Well, this is another one I've stopped dead with truths that some people can't abide.

David Hick’s treatment was reprehensible at the hands of both Yankees and our morally corrupt government. He may well be considered as the ‘common man’ representing what any or all of us might suffer if found in the wrong place at the wrong time. In a way he is championing our common rights that our tyrannical government imposed on the representative of us all. David Hicks is here everyman.

And why, Deadly, was he in 'the wrong place at the wrong time' ? Was he kidnapped, flown secretly by Talibair to Afghanistan and made to fight for one of the most backward forces in the world today ? Or for his own half-witted reasons, did he go to Afghanistan of his own free will ? Christ, how come they didn't shoot him immediately as an American spy ?

And what do you mean by 'at the wrong time' ? When would have been a good time to be fighting for the Taliban ? For God's sake, imagine if the Australian forces during the Second World War had discovered an Australian in Japanese uniform who had been fighting for them ? Would an excuse of 'Sorry, I'm just in the wrong place at the wrong time' have been enough to let him go ?

If he had been captured as a renegade Russian soldier fighting for the mujahideen back in the eighties, I wonder if the gulags would have been any more comfortable than Guantanamo ? Ah yes, you're right, he probably wouldn't have made it to the gulags, or if he did, he would still be there, somewhere up above the Arctic Circle, living on raw mammoth meat if he could get it, and digging uranium or salt.

What Loudmouth said.
In never ceases to amaze me how people so casually whitewash Hicks' actions as something that HAPPENED to him rather than something he DID.
It's actually quite a telling sign that many Australians are self-absorbed people that feel entitled to do the wrong thing and feel it is always someone else's fault and they are just an innocent victim when they don't get away with it (the wank 'adventurer' fantasy comes to mind).

I also would like to point out this scenario.
If Australia were completely neutral in the war in Afghanistan, and David Hicks was still captured, we would still be faced with the decision of whether we personally intervene to rescue a deserter with solid extremist ties including killing in their name, and set him lose in our community.
It seems that his incarceration in Gitmo was the only thing that toned him down.

As I see it- if a person who joins a repugnant force whose doctrines are a threat to our safety- runs afoul of another force that uses repugnant methods- they deserve each other.