Fox,

From the BBC,

"David Hicks, 39, pleaded guilty at the base in Cuba in 2007 to providing material support to terrorism.

But a US court has struck down the conviction, on the grounds the charge was not a war crime and so should not have been heard at a military court...

US civilian courts have ruled that the charge of providing material support for terrorism cannot be considered a war crime in cases that were brought for actions before 2006, when new laws were adopted."

That would confirm what John Howard said,

<“The US verdict is about the legal process in that country,” said Mr Howard, who was prime minister when Mr Hicks was sent to Guantanamo Bay.

“Nothing alters the fact that by his own admission, Hicks trained with al-Qaida, met Osama bin Laden on several occasions - describing him as a brother.

“He revelled in jihad.

“He is not owned an apology by any Australian government.”>

He was fortunate that the available laws had not caught up to terrorism at that stage.

If you, L'il Willie Shorten and the Greens now believe that he is absolved from blame, then so be it. You, L'il Willie and the feckless Greens can apologise on your own behalf and dig deep into your wallets for compo. You might have a hard job convincing the electorate though.

So when will you be sending your apology, flowers and a meaningful wad of dollars as a donation?

"L'il Willie Shorten and the Greens are highly sympathetic to Hicks. Maybe they would like to apologise for their respective parties..."

Well, L'il Johnny Howard wouldn't be likely to sanction anything approaching an "apology" for anything.

After all, as a member of the Coalition of the Willing, Howard, as chief toady of Bush and Blair, was culpable in their little escapade - which cost how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives?

Don't you worry about all those others, Poirot.

When will you be sending your apology, flowers and kicking in a meaningful wad of dollars as a donation?

Foxy, when you say nobody should be treated differently,..... Wouldn't you agree that Australians (natural born) deserve the same amount of respect from Musilms when they come to our country as Muslims expect from us when they settle here? Surely anti discrimination laws are two sided!

otb,

This from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24830841

Might help you to get a better grasp of the situation.

Your obvious concern about compensation for Mr David Hicks
is very surprising to say the least - and somewhat touching.
And, if you feel so strongly about it as to raise it in this
discussion then by all means feel free to donate with money,
flowers, or whatever else you feel is fair.

We won't judge you.

Dear rehctub,

We all - in this country -
have a continuing obligation to work on our
attitudes towards each other. While we all like to think of
ourselves as tolerant people, even passionate in our belief
that all are equal - yet every day we hear of grievances
in connection with which ethnic background, or some
similarly irrelevant difference is blamed. It is of course
the height of arrogance to believe that we are superior
to others, yet this attitude appears to be hard to eradicate.

Of course our aim should always be to behave with respect
towards others, and to encourage this in all people.

Unfortunately it doesn't take long to discover that we all
have a streak of prejudice within us, which at times seems
a compulsion. However, all we can do is keep on trying -
and encourage in our inter-action with others for them to
do the same.

Fox,

Trust you to dredge up an old BBC article that has been superseded by the most recent report I quoted earlier. Irrelevant.

Again, if you, L'il Willie Shorten and the Greens believe that Hicks is absolved from all blame, then it is you, L'il Willie and the feckless Greens who should be apologising to Hicks on your own behalf, sending flowers and digging deep into your wallets for compo.

So when will you be sending your apology, flowers and a meaningful wad of dollars as a donation?

Can't see the public agreeing with you.