Hicks is lucky that the media published his plight. I wonder how many people are locked up, under suspicion, tortured and even murdered by official authorities that we never hear about? I wonder how many political prisoners, who do not have as many loud friends as Hicks, have been detained in this manner and have never lived to tell the story?

No, I've lost interest in him. I was concerned about his lack of a trial but he's had his day in court and while late, better than never. We do have a important election coming up and I'd rather it was fought on issues such as climate change and Iraq; not on some silly little man who watched too many video's.

Mr.Flint you state: "While the military commissions have to be fair and conform to international standards."
The reactionary and treacherous 'big business' media at work justifying and applying a "cover" a veneer of respectibility for illegal detention, torture, and the attack on basic democratic rights that have evolved over centuries going back to the Magna Carta. All this from the same media, applying the "standards" used to launch an illegal and aggressive war, endlessly promoting the lies that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Millions saw through these transparent lies but the media did not?
These are kangeroo courts in every sense of the word. Whereby torture over very long periods is accepted as good coin. And guess what? People will say anything or confess to anything to escape more torture. The same bully boys supply firstly the victim, the lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge. Supposedly it is all fair and "standards" have applied with no conflict of interest.
Here is a big call, the writer tells us "the military commissions have to conform to international standards." What international standards are you talking about in that backwater located out of sight - Guantanamo. In reality, basic democratic rights are being undermined in the US, UK, and Australia.

Hicks was lucky to be caught by the the Yanks.Had the Taliban eventually discovered how shallow their "Golden Haired Boy" was,death would have been his welcomed relief from life.

Let's face it,David Hicks wanted excitement and tribal bonding that would free him from the complexities of our society which gave him security and a life style.

There is a price for civilisation and security which we afforded David Hicks,and he didn't want to pay the price of that umbrella of civilisation.Now he wants to profit from the sweat and toil of those whom he sought to destroy.

Traitor,is too kind a word.

Hicks may have been shallow in his belief, but his friends here in the West stood by him. It is over for him now, isn't it?

While the left media cry for Hicks to publish the horrors of his experience at the hands of the American torturers, the British Government is restricting their armed servicemen and servicewomen from selling their stories of torture at the hands of the Iranians. I haven't seen any emotional outpouring or championing of rights and shouts of anti-democracy from the Australian press. Are not our liberties being equally stymied by our loss of not hearing of Iranian torture.
Or is it because the British armed service personnel wore uniforms and were performing in the name of their country and therefore can never achieve the folk hero status of a Hicks or be used by the left media to batter away at the Howard government?.

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/couriernews/news/334130,3_1_EL10_A1BRITS_S1.article

and for the Muslim perspective. An interesting twist.
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=12574