It's such a shame the damage the political knee jerk reaction to terrorism has done to our society. The leadership seem content to chase petty revenge rather than achieve justice and a practical security. The value of both real and apparent justice to society is much greater than the loss from a terrorist attack. The miscarriages of justice and misguided attacks in an attempt to appear active against the 'enemy' can and will do more harm than any simple terrorist action could.

The only fair thing to do is to release David back into society as there is no possibility of a fair trial now. Given the two possibilities of guilty and innocent, we are now at a loss with both. If he is the guilty as claimed by the Americans, we have a monster loose in our society with no just action that can be taken. Worse, if he is not guilty then we have become the monster ourselves.

No doubt there will soon be a set of comments reminding Greg Bams about Hicks's letters to his parents. What I would like to know is what he is supposed to apologise to Australians about. To Indian soldiers on the Kashmiri front, maybe. Perhaps to the Afghanistan people. But even though he intended to support the murderous, rights denying Taliban, he took no action against Australian troops.

Expect nothing less than this vomitous paean from Greg Barns.

Like most of the raptuorous bile written by the Left since Hicks' release, Barns fails to acknowledge the gravity of any of Hicks past deeds and conveniently overlooks the hate-filled writings of the man himself.

It is a pity such insipid and misleading commentary is repeated on OLO.

I also note that Greg Barns has removed choice details about his own past from his CV.

Nothing so golden as a selective memory Greg, something you and your beloved David appear to have in common.

One of the many things that put me off Howard as a party member of thirty years standing, is the lack of guts he had shown in defending Australians who got in trouble overseas.

The guilt or innocence of the individual was irrelevant to me, the only fact that I was interested in was that proper legal representation would be given to them through our embassy in that country.

The fact that Hicks was detained without trial whilst American, Canadian and British suspects found in the same circumstances as Hicks were let go. this in my view was not only scandalous it made the whole incident into a big joke that David paid for with his liberty. .

So I think you are right we should be the ones to say sorry not only to David but to the whole Hicks family for letting them down.

Hicks didn’t have a trial because he pleaded guilty to the fairly innocuous crime of supporting terrorism. Had he not done so, he could very well have remained locked up for ever.

Not unexpectedly, Barns decrees that Hicks does not owe Australia an apology. After all, he only consorted with and trained with the most evil murderers on earth and became a threat to his own country and the Western world in general. Poor old David!

I will never cease to be amazed how some ratbag Australians, including Barns, like really bad people; and Hicks is a really bad person who should have been put down like the mad dog he is on the spot he was captured. Don’t worry about the thousands of innocents slaughtered by the likes of Hicks – let’s bleat and moan about what a rough deal this little animal got.

I really would like to see Barns and other rotters who support Hicks become victims of terrorism; not killed, just maimed so that they sit around for the rest of their miserable lives contemplating their stupidity

Hicks was either a volunteer or a mercenary soldier fighting for an outlaw group intent upon forcing its rule and its religion upon us, the Australians, as part of the so-called "infidel world".We, the Australians,have participated in the recent religio-tribal wars in the Balkans and all across the Middle East as far as Afghanistan, playing our part in opposing the forces which David Hicks has supported in an active, warlike role.
At best, Hicks is a renegade; at worst, a traitor to his country and his people.Hicks was captured in a war-zone and imprisoned as an enemy operative.

Hicks was a prisoner of war, and a traitor or a renegade to boot, whichever you think best fits the case. He is not a hero, nor has his suffering been of an order higher than that of any other prisoner held in military detention after capture. Australians do not expect or require any sort of apology from Hicks. Australians in the majority will treat Hicks with the curious contempt which it is his fate to suffer for the rest of his life.

No doubt Wilfrid Burchett was another of Greg Barnes's special heroes.What a sad, silly,chip-on-shoulder bunch the looney lefitists of Australia all are.

Asimana

"In other words, David, many insightful Australians understand you pleaded guilty only to get the hell out of the gulag of Guantanamo."

You fail to consider the other possible reason he pleaded guilty: he WAS guilty.

Asimana, I don't know whether Australia was directly involved in the Balkans conflict, but NATO was on the side of the KLA - the same group David Hicks was fighting for. So in that case our close allies were hardly "playing our part in opposing the forces which David Hicks has supported in an active, warlike role."

