YOU ALL AREN'T LISTENING !

I have taken the liberty of cross-posting this from a similar post on the Forum.

<Quote>
For those with no memory at all, here's a little bit of wisdom from a Guantanamo watcher. Prof McCoy interviewed on Lateline last year:

Lo bandwidth:
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200606/r90598_269857.asx

Hi bandwidth:
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200606/r90598_269856.asx

Listen very carefully.

Hint: Check your ego and prejudice at the door.
<Unquote>

I, too, will ask you ALL to report back to me tomorrow morning. Tell me what YOU would do after a 5 year sojourn in Guantanamo Bay. Would you be innocent? Who knows? Who cares?

The CIA's agenda is PERFECTLY clear ! No wonder they didn't want anything to do with the Geneva Convention or all that silly legal stuff !

I agree with others: no one I know or have read has turned Hicks into a hero. This is simply rubbish and a distraction from real, weighty and unanswered questions.

My own question is why Australia didn't follow the British example and insist that any of our nationals captured there be returned to their home country. In the UK they all then went free, without any charge (what charge could there have been?) and resumed their lives. Why didn't that happen in Hicks's case?

Democracies find it hard to fight against dictatorships, but that is not a reason for us to behave like one.

I agree with TurnRightthenLeft. Ned Kelly was a crim and is a national icon, isn't isn't a far stretch to have Hicks as the same. Personally, I don't think this is the right reasoning.

David Hicks's plight brings to light to major issues that are tenets of our society.

The first major issue at hand is, irrespective of whether the man is innocent or guilty, Hicks has the right to a fair trial.

As a secondary, the issue arises of what protections Australian citizens are given, and what our government is prepared to do to protect them. Our government has effectively sat on their hands with Hicks, and allowed another state to illegally incarcerate & torture a citizen without trial.

Hicks isn't a hero, he is a symbol for people to rally around. He is a symbol by just how far off track the US has gotten, and just how little our present government is prepared to do to protect it's citizens from abuses.

=my2c

60% of opinion poll voters believe Hicks is innocent- how absurd.

He was not some innocent vagabond who got caught in the wrong circles. He was a mercenary who fought in Kosovo and Afghanistan against allied forces. The men he killed- who can ever know?

No legal system is designed to be 100% accurate all of the time. All a democracy demands is that it is accurate more often than it is not and that it is administered on the balance of justice. Is it safer to leave a murder on the street or jail an innocent man?

We as a western civilisation are fighting an unknown battle, against an unknown enemy on unknown terms.

Those who died in the September attacks (3000 of such), in Bali the Bali bombings, in the london bombings will never see justice.

So on the grounds of some absurd moral principle we defend a man who in the whole scheme of these atrocities should have no rights.

We except our government to govern us to keep us safe and yet then expect them to defend a known terrorist.

We turn our society and our democracy into a circus by protecting one man over the best interests of a nation, a way of life, a society.

No one can say that the world is not a better place with the execution of Saddam Hussein.

No one should say that the world is a worse place because David Hicks is not a free man.

If we do- our children will be the one's who scorn our short sightedness.

Bad things sometimes happen to good, innocent people. This is not one of those very rare times.

Marlo,

So if it was all clear, cut & dried, why didn't the US simply charge Hicks & use the legal system it had and has used for the last few hundred years?

To descend into barbarity, authoritarianism & ignoring human rights seems to be a pretty poor method of fighting for high ideals, democracy & human rights.

=my2c

The incarceration of David Hicks is not lawful and he hasn't been charged with a civil offense nor treated in accordance with the Geneva convention.

The incarceration of David Hicks calls into question the integrity of the office of Attorney General, the office of the Prime Minister, whether Foreign Affairs will look out for the interests of the Australian travelling public.

The cost of David Hicks incarceration is too high and the circumstances of his plea bargain are very tawdry. The Australian government are the biggest losers in this whole affair.