%$off. Yes, it has been a very good year to get rid of the toxin.

Richard: after two generations, who cares?  New arrivals, state schools.

Michael: I’m not that enamoured of ‘Australians’!  Society must to some extent protect itself. I have no problem with ‘foreigners’ or immigrants. I grew up with waves of them arriving, did my first apprenticeship with a young Dutchman, and tried ever so hard to get a ‘Persian’ lass to marry me.

I have worked with people from all over, both here and overseas.

However problems that arise from not ‘fitting in’ must somehow be addressed. The issues facing France, for instance, have arisen because the influx was not managed.

As I see it, the vast range of acceptable behaviours suggests that those who cannot ‘integrate’ need encouragement. If there is a better way, I am open to persuasion.

Michael, the problem as I see it is that far too many people have a problem in learning. Here we have yet another Hicks thread and some people go over the same old ground yet again. Fiona's "nutshell" post was spot on, but it was not the first time the nutshell has been aired.

A lesson that could be learned is for more people to take advantage of the internet and do a little research before repeating vague accounts about matters that reflect poorly on a segment of our society. We had an example on this thread of that - and the remedy, wherein Craig used the facilities available to find out the more about the issue. It is a pity that others did not do so before raising the matter. But why let the truth get in the way of a good prejudice - or delusion, or phobia?

We seem to go around and around just when we need to focus on the perils ahead. A Happy New Year? Or a rockier ride as each year passes? The challenges are enormous yet the question is - are we too flawed to meet them?

Teach them what they want - all I ask for is deportment and elocution lessons that used to turn out such nice Catholic gels.

Adapt to what Peter Hindrup ?.

No-one has yet come up with any logical reason why immigrants even need to speak English apart from it would make life easier for them. Why anyone cares if someone has a Vietnamese or Indian granny sitting at home unable to communicate with the outside world is bizarre.

This constant mantra that immigrants must become like "us" is unfathomable. I'm not even sure what Australians are actually like any more. All I can see is some strange cross between a US and British TV created society and everything that goes with it.

Throw in that the majority of folk seem to wear cheap duds from Target, made in China and you hardly have a walking model of a modern Aussie who needs emulating.

Yet just another appalling hangover of the Hideous Howard years where even SBS has been neutered into becoming a mish mash of nothingness. It was my late father's favourite TV channel on which he devoured the foreign films shown nightly.  Scots born, who would play the bagpipes on a Sunday, he was instrumental in financing immigrant Italian and Greek farmers in outer Sydney in the early 60's, against the qualms of his bosses - telling all that these were the best investment they could make. He was right. Most are now hugely rich third generation merchants.

Have a Happy New Year!

 Must agree with comments concerning isolation and banding together for security  within, of migrant communities. Seems a natural thing even under relatively good conditions, when a given group is finding its way in a new situation in a new environment and some individuals lack confidence relative to others  and so lean of the shoulders of members of their own more familiar subgroup. 

Therefore am not sure what some are getting at when they talk of Muslim schools-  do they mean in the context of one group not following "normal" trends- in that case what about Catholic schools for Irish or Italian kids,  or even  Anglican nob schools for the snobbish gentrified anglo middle-classes. Or are we talking of private schools being isolationist as a symptom exclusively of  antisocial isolationism as exclusive of mid eastern  migrants of a certain faith. Couldn't be possible that these hapless folk are misrepresented for partisan political reasons by the dominant local formations for reasons less than honorable, in their uncertainty and disarray falsely presented  as evidence of a flaw exclusive to themselves in contrast to a historically proven "norm"involving hesitancy from migrant sub groups.? 

Very unconvincing. And more likely despicable. Have already read this stuff from the likes of Pamela Bone, ad nauseam and am not going to be convinced by panicky recourse to it when the original was shot down so comprehensively, so long ago.

 In a climate of vilification, how are insecure traits of Muslim people (say) to be anything but reinforced?  It is astonishing to suggest that a community is not doing its bit to "fit in," when it is made less than welcome through racism fanned by exploitative populist politics and fault has actually shifted to a wider community rather than the under seige sub group , as it did with the Judenhecht of historical Middle Europe or the anti-Negro racism of the  Deep  Douth of the  US.