That's the difficulty in this type of situation. Geopolitics throws up all sorts of situations where governments (including our own) support thoroughly nasty and violent regimes at different times in history (think Saddam in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden in the 1980s, heaps more I could list here). However much we may dislike the causes Hicks espoused when he was training in Afghanistan, the fact was that the regime was not a declared enemy of Australia at the time and therefore it's hardly fair to convict him for what wasn't then a crime.

Why does it seem that debate about Hicks polarises into seeing him as entirely victim or entirely perpetrator? Surely he’s both.

By his own admission he’s participated in religiously motivated violence, an admirer of Bin Laden, and a supporter of terrorism. As best he’s sad, sick and screwed up, at worst a terrorist trained Islamofascist. I would have liked to see him face a proper trial because it seems highly likely that he’s done some foul and illegal things, and deserves the truth to be brought to light and to face the consequences.

But he didn’t face the justice he deserved. Barnes is right that his admission of guilt can’t be taken as evidence of anything because of the circumstances. It’s shameful that the Australian Government condoned his prolonged and illegal detention without trial. It also connived in a solution to the increasing political problem of Hicks’ detention that minimised the political fallout and virtually guaranteed that the truth about Hicks would never be scrutinised independently.

In the process, they turned him, in the eyes of some, into the most unlikely hero.

Respect for the rule of law and for the rights even of scum like Hicks is supposed to be a point of differentiation between the world he wants to impose, and the one we want to keep.

PART I from White Warlock

"David Hicks, your country failed you - and that should never be forgotten"

Exactly Mr Barns. One must put a situation into proper context before they make a judgment. David Hicks went to a number of war zones and volunteered to fight for Muslim armies.

He was in Afghanistan hanging out with the Taliban (who make the image of a white KKK look like a left-wing hippy) before 911 and then after 911, otherwise, how was he found on the battlefield with the Taliban when the US army went to the country after 911. This fact is not disputed, he enjoyed the company of the Taliban like good old buddies, and David's own father was worried that he was "with the enenmy" (his dad's own words).

If we applied the standards of evidence we use in a domestic Western crime investigation in all the major wars the West has fought from WWII back to WWI, then how could we ever have destroyed the Nazis or the Imperialist Japanese, if every soldier caught in battle needed a full court case with witnesses, crime scene evidence, etc. It is ludicrous. It is a war, the enemy in this case (Taliban, al Qaeda) are genocidal, racist, mysoginistic to the point of the enslavement of the female gender, megalomaniacs, bloodthirsty killers.

You should drop the guise of pretending to be standing up for the man's rights, when in fact, it is obvious that you believe the man and all other Muslim extremists are freedom fighters. For a start, this is clear because no-one like you came to the defense of Pauline Hanson when she was jailed for "electoral fraud".

And about the "freedom fighters" bit: freedom fighters fight for freedom as a general thing, they don't fight so they can enslave women or Christians or Jews. These Muslim extremists are more like deposed kings who, screaming like spoiled little brats, want to rule the world as a glorious empire. Empires have to "EARN" such glory, but they want it the easy way.

I agree with Greg. David never got to Kosovo but he was trying to join the NATO forces to stop the genocide of 8,000 young muslim men and boys by Milosevic. In case the right wing ranters who love killing muslims have forgotten, Milosevic died while on trial for genocide.

Bin Laden was recruited by Jimmy Carter and was much loved by Reagan as he fought to get the Russians out of Afghanistan, after Carter backed the mujihadeen with $500 million 6 months before Russia invaded so that Russia could have their own Vietnam.

Let us not forget that while the US walked away from Afghanistan in 1989 they still used the mujihadeen for their own purposes, they spawned the ISI in Pakistan as a branch of the CIA for covert operations in the region - ably supported by the lovely Benazir Bhutto as early as 1993 - and were feting the Taliban as late as July 2001 in the hope of getting a gas and oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea.

So Hicks was being armed, trained and funded by the US everywhere he went.

And he did only agree so he could get out of the hell that others have been stuck in for years without hope of ever getting out.

A bit like some thousands of innocent refugees we locked up without trial or charge.

I would not presume to judge this matter until all the facts are in, and they're not.

Hicks, as part of the deal made for his release is unable to tell us his side of the story, yet. Perhaps he never will.
But,as the saying goes, "There's always two sides to every coin..."
We've only heard an extremely biased one side.

As another poster has pointed out - the fact remains - an Australian Citizen was not given the protection by his government that he was entitled to. And in this very real way, his government did let him, and his family down. Hicks did not receive a fair trial - nor fair treatment according to his rights as an Australian citizen. His
government did not come to his aid.

