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The Forum > Article Comments > Hicks: guilty means guilty, sort of ... > Comments

Hicks: guilty means guilty, sort of ... : Comments

By Mirko Bagaric, published 28/3/2007

Speculation about David Hicks' actual guilt is pointless.

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Michael2:

Thanks for the great post.

I think we should use this as a slogan for the forthcoming Federal election:

<quote>
We know what justice looks like, and we will not let those who claim to represent the values of our democracy forget.
<endquote>
Posted by Iluvatar, Friday, 30 March 2007 3:50:31 PM
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John Clarke and Brian Dawe summed it all up very well I thought
AT
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1885198.htm
The whole transcript is worth a read.
You wonder who has been eating Alice's mushrooms.
"JOHN CLARKE: In a room about sort of this by this. It's very attractive, affording excellent vistas of the toilet, for example.

BRYAN DAWE: When are you tried?

JOHN CLARKE: You're tried after you're charged.

BRYAN DAWE: After you're served your sentence?

JOHN CLARKE: Having served the majority, for some years, maybe five or six years.

BRYAN DAWE: What do you do when you're charged?

JOHN CLARKE: Oh, you plead guilty.

BRYAN DAWE: Why do you plead guilty?

JOHN CLARKE: Because you've already served your sentence, you don't want to be tried. You've probably had enough by then. Time to go home.

BRYAN DAWE: Novelty has worn off?

JOHN CLARKE: The thrill has gone, Bryan, let's get out of here.

BRYAN DAWE: So why didn't the Australian Government get him out, Mr Downer?

JOHN CLARKE: Everybody is entitled to a fair trial. That is a fundamental right."

The US has been at "war" with Afghanistan since the Russians invaded.
The CIA stuffed it up and were screwed by Pakistan. Read some history.

I don't care if Hicks raped his mother in broad daylight in Geoge St. Sydney. He has rights, as have we all, and they have been abused.
We are all the lesser because of this.

This "liberal" Government is the worst we have seen in a long time.

If you travel overseas on an Ozzie passport you are on your own.
Posted by michael2, Friday, 30 March 2007 7:18:06 PM
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The only time that I can remember when Retrospective Law pertaining of an act already committed was justified was when the then French Government legitemised the relationships between French soldiers, who were killed at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, and their girl friends and recognised their children as legitimate and the women as war widows, thus ensuring that they got appropriate pensions.

Retrospective law for the sake of vengence or punishment however can hardly be justified.

To illustrate clearly, for those who have limited comprehension: the NSW Government could reap millions of dollars by passing retrospective legislation to the effect that anyone who has possessed or regestered a motor vehicle whose GVM is greater than 500 kilograms is guilty of an offence and is liable, upon conviction, to a fine of $500.
Posted by Is Mise, Friday, 30 March 2007 7:54:39 PM
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Ya and if David Hicks had been anything other than white or with out an Australian passport would he even be alive or be even thought to posses usable intelligence by the USA. And if he had been kept by the Alliance would we even know about his detention and lack of trial. I'm quite sure the Alliance isn't giving legal hearings or bringing charges against their POWs.
Hicks is getting all the justice he deserves and more. Australians need a good smashing like 9/11 to wake up and smell reality. al-Qeada attacked Americas World Trade Centre. What of the Left in Australia could they attack to send a message to the Left that the Left haven't stolen from the workers themselves. Well, al-Qeada doesn't really need to do much where Australia is concerned. Any nation that would lionize Hicks is self-destructing at any rate.
Posted by aqvarivs, Saturday, 31 March 2007 12:08:48 AM
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Ah aqvarivs, are you totally illiterate, or do you just pretend to be?

NOBODY here is lionising (note the non-American spelling) David Hicks. The issues that have been discussed here are those of a fair and just justice system; not one ruled by the gun, whether terrorist or US soldier (you get to pick the difference).

Just for starters, have a read of this article http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5682

Prof. Williams goes on to say, in yesterday's SMH (p.32) about the current challenge to the legitimacy of the military commissions in Guantanamo Bay:

"Even if Hicks withdraws from the challenge, it will still go ahead in the names of the other inmates."

Prof. Williams also says "There are reasonable prospects that the challenge will succeed".

Now, here comes the crunch:

"If they win, it is hard to see how his guilty plea could stand. He would have pleaded guilty in a commission that no longer exists and that was never competent to try him, let alone impose a sentence of imprisonment."

Er.... where is Alice in Wonderland?

So aqvarivs, I wonder if you'd like to be the target of a system which "shoots first and asks questions later"? Perhaps you could ask a few innocent civilian Iraqis and Afghanis before you answer the question.
Posted by Iluvatar, Sunday, 1 April 2007 4:34:34 PM
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How can hicks be guilty of anything ?
He is not in jail.
Has not been arrested
Is not a prisoner.
If anything he is just a Cuban tourist.
'Guantanamo is not a prison. The official term is "detention facility". Although the two most recently built complexes, Camps Five and Six, were modelled on prisons in Indiana and Michigan, it is not acceptable to use the word "prison" at Gitmo.
Guantanamo has no prisoners, only "enemies". As in "unlawful enemy combatants" or "detained enemy combatants".
"Today, it is not about guilt or innocence. It's about unlawful enemy combatants," Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commanding officer of Guantanamo...'
Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Centre on Law and Security, New York University School of Law, and editor of The Torture Debate in America. From an article in The Age at
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/no-prisoners-at-guantanamo-not-a-prison/2007/03/14/1173722553792.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

See also Bush's Weasel Words for his criminal actions
http://www.alternet.org/story/21615/
Devil's Dictionary of the Bush Era

Tomdispatch.com. Posted March 29, 2005.
Posted by michael2, Sunday, 1 April 2007 5:04:58 PM
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