Under the known [I hope] circumstances, if David Hicks had been killed in action, or killed whilst trying to evade capture, then I would simply have accepted that as the customary consequences of him being a voluntary war combatant, whether uniformed or not. But he wasn't killed, he was taken prisoner, allegedly after surrendering. Yes, he could still have been executed as an alleged spy, but that didn't happen either, he was taken into custody.

I'll draw an analogy. I believe in the right to effective personal defense against an unprovoked attack, particularly by an armed assailant. [This is something which I'm not entirely happy with the Australian legal system about, but that's another story, isn't it?]

If David Hicks had been attempting to get into my home, armed and presumably dangerous, then I believe that I would have been within my moral rights by getting the drop on him and killing him, if necessary. [This is hypothetical, of course.] If I already knew him to be a serious threat to humanity in general, I may even have thought that, by doing so, I was doing the world a favour.

But if I had captured him and handed him over to the appropriate authorities, then I would expect him to be securely imprisoned, not mistreated, but not given undue privileges either, and a legally sustainable case brought against him as soon as reasonably possible. During his imprisonment, I would expect that any allegations of inappropriate treatment or unreasonable delay would be made open to public scrutiny, either by open government action and/or by the media.

After a transparently open and fair trial, and if he was found guilty as charged, then I would expect him to be severely punished to possibly the full extent of the law. I think that this is all probably any of his alleged "apologists" are asking for. Now, are we being soft, or what?

What about all the Japanese prisoners taken in World War 2. Should they have all been bought before the courts and given a fair trial.
This is War. War is fought under differnet criteria than civilian crime. We are at War with the Arab world as far as I'm concerned.
Law courts apply in a society in time of non war. In war you fight to win. The gloves come off.
When the Arabs attacked America forwhatever reason I regarded it as an act of war not some ordinary criminal event within society but an attack by foreign forces on allied soil.

Maybe you should see the truth in what you read instead of seeing what you want to see.
The Arabs in Iraq have killed more people than the Americans have. What about when the Americans were giving lollies to a group of about 50 children and the Arabs drove a truck with a bomb on it into the middle and killed all of the Arab children. Couldn’t they have waited until the children went and then targeted the Americans.

If groups of western terrorists were standing in the middle of Australian capital cities and firing rockets into an Arab state (hypothetically) like the Arabs were doing to Israel in Lebanon and the Arabs fired back on them, you would say that the Arabs were targeting innoncent people in those Australian cities would you.

The Arabs are trying to fight a war by lies and stealth, shouting their support for Hamas and Hezbollah one minute but when the other side retaliates suddenly they are innocent citizens again.

Having said that, I believe as I said earlier that the West should stop taking any responsibility for the racial hatred between the Jews and the Arabs which is squarely their own responsibility. Stop supporting the Jews and just pull out and let the Arabs and the Jews take their hatred which has nothing to do with the West out on each other.

Sunisle,

Maybe you should see the truth in what you read instead of seeing what you want to see.
The Arabs in Iraq have killed more people than the Americans have. What about when the Americans were giving lollies to a group of about 50 children and the Arabs drove a truck with a bomb on it into the middle and killed all of the Arab children. Couldn’t they have waited until the children went and then targeted the Americans.

If groups of western terrorists were standing in the middle of Australian capital cities and firing rockets into an Arab state (hypothetically) like the Arabs were doing to Israel in Lebanon and the Arabs fired back on them, you would say that the Arabs were targeting innoncent people in those Australian cities would you.

The Arabs are trying to fight a war by lies and stealth, shouting their support for Hamas and Hezbollah one minute but when the other side retaliates suddenly they are innocent citizens again.

Having said that, I believe as I said earlier that the West should stop taking any responsibility for the racial hatred between the Jews and the Arabs which is squarely their own responsibility. Stop supporting the Jews and just pull out and let the Arabs and the Jews take their hatred which has nothing to do with the West out on each other.

David Hicks' actions were by stealth. He had many aliases. He returned to Afghanistan after 9/11. His radical Islamic beliefs advocates the "Destruction of Western - Jewish domination".

There are many allegations against Hicks who was aiding the Taliban against the coalition forces.

In essence he was collabarating with a potential enemy of the West.

Frankly I've read sufficiently to presume that the man's a traitor and I don't give a hoot about the bleeding hearts!

Oh Iluvatar, GOOD ON YOU.

I agree - I agree - I agree!

Thank You Big-time!