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.