The ad hominem scapegoating and "othering" of  Hicks by Downer, a pillar of the local Establishment, is a typical example of this sort of vilification, except in this case against a person based on wilful, malicious gossipiness. rather than race inferiority rather than intrinsic race inferiority implicit in the attacks on Mediterranean  muslims, Hicks is condemned with contempt prior to investigation, when he is arguably at worst a pawn in a nasty propaganda game. The guy (Hicks) has after all already all been legally denied the right of public reply; has virtually no hope of defending himself in the current inflamed climate anyway, for  god's sake!

 I mean, how dare someone as reprehensible, sleazy and discredited as Downer  even remotely consider sitting in judgement over anyone else...  If ever a person represented an anti-social separatist trend it would be Downer and you can bet his kids didn't go the local community secondary school where they mucked in with the other kids of the wider community!

Richard:  Happy New Year, Paul!   

I have for many years argued that it was a mistake to allow people to immigrate to Australia — or anywhere else for that matter — with the notion that are not going to be required to adapt.

That for the first two generations the kids must be educated in state schools. And yes, doing whatever is needed to ensure that no school becomes an enclave for any particular group.

That all religious garb or insignia be not acceptable in public places except only upon the designated ‘holy’ day for that religion.

All, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Sikhs, Mormons, Moslems, the pink people and the Hari Krishna, and every other belief-based cult you can think of!

National dress shall not be worn in public except upon special occasions.

All non English-speaking immigrants will attend English classes and gain a — whatever level  of proficiency —  within three years.   Failure of anybody in the  family to do so will result in the family being deported.

(Room for a bit of fiddling here. Across the board the young women will learn and assimilate.  The grumpy old men and the sour faced young males we can do without, so we encourage the young women to stay.)

Throughout the three years there will be regular community outings. Dress to fit in the general community standards.  Everybody to take part in all of the organised activities. Including swimming. Failure to attend? You are on your way home.

We love your food, your new ideas, your national dress and you are welcome to believe in whoever you like, but not every day!

Make it retrospective and set up a modest resettlement payment for those already here who cannot cope.

After two generations nobody would be interested in their religious schools.

I also have long believed that all kids upon staring school ought to be taught a second language.  A useful language! By that I mean a major language.

I also believe that all kids ought to be taught keyboard (touch typing) skills from day one.

Richard: How, Peter, would you deal with the argument that given many Australian kids go to Christian schools, Muslims should be allowed similar religious-educational rights?

Despite the praise heaped on the little creep over his concession speech, I just saw a nasty little piece of goods who believed his own publicity surrounded by a throng of like-minded sheep. What he has sown he will reap.

The sight, as the cameras panned the room, of the ridiculous David Flint chortling with the rotund Piers Ackermann summed up the evening for me. Two Howard worshippers. Christ, some people really should get a life.

As for David Hicks - George Newhouse is showing he is the fool that Malcolm B.Duncan alerted us to with the supposed anti-Jewish statements made by Hicks - (still being carried on News Ltd websites - do they ever update before the rest of the world has got the story ?) has just been demolished by David Marr who demonstrates that more bullsh*t has been flung around about the hapless Hicks than Paris Hilton.

The laughable Christopher Pine is bleating about the lack of media access to David Hicks as he left jail. Honestly, some of these people simply have no shame. For anyone from the demolished Liberal Party to even put their head above the parapet and comment is astonishing.

Now we have Muslim kiddies being denied the right to learn the Polka or a Jimmy Barnes song.

It's just an embarrassment to be an Aussie these days.

Michael: "Howard seems to have escaped scot free and he didn't even have to get a parliamentary vote."

Perhaps.

It was very recently that I read of the last attempt to find some Nazi, the last, because the 'hunter' was finally going to retire.

The Americans accept/believe that Bush and his cronies will not be able to travel outside the US within ten years. While at the present time the Yanks would not hand them over for trial, circumstances can and will change.

The time could well come when it is politically expedient to hand them over. Just as the time could come when it was hand over Howard and co, or face a trade embargo.

I can just see the masses coming out in support of Little Johnny and his mates!

However it plays out, if those demanding justice keep probing and harassing at every opportunity, then it ought to be possible to create an atmosphere where these bods jump every time a door creaks, begin fearing that some of their security is plotting against them, fearing to step outside.

Persecute a person skilfully enough and eventually every adverse happening, every incident becomes the work of the persecutors in the eyes of the persecuted.

(Imagine the 'terrorists' trying to pay a PR firm to create the bogyman image that they have been tagged with! Look at the rights and freedoms given up to placate what is in fact little more than a beat up!)

