Confessed Terrorist Hicks

kennas said:

I vote why.

However, he is still possibly a very dangerous person to the Australian people and should be (and of course is) being watched VERY closely by ASIO/FP. The reasons why he went to the Stans in the first place are more than likely still in his illadjusted blood.

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I'd say it is very likely he has more attention on him from the Police Intelligence Unit , than the list of Kevin Foleys girlfriends .


PS.. I demand a recount of votes ...... there's a new box to tick .

well no longer do I agree with those who simply say "let him go back into society quietly - and we can forget the entire thing."

(and I've probably said something similar myself here)
BUT read this article by Bob Ellis ...
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2128442.htm
and see if you are happy about the state of the world - as seen through the eyes of a freedom loving Australian.

I'm not saying Hicks should do anything to change things - (except write that book for posterty!)
but things should be changed nonetheless.

a) David Hicks, it seems, is different, another kettle of evil entirely. He’s so different that, despite his fame, his voice has never been broadcast.... because it’s a broad Australian voice. And if that voice were heard he’d be humanised by it. He’d be soon thought by other Australians to be no more wicked than, say, Shane Warne, that other blond larrikin Aussie short-ass who’s paid his dues.

David Hicks is different, you see. There’s never been anyone like him. Or not in a functioning democracy. In a Soviet Gulag, certainly. In the Tower of London, certainly. Under The Spanish Inquistion, certainly. But not lately, not here.

b) the total hypocracy - when Cassius Clay is allowed to become Mohd Ali, refuses to serve in the US army, and praises the Viet Cong

c) the total hypocracy of the USA, (and Rambo?) who dealt with Bin Laden and/or the muja prior to this ... Thus David Hicks by embracing Islam and talking now and then to Bin Laden (much as George Bush talked to Bin Laden’s brother dozens of times, in the course of their business dealings) let down the side, and must therefore be unspeakably punished

d) the invention, fabrication, and unjust application of new retrospective laws to handle the likes of this case - "just for Hicks"

e) the overturning of habeus corpus, One is that many, many laws passed since Magna Carta that have been overturned, or made conditional, or provisional, or arguable, in order to make David Hicks, and David Hicks alone, more uncomfortable..

f) The law that says you can join an army of a recognised country defending itself from invaders

g) The law that says you can’t be ill-treated while awaiting the day of your charging, or trial.

h) The law that says you can’t be found guilty because of a confession made ‘under duress’

i) The law that says you may talk about your imprisonment after it’s over because you’ve paid by then your ‘debt to society’.

j) The law that says you can sue a Minister of the Crown for calling you a ‘trained killer’ before your trial, thus unfairly prejudicing the jury, sue him for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

k) We’re calling him a ‘convicted terrorist supporter’ because of new laws and procedures that may be struck down as wrong, illegal, insufferable in a year or two

L) And we’ve done this although he wasn’t convicted; he ‘confessed’, after being told that his six years of torment might otherwise be twenty, to a crime that wasn’t a crime but a retrospective crime. That is not ‘convicted’. It’s extorted. That is not a confession. It’s the fearful blithering of a man in mortal pain.

m) And anyone in a Che Guevara T-shirt, let’s face it, is a terrorist supporter - likewise Nelson Mandela

n) Let him who loves Guantanamo cast the first stone

o) PS ref income from books etc .... This should mean that Chopper must give his book earnings back, and so must his publisher. So must every other author who’s written of Martin Bryant or Ronald Ryan or the Wanda Beach murders or Ned Kelly. So must Anthony Beevor, who’s described in detail the crimes of the Third Reich; and Don de Lillo who wrote a fine book about Lee Harvey Oswald. That’s if this new law is in any way real. But it’s not, of course. It exists, as in Kafka’s The Trial, because David Hicks is different, and must be punished when no-one else is.

It's just a brilliant article (imo)

It's not what the law says but how the Justice on the bench interprets it .


PS.. Was Hicks a Rambo fan ?

ithatheekret said:

It's not what the law says but how the Justice on the bench interprets it .

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Maybe Hicks should go for a "Common Law" Trial by Jury which is what he is entitled to as a flesh and blood human being.

Oops that right, wouldn't want him getting a fair trial, now would we.

ithatheekret said:

It's not what the law says but how the Justice on the bench interprets it .


