So, all you do gooders complain that David Hicks was hard done by,

Imagine this, a guy joins a well known paedophile group, meets the leader, trains with him, (learns how to kidnap and abuse)writes letters to his mother how he is going to abuse children. Then gets caught, spends years in jail and is released on a technicality.

And he says but I didn't abuse anyone, I just met with them and learned how to abuse, but I didn't have the opportunity (yet)to abuse anyone, so I am innocent. I just went on Holidays to a paedophile camp.

Would Bill Shorten say "he was probably foolish and an injustice has been done on him" ?.

David Hicks KNEW what he was doing. You don't need a degree to know killing is wrong and terrorist activities and being associated with them is wrong.

He did his time and has been punished.

Yes our legal system is in trouble, when the academic twits who actually instruct in our law schools are more interested in some academic point of law, then in justice.

Yes I know it is very naive of me to expect the legal fraternity to be interested in justice, it doesn't pay as well as convoluted points of law.

Any system that did not line a traitor up against a wall is basically a perverted system, run for the good of the profession, & no one else.

Gentlemen,

Lets examine the facts.

Amnesty International to this day maintains that
Hicks was illegally detained without being
charged and without a fair trial for years. And
when he did have a trial - the military commission
he appeared before never met International standards
for fair trials.

Antony Loewenstein writing for The Guardian newspaper
tells us that it's perfectly legitimate to ask David
Hicks tough questions about his background and his
beliefs but none of this justifies long-term jailing,
torture, and psychological abuse. We're told that this
didn't stop Australian Commentators from baying for blood.

In 2011 News Limited's Miranda Devine dismissed any critics
of Guantanamo's detention practices as "whingers." Those
thinking that "suspected terrorists" being "smacked around a
bit" constituted overly harsh treatments were naive, she wrote.
In other words David Hicks deserved what he got.

When Hicks was still in Guantanamo Bay in 2007, Devine also
referred to him as a "well-trained terrorist" and for years
David Hicks was primarily referred to in the corporate press
as a "terrorism supporter" by Murdoch columnists such as
Tim Blair and others. Fair trial be damned.

Loewenstein tells us that repeat government smears against
individuals deemed suspect is nothing new... Therefore in
the "war on terror" we see a new generation of journalists who
blindly re-hash propaganda dressed-up as facts about ever-illegal
detention and intelligence.

According to Loewenstein there is documentary evidence
suggesting that in 2007 former PM John Howard asked the United
States to manage the Hicks case.

Colonel Morris Davis, the former Chief Prosecutor of Military
Commissions told US journalist Jason Leopold in 2011 that
he had concerns about the Bush Administration charging Hicks.

There was "no doubt in my mind," Davis added that "this issue
was an accommodation to help Howard by making the David Hicks
case go away (in an election year)."

Loewenstein stresses that Justice for Hicks through a
formal apology and legal re-address is vital to restore a
modicum of Australian credibility.

We need accountability - a Royal Commission,
a full judicial review about the David Hicks case.
John Howard owes the country that.

Binoy, within hours of Al Qaida bombing the World Trade Centre, Australia's Prime Minister invoked the ANZUS alliance and Australia became the first ally of the USA to be officially at war with Al Qaida. Hicks was at that time training in Al Qaida camps. After 9/11, he was taking part in military operations against the Northern Alliance, who were now our allies.

Now, I don't know how they define treason in whatever country that you hailed from, but in western countries, if you take up arms against your own country or it's allies in wartime, you are a traitor.

I do not understand how treason is no longer treason in the Australian legal statute books. I suppose that like the death penalty, our presumed betters just decided that treason was an obsolete concept and they abolished it without consulting the people. That was probably because so many educated people seem to possess anti western bigotry and their sympathies are with the enemy. But most Australians still understand what treason is, and we are outraged that Hicks was not tied to tree and executed. We really do not care if the yanks kicked the ever lovin' sheet right out of him, and since he is still breathing, my opinion is that he got off very lightly.

I am really happy that that fool of a Labor leader has expressed sympathies with Hicks, because that is exactly the sort of thing which will enrage the sort of people who once could be relied upon to vote Labor. And the more that people like yourself express sympathies for Hicks, the more that Australians will see that the Human Rights Council of which you are a member, does nothing except defend the interests of criminals, traitors, terrorists, and illegal immigrants.

Which is why I would never make a decent Prime minister, I would have sent the SAS into Guantanamo to rescue an Australian held hostage by armed forces..illegally.

Was Hicks a twat, yes, but you don't treat twats that way. If stupidity was a crime, Tony Abbott would be in jail.

As to Kirby's hyperbole, you would do nothing with said person because they committed no crime ! Do we arrest every soldier because they have been training to commit murder ?

Yeah well Hicksy should get $Millions in compo, his lawyer half, and appearance money at every gathering of nongs.

What I like about Hicksy is his timing. Joins an al Qaeda terror camp to learn how to shoot Aussies and blow them up - just before his capture.

Here's http://thejusticecampaign.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/img004.jpg

If Hicksy was injured by the back-blast of his terrorist RPG7 rocket launcher he should get Aussie compo.

Shouldn't he?