Who really gives a damn if people don't want their kids to learn music? It isn't the end of civilisation as we know it. This is another Howard legacy – silly controversies over Muslim schools. I'd put this one in the same category as that goose Nile's claim women in burkhas may be hiding rocket launchers beneath their outfits.

I'd dispute the fact that John Howard wasn't above the law: taking your country into war as the aggressor upon a stack of lies certainly got a few strung up at the Nuremberg Trials. Howard seems to have escaped scot free and he didn't even have to get a parliamentary vote, unlike his allies Bush and Blair (although they admittedly told the same lies but then both countries have parliamentarians that don't follow the leader like a pack of sheep).

Still – come the revolution there will be dancing.

I heard Dick Smith on radio today saying it was a pity David Hicks didn't get a trial by jury.

I agree. Can we get him over to India or Afghanistan someway?

What are you on about ?.

Who is going to oppose Muslim parents who want to withdraw their kids from a Victorian school ( if it happened) ?. How are we going to stop them  "getting away with it"?. Who is going to "stop them" ? You ?. Fred Nile ?.

We can't even get inside an Exclusive Brethren school to find out what garbage they are waffling on about and they had the covert support of the last PM.

In some respects the USA is a great "Satan" under it's present leadership and it's foreign policies which will most likely continue with a Democratic president.

It's most certainly not the USA envisaged by the likes of Tom Paine.

Geoff Pahoff-what the hell are you talking about ?. That's just a load of mumbo jumbo justifying the creation of a military 'commission", writing it's own rules, tossing out all the rules of evidence in this phony "war on terra" to justify inhumane facts after the case. And you want us to just accept it ?

They changed the rules daily to get a result and of course they got away with it because they're the US army is mostly moronic imbeciles with bloody great big guns and muscles and cowardly bullies to boot.

And excuse me but people do not linger inside Australian jails for nearly 6 years before they are brought to trial. But plenty of people would love it to be that way.

This isn't about David Hicks as a person. It's about how we apply the rule of law. And none was applied in his case. It was just another shameful gutless episode in Australia's sorry history so swines like Howard and Co could keep themselves being re-elected.

No wonder we have so many dills in this country. The place is plastered with Murdoch newspapers in every city rabbiting on about not receiving a Hick's "apology" whilst ignoring the fact he is gagged for 6 months ( another gift to Howard) and the morons respond. Now the RSL is getting in on the act. About time the remaining members of the RSL -mostly Vietnam veterans pulled their fingers out the poker machines and gave a  giant bloody apology to the Vietnamese people who they helped annihilate in the hundreds of thousands.

Perhaps one of these ignorant sods could point to when we or our allies declared war formally upon Afghanistan which transformed anyone assisting them into a "traitor".

Let's hope the Rudd government grows a spine and soon realises the Liberal Party is kaput. It's over for them Robert McClelland. They are no more and will be no more. Rudd is in for a decade and so are you so do the right thing.

Geoff if I was locked up without trial — and perhaps even with one — I would plead to anything that got me out. Mind you my reasons would not be for ‘freedom’ but to put me in a position where I could get a crack at my tormentors. Forgiving I am not!

Angela: Those of us who believe that the law ought to apply equally to all do not live in the ‘real world of politics, power and money’.  I have seen it argued that countries cannot be held to the same standard or accountability as can the individual

Read that as ‘leaders’ are off limits but the cattle can be slaughtered for whatever cause the ‘leaders’ deem to be worthwhile.

That leaves the question would any nation, any civilised nation, any western nation, slaughter its own citizens to achieve an objective?
I believe that Bush, Blair, Howard and their cohorts ought to be dragged off to an International court, tried and hanged — er sorry, and subjected to the vagaries of the law.

There are those who believe ‘that we are past all that’, and that it ought be just forgotten.

Go down that path and you have no belief in the rule of law, and where does that lead?

Take the Iraqis, if there is no repercussions to the invaders, why would you not expect them to seek revenge?

When there is nothing else, you do what you can.

In the cases of both  Hicks and Mamdou Habib the question is ‘rule of law’. That, or accept that anyone of us can be picked up upon the whim of anyone in authority, with no rights and no avenue of redress. 

Me, I fight like hell whenever I see anyone in authority, or in assumed authority as happened only days ago, crossing the line.  I support any move to bring down any rogue authority, but in the end I know that if they come for me they will eventually win.

Considering Kevin from heaven (Rudd the dud) has placed himself on the moral bandstand, but has done nothing to change the draconian laws the lib faction introduced and has said he will uphold them, I think we can see where the loyalty of the lab faction lies.

