jeez vivy why the either or, your obviously a person of limited imagination. Can't I be a millionaire lawyer? Can't I be a millionaire lawyer who made his millions defending heroic and stand up Australians like Hicks in their battle against the Americans and their culture of torture. Couldn't I be a Muslum millionaire lawyer working to free the Hicks and my brother jihadist of the world from having their freedoms curtailed and their right to holy war upheld in the face of democracy.
Don't limit my aspirations in your world of victimhood. I'm a victim too you know. I'll never get to live my dream of killing innocent civilians and using religion as justification. I'll never have the chance of selling my story to Australians hungering to share in "feeling" my gross criminality. There'll be no parades or statues for me. What about my feelings? Aren't I worthy of angst for my gross failures. Who's crying for me vivy? What about how the world and people like you victimize me? Can't you just once feel my pain?

aqvarivs
I think that it is nice for you that you have managed to get through life without too much anger and resentment. I think that your feelings of contentment are the direct consequence of your personal life experiences which in turn reflect your social circumstances. I think that the life experiences which Hicks has encountered, that led him to hold such strong and violent views, are a direct consequence of his social circumstances. I am suggesting that we take this opportunity to learn about how some people experience the social world rather than turn him into another one of our social demons. He is not an anomaly.

Dear David Flint

I agree with comments that your essay has the wrong title. There is so much that is wrong with the essay I won’t try to suggest a more appropriate title.

I have become used to the clumsy use of propaganda tools like the word “industry” being attached to any matter of concern. Frankly, I am sick of these devices and I think they are probably irritating to lots of readers. You may claim to support free speech, but you ‘instruct’ the reader what to think in a most insulting way and you attempt to smuggle-in ideas that you leave undeclared. Did you go to the same school as Ted Lapkin, Colin Rubenstein, Andrew Bolt and Imre Salusinszky?

Australians should be talking about what has happened to David Hicks without the crutches you seem to rely on to support your arguments. I don’t think that what David Hicks did was very smart or good, but lots of people offer to fight in armies in other countries. If David Hicks is anti Semitic I would probably have a strong dislike for those views, but many others in this country share these views. It is what has been done to him that we should be talking about.

According to the Nuremberg Principles David Hicks was an “enemy combatant” and not a “terrorist”. He was a Taliban foot soldier. He did not even shoot anyone. Dropping in the name of Willie Brigitte who was charged with planning terrorist offences does not automatically make David Hicks a terrorist too. Guilt by association by mentioning unlike items on the same list is not very convincing.

Regards
Willy Bach
http://willybachpoeticthoughts.blogspot.com

Dear David Flint (continued)

Many people, including most of the most respected lawyers, say that they had no confidence in the Military Commissions because of the composition of the court, the use of retrospective charges and because the court accepts hearsay evidence and evidence gained under duress. This falls far short of ‘the rule of law’ and you should know that fact. No American citizens would be tried in this way. You also seem to ignore all the threats, mistreatment and torture that David Hicks suffered. David Hicks had little choice but agree to a plea bargain, but it should be noted that the prosecution and the Howard government were anxiously promoting a plea bargain. They wanted anything but a true test of the Military Commission, which would have discredited the Bush administration in the eyes of the world.

I can just imagine what the Australian public would have done to John Howard if the death sentence had been handed down in David Hicks’ case. They are quite aware of the cynical way in which John Howard and his Ministers have toyed with David Hicks’ life. They now want David Hicks home because they want to defuse the issue of his treatment in time for the federal election. You say: “It is not that long ago a wartime conviction for a lesser offence could have resulted in the maximum punishment”. No one believes that we are living in “wartime”. It is we that deliver war to other less fortunate peoples, while we live without any serious threat to our human security and well being.

The sooner we have a government that really does care about the ‘rule of law’ and free expression the better we will all be. I hope you will try to write in a factual way and express your views with respect for your readers. This has just been another reminder why I will never buy a newspaper owned by RM.

Regards
Willy Bach
http://willybachpoeticthoughts.blogspot.com/

vivy, what ever your sell'n, I ain't buy'n.

Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed.
Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor,
but for bragging and telling her fantastical lies:
and will she love him still for prating? let not
thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be fed;
and what delight shall she have to look on the
devil? When the blood is made dull with the act of
sport, there should be, again to inflame it and to
give satiety a fresh appetite, loveliness in favour,
sympathy in years, manners and beauties; all which
the Moor is defective in: now, for want of these
required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will
find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge,
disrelish and abhor the Moor; very nature will
instruct her in it and compel her to some second
choice. Now, sir, this granted,--as it is a most
pregnant and unforced position--who stands so
eminent in the degree of this fortune as Cassio
does? a knave very voluble; no further
conscionable than in putting on the mere form of
civil and humane seeming, for the better compassing
of his salt and most hidden loose affection? why,
none; why, none: a slipper and subtle knave, a
finder of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and
counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never
present itself; a devilish knave. Besides, the
knave is handsome, young, and hath all those
requisites in him that folly and green minds look
after: a pestilent complete knave; and the woman
hath found him already.

willy, poetic thoughts? Is that another name for hidden agenda? You shouldn't accuse in others what you yourself do. Your post is riddled with exaggeration and purposeful misrepresentation. You can imagine how you will. It's your conspiracy.

Willy

“The sooner we have a government that really does care about the ‘rule of law’ and free expression the better we will all be.”

Yep.

It is just stonkering to think of the fundamental abuses of basic rights and principles of democracy that Bush has allowed to happen over the whole Hicks and Guantanamo Bay affair, and that Howard has gone along with almost all the way.

One of the worst abuses of basic principle came right at the end – the gag order on Hicks – a complete removal of his right to speak about his experiences for 12 months.

What an utterly blatant antidemocratic and anti-human-rights move…..again done with the full support of Howard, or at least with no objection expressed after the fact.

Enormous damage has been done to the foundations of democracy in the eyes of democratic and non-democratic peoples around the world.

Even if Hicks is as bad as his worst detractors think he is, he ain’t but a tiny fraction as bad as Bush and Howard, for their blatant infringement of several of the cornerstones of democracy and basic decency.