easytimes said:

It makes me sick and it would be a slap in the face of all the diggers overseas!

no mate, the slap in the face I got for saving your @rse from the Yellow Peril In Vietnam was the wet slap of your lousy saliva as you spat on me, because [as now] you simply believe every bit of propaganda by our govt. Like did you also believe WMD?

The other slap was from the lousy Rodent who tried to get my vote by apologising for your "un Australian action", even though he won't apologise for the govt actions in stolen generation. Compared to my govt and "My Fellow Australians" Charlie was a walk in the park, by comparison almost a mate, mate

He wants to give us a lousy medal. What an @rsehole when this same mob gave my War Service Home to a German. Yes it's true, but is a long story of governmental depravity. I bet you are saying I shouldn't be allowed to include it in my own book?

Sniggid: "I have no doubt that Hicks would have willingly fired on our own troops had he had the chance to do so."

You seem awfully certain Sniggid. You must have heard evidence given in court.

Wait a minute... last time I checked, Hicks had been incarcerated for five years without a trial. In fact... I don't think we've had the chance to hear any facts at all.
If the US were as certain as you seem to be, then perhaps he'd have been tried already.
See, I was under this strange impression that one of the key things that made our legal system a little different to sham dictatorships, was something called innocent until proven guilty.

I suppose that should be amended to, innocent until proven guilty*

*Though we'll imprison you until such time as we decide to determine whether you're guilty or not.

As for the notion that we should trust the US government, I can't help but wonder if they're using the same standards of evidence for Hicks as they do when they decide a nation simply must have WMD's.

Cause that just went to swimmingly.

If a reasonable standard of evidence can find Hicks guilty then fine. But there is no excuse for holding someone for five years without trial. He's had no defence, no nothing. We simply don't know what he's done, because he hasn't been to trial.

If we live in a world where this is permissible none of us have any guarantee of being treated fairly by our own western governments.

Hello opinionators, especially those of you who think that David Hicks is 'getting off lightly' and should have been executed by now, or should continue to be detained indefinitely.

Put yourself in his shoes, and ask yourself whether you would want the same treatment.

For goodness sake we don't even know what the man has done! All we have is the proaganda of governments about what he has done. A charge is not a conviction. Or would you prefer to have the Police or armed forces mete out justice without the courts being involved? If so, your stupidity is breathtaking.

The argument that we are under threat by Jihadists and that somehow justifies extreme preventive detention measures is a non sequitur. Whether you see the threat that Australia and Australians face from extremists as the consequence of our foreign policy (the ALP view) or simply the consequence of being a Western country (the Coalition's view) has no bearing on the question whether Hicks should be tried, and speedily, in a proper court.

I note in the case of David Hicks, the mother of the children he sired (I would not say “fathered”, it assumes he merits being called a father) never has anything to say for this particular piece of flotsam which floated around the world until he found a war to play in, rather than look toward his paternal responsibilities and work to support his offspring.

That he chose to participate in a war on the side of murder and terror was his own choice.

That the warmongering of his fellow terrorists continues is a fact.

What spin the legal minds care to place on it does not alter the fact that he remains an enemy combatant in an unconcluded war.

Let him rot in hell and when the war is over, then let him meet the common terms of release along with his terrorist buddies.

The government stand is simple, they recognize that retrospective legislation is the worst form of legislation and if he were to return here he would have no case to answer. The government do not intend to adopt poor legal practice in an attempt to extricate Hicks, the fellow who abandoned his country, his children and all right to consideration in pursuit of his own selfish indulgences.

Oh suggesting “I put myself in his shoes”, difficult to do, people born with a moral conscience would not pursue acts of treason any more than they would abandon their children.

If David Hicks was being held under the conditions he is by any country other than the US, the Australian govt would be making every possible effort to get him released, or brought before a proper court to face genuine charges or brought home to be dealt with here. We would be going to the UN, imposing sanctions, withdrawing ambassadors, cutting off aid (if applicable). But because it is our great friend and ally the US which treats one of us so shamefully we just roll over and accept it - for 5 years! If we make a stink over this, John & Jeanette might not get another invite to the Bush ranch
Flint talks about the laws of war. The US has made up its own laws which even the US Supreme Court threw out. The laws have been rewritten but are still unlikely to satisfy the Supreme Court.
The laws invent a term "military combatant" to circumvent "prisoner of war". If Hicks were a prisoner of war the Geneva conventions would apply and he would not be subject to prosecution.

I take the global view like Francis Ford back in 1979, in Apoc Now

But here we have Clinton mob did everything possible to hide the evidence a cat named bin Laden used the Oklahoma gig as a warm up for 9/11 and if you believe M Moore ver, as I do, Bush assisted bin Laden to drop some flimsy NY buildings using America's own WMD, ie planes.

Bush went "lookin for" bin but went to another country and bombed the livin sh** out of it and killed 600,000 "collaterals" [well not "real" people because at that stage they didn't have God on their side, and were not even democtratic, for cryin out loud, so don't matter.]

So don't look no different to Kurtz version:

" But we must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig, cow after
cow, village after village, army after army. And they call me an
assasin. What do you call it when the assasins accuse
the assasin? They lie.. they lie and we have to be merciful
for those who lie."

and later [to describe the goons pulling strings of Hicks]

KURTZ
" Are you an assassin?"

WILLARD
" I'm a soldier."

KURTZ
" You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks
to collect a bill."