PS.. Was Hicks a Rambo fan ?

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howdy itha -
just that Rambo III is all about the mujahadeen - i.e. which morphed into the Taliban

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095956/plotsummary
Rambo III

John Rambo's former Vietnam superior, Colonel Samuel Trautman, has been assigned to lead a mission to help the Mujahedeen rebels who are fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but the Buddhist Rambo turns down Trautman's request that Rambo help out. When the mission goes belly up and Trautman is kidnapped and tortured by Russian Colonel Zaysen, Rambo launches a rescue effort and allies himself with the Mujahedeen rebels and gets their help in trying to rescue Trautman from Zaysen etc etc

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Personally I'm looking forward to Charlie Wilsons War ( out "soon" - this month?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson's_War

Charlie Wilson's War is a 2007 film about Democratic Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson, who conspired with a rogue CIA operative named Gust Avrakotos to launch an operation to help the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The film is adapted from George Crile's 2003 book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History.[1] Directed by Mike Nichols, written by Aaron Sorkin, and starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Ned Beatty, the film was nominated in 2007 for five Golden Globe Awards, including "Best Motion Picture."

Synopsis
Urged on by his staunchly anti-communist friend and romantic interest, Joanne Herring, Wilson leads the effort to provide United States funds indirectly to the Afghan Mujahideen. In the process, the film also reveals Wilson as a Congressman whose disdain for the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is supplemented by his gregarious social life of women and partying.

Herring persuades him to visit the Pakistani leadership who complain about the inadequate support to oppose the Soviets and insist he visit a major Afghan refugee camp. Deeply moved by their misery and determination to fight, Wilson is frustrated by the regional CIA detachment's insistence on a low key approach against the Soviet despite his firm pledges for generous funding as a member of two major Congressional defense committees. To solve that problem, Wilson befriends the maverick CIA operative Gust Avrakotos and his understaffed Afghanistan group to find a better strategy, especially including a means to counter the Soviets' formidable gunship helicopter air support. As a result, Wilson's deft political bargaining for the necessary funding and Avrakotos' group's careful planning using those resources, such as supplying the guerrillas with FIM-92 Stinger missile launchers, turn the Soviet occupation into a deadly quagmire with their heavy fighting vehicles being destroyed at a crippling rate. This effort by Wilson ultimately evolves into a major portion of the US foreign policy known as the Reagan Doctrine, under which the U.S. assisted the mujahideen and other anti-communist resistance movements around the world. The policy was controversial, although some now credit the policy with contributing to the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union and global communism, bringing about the end of the Cold War.[citation needed]

Despite the victory, Avrakotos warns that unless there is a serious effort to help Afghanistan rebuild back into a stable society, there could be dire and unpredictable repercussions for both that nation and the USA. Unfortunately, Wilson finds exceptionally little enthusiasm in the government for even the modest measures he proposes to heed this warning and his efforts are frustrated. The film ends with Wilson receiving a major commendation for the support of the U.S. clandestine services, but his pride is sadly tempered by his fears of what unintended consequences his secret efforts could yield in the future. The implied warning involves both the rise of the extremist Taliban regime and the September 11th terrorist attacks, as America left Afganistan without rebuilding, though this is never verbalized.

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note :- . "The implied warning involves both the rise of the extremist Taliban regime and the September 11th terrorist attacks, as America left Afganistan without rebuilding"

2020hindsight said:

well no longer do I agree with those who simply say "let him go back into society quietly - and we can forget the entire thing."

(and I've probably said something similar myself here)
BUT read this article by Bob Ellis ...
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2128442.htm
and see if you are happy about the state of the world - as seen through the eyes of a freedom loving Australian.


It's just a brilliant article (imo)

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Thanks, 2020

It is a brilliant article. I'd still like to see him fade into obscurity buuuuut I'd like to hear his story after reading Bob Ellis' arguments.

I'd not like to see him or any of his coterie, lawyers etc. though, make any profit from it.

gg

Thanks for that little bit of info 20/20 , heard about that Charlie Wilson chap years ago , think it was in a doco . You've had me on a read-a-thon link after link .

I find it strange that one day the Yanks are selling stingers to the Afghans and invading the next . But I have my allegience to the Crown to fall back on and just shake my head in confusion . Even though the septics started this mess , something doesn't add up along the line . Hicks and the like are just fwits that got themselves snared up in the hysteria . Prudence tells me they don't want to go there enmasse because they sold them the stingers .