That should be of concern to us all.

To those on this Forum - who claim that Hicks was a terrorist, and got what he deserved, et cetera, I say wait until you know all the facts. Then decide. But, stop labelling other posters who happen to think differently to you. That's neither fair or intelligent. When you stoop to insulting people, you've automatically lost a civilized debate. And after all isn't that what this forum is supposed to be about - "An intelligent debate on political and social issues?"

To raise a cavalry of "rednecks", just mention the name David Hicks!

Kipp - equally to raise a "cavalry of terrorist sympathizers" just mention the name David Hicks. Marilyn is a classic. Maybe yourself?

Ignorance is Bliss for some!

Its not surprising that those who call for Hicks to apologise would also protest an apology to stolen generations.
Its the double standard dislexia they don't admit they suffer from or are aware of.

IF.

The Rudd Labor government is carrying on the undemocratic and illegal assault on Hicks where the Howard govt. finished. Each wants to desperately justify the so called “war on terror” by serving up a fall guy as “here’s proof.” Moreover the illegal torture and incarceration of people held in Guantanamo Bay and other holding centers are clear war crimes.
Hicks was captured in Afghanistan and sold to the US military for $1000. After being held illegally and tortured for 6 years, chained to the floor in darkness and his skin taking on a yellow- white colour and is reported to be suffering serious mental health problems and panic attacks produced by the years of physical and psychological abuse. Now this repressive anti-democratic control order surely will intensify the mental disorientation of the 32-year-old father of two.
At first it was thought that Hicks pleaded guilty to get out of the hell hole which is understandable: But new information has come to light that he was bullied into pleading guilty to a retrospective charge of “providing material support for a terrorist group”. Here you have this dubious open ended abstract charge that can mean many things placed onto the law books years after the event, tailored to fit Hicks; illegal, under Australian law and the Geneva Conventions. As well, to get back to Australia Hicks had to sign declarations disclaiming torture, mistreatment and waive his right to sue or commence any legal actions. As well, a gag order on any media comments whatsoever.
It should never be forgotten that a large task force was organized to comb the law books for a “coat-hanger” that would fit the bill; a spurious charge, but to no avail. There will be no public accounting of the huge cost in manpower and wages involved.

It is not as the writer claims "his country let him down" clearly it is the politicians. The oppressed are allowed in the elections every few years to decide which section of big business shall plunder society and repress workers through parliament.

Just imagine an Australian Republic under the republican Greg Barns. It would be a Republic that would give aid and comfort to Islamic fundamentalists, like Hicks, while Australian troops are fighting them overseas, all in the name of his "libertarian" lawyer's holy grail of DUE PROCESS.

This is the closest that anyone would come to LESE MAJESTE of Australia.

http://kotzabasis4.wordpress.com

I reckon that if we don't have "DUE PROCESS", our society can't claim to be civilised. While Hicks is obviously some kind of misguided loser, he exemplifies the extent to which we've allowed our actual liberty to be eroded by the State in recent years.

That's why Barns is right. Everyone is entitled to be treated justly by governments - no matter how loathsome or pathetic they (or indeed governments) are. As an Australian citizen, Hicks was poorly treated by his country for political ends.

Good point from Rainier about the apparent dyslexia many display when it comes to the notion of an apology :)

Thermistocles and others, I might refer you back to the posting of Cazza and Marilyn Shepherd. Our friends in the Republic of the United States of America joined forces with the Taliban and other so called "terrorists" when it suited them, to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan.

David Hick's problems seem to stem from the fact that he got his timing wrong and arrived on the scene in Afghanistan after the Americans had changed sides.

David

Greg Barns is just typical of the equivocating journalist/lawyer class,who can justify all manner of debauchery from traitors like Hicks and paedophiles who must be protected no matter what the consequences.

Affuence now insulates us from our decadence,when the wealth begins to evaporate,our ethical/moral vacuum will consume us.Greg Barns just personifies the metamorphisis of the old socialist left ,to the new progressives,who embrace revolution,instead of evolution.

Kipp - Weak mate. Weak. Ignorance resides in people like yourself.

Whenever the Other is involved in an attrocity, in ANY way, even if via a proxy like Hicks, Western leftists are compelled to deny them the capacity of freedom: RESPONSIBILITY.

