The Hicks case has certainly highlighted the newest Australian disease - let's make a fuss about the bad guy's 'rights', and to hell with the victims.

It's not just the fatheaded left and the wackos who post here; it has also been contracted by judges, lawyers (to be fair, it's only the money for them) and politicians.

All this yammering about habeous corpus is total drivel. We are not talking about criminals in a civilized society; we are talking about a mad dog who aligned himself with an organization committed to killing all non-Muslims and ruling the world.

David Hicks should have been dealt with permanently when he was caught. Then we would not have to put up with hearing about this rotten little creature's 'rights'. He has no rights.

The US Supreme Court ruled in June 2006 that the Guantánamo Bay military commissions were unconstitutional and violated the Geneva Conventions. Howard responded by scheming up new laws to be placed on the books, 5 years after the event - called retrospective laws. Years of combing the law books by legal teams had come up with nothing to charge Hicks. Even 5 years of mental and physical torture in a darkened rat hole, chained to the floor produced nothing useable in the courts; which says much in and of itself. Here the governments are abrogating the right to arrest and torture without charge and accountability. Included too, is the many revelations that have emerged about the sadistic mental and physical abuse practiced on Guantánamo prisoners.

What Bush and Howard are doing cannot be expressed openly and requires a political cover that conceals and shelters their real agenda on behalf of big oil, the financiers, and the war industry. Hicks and many like him are useful pawns whereby their illegal torture and detention is used to shield the real motives and legitimize the so called 'war on terror. As well, the US has the world’s largest debt that is so immense it borders on spiraling out of control. Hence the US embarking on global hegemony of the world’s resources, oil being prominent.

Leigh

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at your last post. As usual you miss the point.

Let me set the scene, Leigh goes on holiday to an exotic location (no not Dubbo) somewhere overseas - you know the place where all those nasty foreigners live.

A nasty person (who would never be allowed in Oz) knows that he can get $5,000 from a certain superpower just for saying you are a terrorist - good money for nothing.

You get taken to a secret prison, you are blindfolded, handcuffed and beaten. You have things shoved up your bum and your genitals are sliced with a scalpel.

You eventually end up it Cuba after spending months in a cupboard, your Govt will do nothing.

This is not about Hick's its about how we treat prisoners of any persuasion. Our Govt. is complicit in atrocities.

If we are not civilised how can we complain?

The charges against Hicks would read: He became a Muslim with the sole intention to join our Muslim enemy in a war zone. To fight and kill with that enemy against (us).

To those who still don’t see the relation between Islam’s teaching and terrorism – do us a favour and read their Qur’an.

Hicks didn’t stop there, he memorised the entire book in “Arabic”, saturating his mind and spirit with pages of hatred and revengeful anger against all non-Muslims.

He did all that willingly and wittingly – enrolling himself in an Islamic terrorist school – not under duress or coercion. Insanity could not be entered as a plea in his case. He was quite sane when he joined our enemies.

Hicks was not backpacking across Afghanistan. He was there on a mission to kill.

Hicks is a decided Muslim, a convert with intent, an anti-Australian/ American combatant. An enemy of our democracy and human freedoms. A danger to our society. A Muslim by excellence.

He should be locked up until he repents of his actions, and/or ceases to be a Muslim.

The war against terror is a war against Islam, no two ways about it. Islam is the source of global terrorism today.

Just a reminder: All terrorists including London, New York, Madrid, Bali, Baghdad, Mombay, etc... have one thing in common: they were all Muslims, who went deeper in their Islamic beliefs and applied the perilous teachings of the Qur’an.

So in my book, Hicks is not a case of innocent until proven guilty. Hicks is guilty as “will-be-charged”, guilty of becoming a Muslim terrorist by choice.

As for mistreatments in jails and human rights, they never did really apply in time of wars – we all know that.

This is not a civil case; it is a war crime against humanity. War tactics rule.

I just love these people who argue against calls for a fair (and speedy) trial with diatribes about how guilty Hicks is.

Graham, you do have some very disturbed and sick people posting on this site.