The UK and others successfully demanded the release of their nationals without risking their relationship with the US. Why couldn’t we?

The trouble with being in an unequal relationship is that every time you meekly submit to the stronger party, it makes it harder to assert yourself later. Now, says Prof Bagaric, we’re in the situation where we can’t demand fair process for our citizen without enraging our great friend.

In conniving at the injustices at Guantanamo Bay, we have presented a wonderful gift to our worst enemies. Now when we denounce their capricious legal fictions or brutal detentions, they can say, ‘But you do it’.

Prof Bagaric is right about inconsistent perspective: we can get angrier about the man who kicked a kitten than about the men who bombed a baby. But kitten-kickers still need to be confronted.

Mirko Bagaric demonstrates that the illegal detention of David Hicks and hundreds of others represents the triumph of might over right. But Bagaric’s moral blindness is stunning in one who professes the law.

With eyes shut, he can concede acknowledge that the Australian government “has known all along that Hicks’ detention was illegal”. He can admit that our government did not criticise the US “simply because it took the view that the welfare of Hicks wasn’t worth a diplomatic stoush with our closest foreign ally…” And he can conclude triumphally, “They were right.”

Why were they right? Baragic’s First Law of International Relations explains it all to those simpletons with “over-bloated sympathy glands” who asked for a proper trial: “When the global stakes are high, international law goes out the door. It always has and always will.”

Bagaric reminds us that the US has broken the cardinal prohibition in international law – the use of illegal force against another state – on numerous occasions. They have done so with total immunity. Why? We have Bagaric’s Second Law: “The international law system is more akin to a system of etiquette, rather than a prescriptive set of rules.”

Bagaric argues that the US locked up Hicks and more than 400 prisoners without trial in Guantanamo for over four years for two reasons. First, because it wanted to make an example of them. Second, it kept them there because it could. Hence Bagaric’s Third Law: “If you have the power, use it right or wrong.”

To assert that David Hicks (and the other 400) is “just a trivial piece of collateral damage” shows again that Bagaric’s Laws are those of an ethical jungle where those who espouse them are incapable of seeing any distinction between what is the case and what ought to be the case.

Bagaric offers us a history lesson – “In times of war, pragmatism always trumps principle”. To which I say: Only if good people lack the courage to challenge them. Bullies can, and always should be, challenged. Might is not always right. Decency can’t be so readily discounted.

Mirko,

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Where do we draw the line on what is "acceptable collateral damage"?

David Hicks does not deserve any sympathy – even Mirko Bagaric’s “negligible amount” of sympathy.

Even without a trial, we know, through his own admission and bragging letters to family, that he consorted with some of the most evil people on earth – Islamic terrorists. He met and spoke to Osama bin Laden, offering his services to that creature’s murderous organization. NB: he joined and trained with savages responsible for murdering thousands of innocent civilians, and he knew that when he joined. Nobody seems certain that these savages were behind the Bali bombings, which killed innocent Australians, but the people Hick’s associates definitely killed people just like them.

Hicks lay down with these dogs, and the fleas he caught from them are still on him.

It is astounding that anyone can sympathise with this person. So, he must have a trial: the sooner the better, and it’s unfortunate that he hasn’t already been tried. But to sympathise with him because he has been locked up for 4 years, never! The man is alive and has some sort of future – much more than a person with his alliances and dark thoughts would permit thousands of innocents killed in the name of his warped ideology.

The full nature of his activities can only be proved or disproved when he faces a court. But now his lawyers think that he should be brought home, meaning he would not face any court, and so does the ratbag media. The media can be written off as stirrers, as they always are, but one wonders what sort of idiots get law degrees these days. Doing their best for a client, no matter who the client is, is one thing; but virtually suggesting that David Hicks should not face trial makes Hick’s legal team look pretty stupid and does nothing to allay our entrenched suspicions of their profession.

Hopefully, the US will have the apparently illegal commissions made good, as they are able to, put David Hicks on trial, and end the shameful nonsense opined by people out of touch with the reality of terrorism

Good old Mirko stirring the pot again - the same man who was sacked from the refugee review tribunal for advocating the use of torture in some circumstances. Mirko is one of those who seem to think anything goes so long as you win in the end.
Leigh is a pure facist who seems to believe that due process is only for the fairies so god help him if he is ever illegally detained for 4.5 years without an ounce of sympathy from anyone when he has not done anything wrong in any country.

I find it astonishing that not a word of abuse is directed at the scum lords of AWB for the theft of $300 million from the fund to feed the starving Iraqi children - they deserve a lifetime in prison if you ask me yet Howard, Downer and co still support them, to the extent that it seems they tried to heavy the US and UN to protect "our" wheat deals in Iraq. Fancy sending soldiers into the firing liine to protect wheat sales. You grind it make bread, and it's gone in 10 seconds. And it was only 6% of our overall wheat sales and was only protected by the massive bribes that kept Saddam afloat.

Hicks has become a position paper that is all. The government know he is innocent and don't care. Just like they knew Habib was innocent and for the same reason they ignored their own documents dated 22 March 2001 "Roqia Bakhtiyari, Afghan" and proceeded to use her as an example of how mean they could be to a simple woman and her kids to stop family reunion rights.

Mirko, how many people who claimed to have been tortured in Afghanistan and Iraq did you deny refugee status to?

With the help of divine inspiration or media reports, Leigh knows for certain, “even without a trial”, that David Hicks has committed wicked and evil crimes. Leigh knows these allegations and knows Hicks is guilty. Yet he concedes “the full nature of his activities can only be proved or disproved [sic] when he faces a court”.

So Leigh wants a trial to put an end to all uncertainty and to the undue sympathy his cause has generated. People have been asking for a proper trial for years.

What will Leigh say if the charges are not proved? What will he say if David Hicks is convicted of certain crimes but, having been incarcerated for more than four years, is deemed to have been punished for his crimes and so is set free?