Even when the Other is caught red-handed murdering innocents the Western leftist will be compelled to deny them agency by shifting it into a Westerner.

Or even when the Other's racist culture is clearly the protagonist in tribal warfare, the Western leftist will blame Westerners (namely whites) for dividing them up some time in the past.

This is how one treats children!

No ... given that human rights violations only matter to Western leftists when allegedely committed by Western governments, Western leftists MUST think the Other is an animal.

The Other is a lion mutilating a dear on some wildlife documentary. One squints at the thought of it but accepts that the beasts have no freedom of choice in the matter. They're programmed to violate one another that way, so it would be absurd to tell them to stop it, indeed to colonise their wretched lands and set them free.

Oh how they'de wish they COULD blame Westerner's for ALL of nature's brutality!

It is THEY who tacitly assume that Westerner's are God!

A Western leftist only cares about attrocities and gulags when those allegedly responsible for them share the same heritage or white skin colour as them, since by some racist calculus they worry that the Other might blame them too. This is ALL that matters to them.

But to deny the Other any freedom is to deny them HUMANITY.

There's nothing like the Hicks issue to bring the whacko right wingers out of their burrows.

There's a simple question that you people always seem to conveniently ignore, or are unable to answer cogently:
In this farcical "war on terror" that you so enthusiastically endorse, what do you think us good guys are you fighting for ?

Whilst I'm sure that many of you will privately have all sorts of disturbing thoughts running through your tiny minds ("our religion is better than their religion" and "I don't like the colour of their skin" spring to mind), I'm sure you will publicly claim that we're fighting for the principles of freedom, democracy, etc, etc.

And if you actually believe in such principles, then what part of "the rule of law" don't you understand ? Do you believe in the right to a fair trial, and the broader principles of natural justice, or not ? It's a simple question, and "but we read in the newspapers that he did a really bad thing" is not an acceptable answer.

If you don't believe in these principles, then you are no better than those we are fighting against.

I for one am prepared to wait until I hear a direct statement from Hicks himself.

The gag order imposed, and its timing, suggest that there are facts yet to be revealed that may be politically damaging to somebody, somewhere.

PART I FROM WARLOCK

RANIER,

only "dyslexia" on your part. No evidence is available to show that the Aust GOV wanted to do harm to aboriginal people, each case taken on its own shows that kids should not have been in that situation. If you are against the stolen generation, you must also be against the recent NT intervention.

Oh it must be really "genocidal" to want to remove kids and women from situations of gang rape and brutality. You are a white supremicist if you think that it is just their culture or their way, and we shouldn't tell them what is best.

VK3AUU and CJ Morgan,

Geopolitical situations aren't simply good guy, bad guy. Sometimes an enemy is so dangerous and so powerful (Nazis, Soviets, Japanese) that you need to work with what you have,and by that I mean choose the lesser of two evils. Like when a undercover cop hangs out with crims so he can get the bigger crims. Does this make him and all of the police force crims, too?

This is what happenned in Afganistan, and Vietnam. Iran and Iraq war of the 80s, who was worse : murderous, mobster Saddam Hussein or the
apocalyptic madman Mullahs of a dark, militant, Islamic state? These are REAL issues and responsible people have to make these types of choices.

It sounds as though you want the west to retreat from the world and be some kind of a "Southern hick's" isolationist dream.

Besides, the simple, brutal fact is that there has never been a fair, democratic, peaceful nation in any part of the world except in Western European derived ones. If we are to buy oil from anyone but ourselves, we have no choice but to "decide" which faction(s) to give the money to from week to week.

Also, ask yourself this: has the US or Britian ever gone to a peaceful, democratic, liberal nation and turned it into a murderous dictatorship?

"If you are against the stolen generation, you must also be against the recent NT intervention."

How on earth does that follow? The stolen generation was a policy to remove mixed-race indigenous children from their families (happy or dysfunctional - their circumstance were irrelevant to the policy). They were made wards of the state, and most were placed in orphanages to learn the skills to be domestic servants. A minority were fostered to white families. The intervention in NT seeks, among other things, to end child abuse by, among other things, banning alcohol and pornography, improving health, and reducing school absenteeism in remote communities.

I would have thought it was perfectly easy to be for one and against the other. I don't see what the motives of the people who make these decisions has to do with it - both Hitler and Martin Luther King wanted to improve the lot of their people.