I can't smell it or touch it but I've got a gut feeling it ain't kosher . It just doesn't add up , that makes me lean on probability .

................ actually that would be a good title ,

Something doesn't add up an American con-cept in probabilities .

ithatheekret said:

I can't smell it or touch it but I've got a gut feeling it ain't kosher . It just doesn't add up , that makes me lean on probability .

................ actually that would be a good title ,

Something doesn't add up an American con-cept in probabilities .

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something sure doesn't add up in Musharraf's Pakistan
(as per discussion with gg and mayk)

and I also reckon the day will come the US wished they were back in the old Cold War days

Just had another squizzy at those posts , again I must agree with May .

There's a lot of pushing and pulling going on , everywhere the US has laid foot on making it very difficult to be careful with the tarring brush , but arrogance must never be taken out of context , it's in their makeup .
Ignorance I cannot condone and never will , it limits ones ability to understand perspective and ascertain a balanced opinion .

The US desert allies when they get the urge , they get the urge more than me and I've got 4 kids . The Kurds ( now all classed PKK ) would understand that after a couple of weeks of shelling and air operations on villages , by Turkish forces , in the name of anti-terror operations . My bet is they [Turkey] just want access to Iran so they can pump gas to Europe . But that's an Ockhams razor hat theory , one I'll stick to until proven wrong . That would of course be denied , but watch the pipeline go up and we'll see if I'm wrong , if so I will offer humble apologies and a big SORRY if they want .

Hillary getting in won't appease me either , in fact I'd be more inclined to rush down to my Savings and Loans and withdraw my banana skin pesos , then run home and lock the daughters up when Bill gets back in town for a $100K chat.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/29/2230530.htm

Hicks should never have been charged: former US prosecutor
By National Security Correspondent Leigh Sales

Posted 6 hours 0 minutes ago
Updated 3 hours 48 minutes ago
Australia's former Guantanamo Bay inmate, David Hicks, should never have been charged, according to the former Chief Prosecutor at the US military prison, Colonel Morris Davis.

In the latest twist in the long-running efforts by the Bush administration to get trials up and running at Guantanamo, the former prosecutor has been called as a defence witness at a pre-trial hearing for one of the detainees.

Colonel Davis was originally a staunch supporter of the military commissions set up to try Guantanamo prisoners.

He quit the system last year shortly after Hicks was convicted, claiming there had been political interference in the cases selected for trial. Others too have left citing similar concerns, including former prosecutors Captain John Carr and Major Rob Preston in 2004.

Colonel Davis was called today to appear at Guantanamo at a hearing for the next prisoner due to stand trial, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was allegedly Osama bin Laden's driver.

Colonel Davis' testimony comes amidst speculation that the closure of Guantanamo Bay is now a matter of time.

He told a hearing at Guantanamo today that Bush administration appointees lobbied for charges in particular cases because they would bolster public support for Guantanamo.

Colonel Davis also disapproved of the abusive techniques used to elicit evidence from prisoners.... etc

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wowo - brave admission Moe baby.

all three presidential hopefuls (Obama, MCain, Clinton) want to close Guantanamo incidentally.

David Hicks' legion of supporters are delighted that he is now a free man. His father says that he is looking forward to celebrating Xmas at home in Adelaide with his family. Strange... I thought he was a Moslem.

ANyone who hasn't read the Bob Ellis article posted earlier should have a read, and anyone who read it before should have a reread.

Convincingly argued - Howard, Blair and Bush all gone now thank god .Utter cowards all.

Brad

Calliope said:

David Hicks' legion of supporters are delighted that he is now a free man. His father says that he is looking forward to celebrating Xmas at home in Adelaide with his family. Strange... I thought he was a Moslem.

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Ever been to Singapore, Hong Kong, China during December? They have the BEST Christmas decorations ever. Not too many Christians amongst that lot. Only Hicks converted to Muslim; his family would presumably see Christmas as a time of family and friendship re-union, as do most of us who do not ascribe to belonging to any religious group.

Hicks would never be my friend, but he did not deserve what happened to him. As an earlier post said, he was on 'the goodies' side in Kosovo. A country can be declared an enemy in one decade, in the next they can be declared an ally.