Why aren't charges of false imprisonment and of being accomplices to acts of terror and torture been taken out against those who signed the illegal documents which placed Hicks in solitary confinement in SA without trial or charge? Only dictatorships act in this way, as history shows us. What about all those Australians committing acts of terror in Iraq by killing civilians whilst working as hired guns for the elite? But along with their ilk I suppose it's justifiable in their eyes. Hicks had to sign a pledge that he would not sue the US government, which is a clear indication they are aware of their guilt and non legal standing in USA and under international law and the rules of war and the Geneva convention. I love the propaganda put out by these people saying he killed Indians, did this and did that without one scrap of proof to support their delusions. It has been pointed out that they raided Terry Hicks' place and took the letters David sent. But the USA still failed to bring one piece of evidence to support anything they accused him of, nor has the AFP, ASIO or anyone. They gave him an ultimatum, confess to the crime we say you committed, or we will keep torturing you until you break completely or die. Anyone with half a brain would see that's why no one has been brought before the illegal military commission except for Hicks and then only with the collusion of the Australian libs. As usual we see the ideological clones bobbling up when their buttons are pushed by the masters. It's the septic tank of ignorance to make statements about what conditions and what effect six years of solitary confinement, physical and mental torture has upon someone when they clearly have no experience of a situation like that and probably have never been under any sustained and unwarranted draconian pressure.

Richter puts it succinctly. This is about "show" trials and the genuine rule of law.

The Soviet Union had it's show trials in the Cold War era. Those of us old enough watched when the US spy-plane pilot Gary Powers ( who may or may not have strayed into Soviet area) was put on public display and trial. It was a rigged trial with a desired outcome-one that suited the Soviet politburo of the day.

Poor Powers simply had to go along with it, plead guilty and possibly hope he would be exchanged one day for a Russian spy. And that's what happened in a game played out by politicians where individuals lives mean nothing.

Even today, Mamdou Habib-never charged or tried for a single crime must wear his incarceration at Guantanamo Bay as a further punishment full of innuendo by snide journalists who have never left their comfortable office for anything greater than a good lunch but think that opinion somehow equals fact.

If this is how Robert McClelland intends to continue as AG-giving into "secret information" , the same type used against the innocent Dr Haneef, organisations like the AFP and ASIO must feel emboldened.

From today's Age Editorial:

It is natural that much has been made of Hicks' release. There will be a scramble to unravel every thread of the story before the media caravan moves on, but the truth is that Hicks the man does not matter nearly as much as the principles that were compromised to put him behind bars: those of the presumption of innocence and of no detention without trial.

The truth is that Hicks has never been an admirable figure — and was probably a downright deluded and dangerous one. Ironically, it might well be that six years of suffering have produced a better human being than the belligerent young bogan who decided that taking up arms for a foreign cause in a foreign land was more exciting than life as a labourer, stud groom and failed rodeo rider.

For all Hicks' supposed conversion to Islam, he never quite convinced as a religious devotee so much as the sort of lonely, gun-happy young man who sees mercenary soldiering as a way to indulge violent fantasies. It would be wrong, therefore, to allow him any sort of hero status by default. We should be enraged by the unjust treatment meted to him, but should not rewrite history in his favour in the way that sentiment twisted facts to make heroes of other reckless men: Ned Kelly, Ronald Ryan and Harry "Breaker" Morant come to mind. In each case, myth-makers have woven excuses for what remain undeniably criminal acts. But at least Kelly, Morant and Ryan received trials for the crimes with which they were charged. It is to this country's shame that Hicks was denied that which should be every Australian's birthright.

That puts it in a nutshell, Jenny and Kathy. What Hicks did (or says he did, or is alleged to have done) was not a crime in Australia at that time, nor was it a crime in the USA at that time. What he said he did (shooting across the border and killing Indian troops) may well be a crime in India. If so I have no problems at all with his being extradited to India and facing a properly constituted court there. However, he has not received justice under either Australian or USA law. That is my sole concern, and if that makes me a blue conservative, green radical, or pink liberal, quite frankly I don't give a damn.

I always wonder why the Saudi billionaire hasn't embraced the digital age completely and asked a supporter to pick up a small digital camcorder at Kabul Duty Free.