Botheration, we are getting a bit off the thread, but I think you will find that a goodly percentage of the "stolen generation" were actually the "abandoned generation" and the reason they were taken was not what you have assumed at all. They were rescued, not stolen. You should read some of the writings of Douglas Lockwood who was a well respected reporter in the N.T. at the time, rather than accept the misinformation in the "Bringing them home" report.

David

Obviously, the best people to read and listen to on this are the people to whom it happened – many of whom are still alive – and the policy-makers, rather than commentators. I'll take up your advice to read Lockwood though.

No one has ever denied that some children of the children who were taken were neglected. But most weren't, and rescuing children from neglect was not the intent of the policy - the intent was cultural assimilation.

I don't want to get in to it either, just wanted to emphasise that it's illogical to say that if you agree with the NT intervention policy then you, by definition, agree withe the Stolen Generation policy.

Why don't the right wing ranters go and ask the Afghans and Iraqis who they think the terrorists really are.

You might be surprised to discover it is us.

Part Ib

To BC2 and similar,

When it is a war it is not possible to use a western domestic legal system to process prisoners of war. It is simply unreasonable to expect this. That said, the West tries extremely hard, as is evidenced from how so many soldiers are dying in the Middle East, because they have ethical rules which Europeans learned in centuries of warfare, and which they stuck to as people of honor. However, fighting wars with non-Europeans changes the situation. Vietnam is a good example, with little kids and grandmothers doing suicide missions (forcibly no doubt). In Iraq and Afganhistan, the enemy has less regard for their own people than our soldiers do. They shoot into crowded markets, knowing that our soldier will not shoot back until civilians are clear; they send little kids up to the soldiers to get lollies from them (which itself shows that they are not scared of our troops, since little kids would be scared of truly bad people) and then they open fire, killing the kids also. In the recent Lebanese-Israeli war, Hezbolla used hospitals and schools as military bases, they ferried their troops in ambulances. All this put every average Lebanese person at great risk, it made the Israelis look evil to the world and to the Muslim television viewers, but above all, it revealed that Hezbolla had less regard for Lebanese people than the Israelis did.

To this sick freaks who think that the average supporter of overseas wars is just an angry racist:

Firstly, all the institutional and behavioural evidence is against this, secondly, it reveals your bigotry at a certain type of Western person, that you think you just know what they are made of. Isn’t this a bit like a kkk saying “I just know that the black guy is a murderous criminal who we should lynch, I feel it”? In fact, though, the kkk’s own fear and unfair generalizations leads him/her to make this unfounded judgment.

This is at the heart of the entire issue with ALL relations between the West and the rest.

Part II,

Marilyn Shepherd

“Why don't the right wing ranters go and ask the Afghans and Iraqis who they think the terrorists really are.

No surprise that "olivednecks" and genocidal maniacs would think that we are the bad guy, I’m sure the average German or Japanese person thought that the US and Britian were the bad guys in WWII also.

We are not terrorists just because we use force. Western domestic police are sanctioned by a liberal and democratic community to use reasonable force to stop or even kill,if need be, any would-be law braker who would violate mine or your rights. If you see no problem with this you should have no problem with our nation using force to keep in check those nations or groups that would violate human rights of their own people and our people.

The so-called “left” are really racists who think that all coloured people are essentially less (this is why they never hold them accountable for their actions and they ALWAYS think they need assistance, the same way we deal with mentally/physically disabled); they are class bigots who look down their noses at the white manual labor classes, they see them as “uncouth” and close minded and rough, the way that Lords would sneer at dirty children in the factories in 19th century England.

They have more concern that all “coloured” peoples will think that they are mean or paternalistic if they pressure them to uphold people's rights than the actual welfare of those people, as is clear from our own aboriginal community, where “leftists” are actually arguing that it is racist to help them by force. But they have lost their understanding of responsibility , and this has only happened since the 60s to the massive scale it is on now, because these fake do-gooders have stolen their agency.

More evidence for this is how many feminists refuse to denounce many Islamic practices as barbaric and extremely misogynistic with gender apartheid, and many even claim that cutting off the clitoris from little girls is not abuse or misogyny but simply “their way”.

"More evidence for this is how many feminists refuse to denounce many Islamic practices as barbaric and extremely misogynistic with gender apartheid, and many even claim that cutting off the clitoris from little girls is not abuse or misogyny but simply “their way”."

Oh, what rubbish. Your hotline to rightousness is crowded with white noise. Feminists have been at the forefront of opposition to female genital mutilation. Oh, I'm sure you can find some idiots who might not object to it, but their ideas will be far more influenced by relativism or postmodernism than feminism.

