Sorry Steven, but I stopped reading when I got to the David Hicks bit.

If you cannot admire how well he has put up with such crushing injustice, then I have no respect for your opinion on anything.

John, please correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that Hicks was in Pakistan on 9/11, heading south, and promptly went back to Afghanistan. He's lucky he wasn't shot out of hand, so please spare us the 'crushing injustice' bit.

Joe

I would love to look after the interests of the never-to-be-sufficiently-derided white working-class Australian men, but they're such bloody whingers. I mean look at this website, pages full of the stuff.

Ok, that's the message for the left. But that begs the question: what's the message for the right? I mean, what's a young Liberal to do?
If the left is looking after the interests of the never-to-be-sufficiently-derided white working-class Australian men, where does that leave the 'right'?

Regardless of the justice or injustice of the way Hicks was treated by the USA (and or Australia) his support of the Taliban should preclude any admiration from most of those who do appear to admire him.

Whilst his knowledge of and involvement with al-Qaeda is disputed there does not seem to be room for any credible dispute regarding his active support for the Taliban.

The Taliban's record on human rights, the treatment of women especially and a variety of other excesses was easily discoverable for a long period prior to 9/11. They were an extremely ruthless and brutal government.

It should be possible to condemn the USA's choices and actions in regard to treatment of prisoners without making a hero of someone who went out of his way to side with the Taliban.

R0bert

Wonderful Article!

The thing is that the Left is interested in social justice (in theory anyway) ... for all... we even care about the rights of people we don't necessarily like or agree with - which I know is a bit confusing for some people. That's why the left is interested in fair treatment and justice - whether it's for workers, or equality for homosexuals and their families, boat people, or enemy combatants who were kept in wire cages in Guantanamo and treated in a sub-human way.

We in the West can't go preaching about our superior values (liberty, equality, freedom, democracy, rule of law etc) to the world and then scrap them when they become inconvenient, and we want to delve into the dark side for a bit ... there's a word for that ... hypocrisy - that's what sticks in people's craw. Criticism of the Taliban or Islamic militants is a no brainer - they aren't supposed to be the good guys. We are, but our "white hats" need a bit of repair work.