Those tiresome video tapes,( which  look for all the world at least 15 years old)-where Mr Bin Laden is nevertheless clutching a satellite telephone as we would expect of someone who can donate 50 million dollars to the Sudan to build sealed roads, must be a devil to transcribe from beta-max onto digital tape for the world's media.( and a Fox News report ?-shame on you )

The Guardian link also seems to show a group of men's backs-could be CIA agents for all we know !.

Still-we haven't had a tape for yonks but then they only ever were released , purely co-incidentally of course-during some crisis in the Bush presidency. I can tell you now-as a person who worked for many years in public relations ( the business of selling lies) that the ideal way of getting your (old beta max) tape to the west would be to send it to Al Jazerra first. Such credibility !

Here's an odd one for you-again we cannot take it for gospel, ala those Bin Laden tapes were we only hear him mumbling but get a "translated" version courtesy of the impartial US government.

It's David Frost interviewing the late Benazir Bhutto in November this year. Of course even though it sounds like Frost and Bhutto-it could be a dastardly plot involving a Frost look-a-like and cleverly edited vision although Frost hasn't yet complained.

 Then again neither has Bin Laden complained that his words have actually been altered or simply mis-translated to suit the latest US emergency like the heroic George Bush who personally quelled a terrible plot to bomb the Sears Tower ( except it was all hokey) and other non dramas.

But perhaps this snippet explains why, and is the reason why we never see a modern day Bin Laden . Even Muslim Jihadists have a change of outfits-especially billionaires !.

It slipped under the usual vigilant noses of News Ltd and just about every other "credible" media outlet , but then they do have Britney Spears to worry about.

As usual and thankfully it is brought to us by the "alternative" media and the Mike Molloy radio show in the US.

You have to listen carefully as Mrs Bhutto is explaining who she thought was behind the first plot to kill her in September-and she names a former Pakistani intelligence officer associated with the man who murdered the reporter Daniel Pearl-and wait for it-Osama Bin Laden.

Personally I believe if you believe Bin Laden has been alive for years then you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.

They certainly make extraordinary mistakes but the nation that can put a man on the moon 40 years ago should have found a 6'6" Saudi clutching a portable kidney machine, a satellite telephone, Kalashnikov rifle and an old cumbersome beta max recording machine with camera and tripod travelling with a herd of donkeys to transport his recorded messages to your local Al Jazerrah outlet.

 I mean this guy is more famous than Princess Diana !

None of this of course explains why thousands of Afghans ( including Taliban members and their families) or tens of thousands of Iraqis had to die.

Naturally talk of huge gas and mineral reserves in Northern Afghanistan and the world's largest oil deposits in Iraq are passe and particularly since the elegant Brendan Nelson said the Iraq War was about oil-even I'm  confused . If Brendan says it was-it surely wasn't. Or was it?.

Also doesn't really explain why some bloke from Adelaide should get banged up for 6 years and tortured in Cuba nor what that bizarre case achieved, except for satisfying the blood lust of some very creepy people there who obviously get off on torturing and belittling their fellow man. Talk about state funded perversion ! .

I saw that wretched creature Sales banging on again on the 2 news about how Hicks owed an apology. Contrary to Jenny Hume, I say this gutless country abandoned one of our own to the tender mercies of a foreign power conducting an evil and illegal war on the basis of a transparent lie that local politicians colluded with.

What Jenny, Sales and the others really reckon, I suggest, is that (having finally consulted their consciences if any of them have one ) is that it is we who owe David Hicks an apology; not any other way around.

Whose intentions are honourable in Afghanistan? Ours?

Lost in all the guff is the fact that the Taliban - rightly or wrongly , love or loathe them - were the government of Afghanistan.

When the USA demanded they hand over Osama Bin Laden the Taliban demanded proof of his crimes. Surely any government is obliged to do the same.

The US refused - just demanded. The Taliban then offered to hand Bin Laden to a Muslim country for trial. The US again refused - just demanded. Then they invaded and murdered countless Afghan civilians.

And what has been achieved ?. Little as far as I can see apart from heroin production being at an all time high.

Hicks was entitled to all the protections of Australian law as a citizen. He received none. If it can be done to him it can be done to anyone - as the signs outside Yatala said :'This could have been your son'

And that was 6 years ago - just a few months ago we saw Dr Haneef incarcerated and bundled out of Australia. Something is seriously wrong.

If Hicks doesn't deserve sympathy, no-one does including me or you if it happens to us.

As for Bin Laden - he's entitled to a fair trial if he committed any crime (the world is still waiting for proof, not press releases) just as the Nazis were and received.