See here: http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/inter/fgm.htm and about a million other places I can't be bothered linking to but will if you insist.

Feminists have also fought to end *male* genital mutilation, aka circumcision.

Come on now White Warlock, I suppose you still believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy if you think that our side still adhere to the Geneva Convention. Have a look at George W's attitude toward torture. Why are members of the US government considering bringing charges against the Vice President for what happened in Abu Graib.

Give us a break.

David

Leigh's vitriol demands some sort of response - putting aside his veiws on Hicks - his appetite for human destruction and cruelty puts him smack in the middle of the ranks of those people he tells us he hates -- terrorists in this instance but I am confident the list of people Leigh depises is a long one.

Hatred is a wicked characteristic far worse than anything demonstrated by Hicks - misguided and wrong headed as he is/was.

If modern man adopted Leighs mind set the Allies would have simply murdered the entire German and Japanese army -

Hicks committed an offence - undefined and essentially untested - prima facie he supported the bad guys - but the unconscionable time it took to bring him to book and the manner he was treated was criminal as well

- he has nothing to apoligise for - he has been convicted in bizarre circumstance and done his time - it is all over now - go back to your homes.

Yes WhiteWarlock we are the bad guys and I suggest you do some reading to find out how bad.

No Afghans or Iraqis ever hurt us or the US yet we have bombed both countries back to the stone age and murdered one million human beings or more.

Compare that to guarding a useless tank behind an unused airport in the poorest country on earth for one week and then get back to us.

I have had a gutful of this. Hicks committed no crime in any country, Howard and Ruddock know that, the AFP know that yet they lie in court with immunity and the US know Hicks committed no crime but tortured him anyway for 5 years.

Making up a crime 5 years after you lock someone up is deranged.

Merylin Sheperd,

I have read plenty of Chomsky and Pilger (if that's what you mean by "information"), also many UN and UNHCR, Amnesty International article about all these isssues.

I used to think that Chomsky and Pilger were right, until I thought a little bit more and realized that the only way you can see the world this way is if one, you think the West (mostly the US) is so powerful that no one can threaten them, and two, that all the "coloured" peoples of the world have no agency and people in those countries don't matter. It doesn't matter if 99% of Egyptian women have have their clitoris cut off by inbred hick men; it doesn't matter if there is a genocide in Sudan which is being helped alone by China's UN vetoes.

How can you focus all your energy on the US or Britian, when these are the primary forces that tried to stop slavery in Africa and elsewhere? Why do no student protestors goe to the Chinese embassy ever to protest the Sudanese genocide, or ALL the Arab embassies to protest their denial of this genocide and the brutal dictatorships they all are. What about when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, where the demands from these "leftists" to get the UN to goe in there to free the women and non-muslims?

I am sad that the US is not 10 times bigger, since, the more powerful China and India become, the darker the world will become. India has a caste system, China has the world's slave labour.

The West is the petridish of the world's future freedom. Let's focus our energy on murderous, racist, closed minded nations. Surely the people there don't choose to live like that. If you want to think they are then you must think they are animals, as only animals can live like that without anyone caring.

Don't forget that the US were buddies with the Taliban when it suited them, trying to get the Russians out of Afghanistan. You seem to have a very selective memory.

David

David Hicks is refered to in the media as convicted terrorist. His conviction consisted of either admitting guilt and coming home or spending an indefinite amount of time at the mercy of brutal extra legal interogators.

This in any real court would be have been dismissed in days. That Australia recognises the verdict of the court is an abomination.

Irespective of what Hicks has done, Australia owes him an apology for allowing this travesty of justice.

While Hicks needs to apologise and account for his actions, what has been done is inexcusable.

I just took a look at the scoreboard. Hicks did train with Al Quaeda, he did think Osama bin laden was a good man, he did fight with the Taliban and he is guilty because he admitted guilt. However, he has been sentenced and done his time. Whatever i might think about the failures of process, it doesn't alter the reality of what Hicks did.

While the denial of rapid justice is a genuine concern, my concern is tempered by an equal concern about the justice meeted out by the Taliban that Hicks provided support to.

Whether Hicks owes an apology is another question, he offended no Australian Law at the time of his actions and he was tried and convicted in another jurisdiction. What's the point of an apology except as a PR exercise. Hopefully he will get on with life and put his past behind him.