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.