PM playing politics: Hicks dad.
From the Courier Mail
And Mr Hicks senior isn’t?
I Googled “David Hicks” and found a site dedicated to his release.
It comes with the usual left wing ‘he’s innocent’ baggage and quotes the non-applicable Geneva Convention.
Bob Ellis buys in with this total disregard of facts.
David Hicks has committed, it seems, thought crime against the United States and is being detained and tormented by people unaware of his rights. It’s unlikely they know this, and they should be told.”Bob, you fool, young David didn’t just think of volunteering to join the Taliban and thus be available to kill US and Aussie troops, he actually did it. I note the US appointed legal rep, Major Mori requests anyone who; # worked with David # employed David, or # has known or knows David to please contact him. Could I suggest he contact the Taliban, they should have some Course Reports on him.
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And neither can you prove that they are. The question is academic and can only be proven before a court of law, not a court of kangaroos.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
For God’s sake Niall, he joined the Taliban, he did the training, he was there in Afghanistan and he has admitted it all.
Obviously I can’t prove one way or the other and neither can you but based on his confession, he definitely has a case to answer.
And if the left-wing Stephen Kenny says Hicks appearing before a US military commission would be no more than a show trial then that’s definitely the way to go.
Court of Kangaroos is a big call. I have been the presiding officer at military courts and my recollection is – they are steeped in the favour of the accused.
Still, I see your point. Denigrate the court so later, if he is found guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy you can claim he didn’t get a fair trial.
You guys do claim the enemy is the US itself. Don?t you?
In this case, Kevin, most definately the US, specifically the Bush Administration, is the enemy in light of its arbitrary dismissal of basic human rights, being the denial of a right to a trial by peers. A military tribunal is not Hicks’ peer. Your argument of ‘if it looks like & quacks like’ smacks of the same convenient arbitrary pidgeon-holing as applied to both Australian citizens by the US administration. Left-wing, right-wing or kallathumpian, I’d reckon Stephen Kenny has a much better grip of law then either you nor I, hmmm? Surely you don’t honestly expect any reasonable, rational person to believe that a concocted military trial system, which even the US military have expressed severe doubts about the veracity of, will be ‘steeped in the favour of the accused’? If indeed either man is ever accuised of anything after 2.5 years. I reckon Court of Kangaroos is a pretty accurate description of what’s likely to occur.
In the case of Hicks, he is a POW. As such, he is entitled under the Geneva Conventions to certain inalienable rights, which as an ex-military type, you should be well aware. That right includes repatriation to his country of citizenship. If, and it’s a big if, Hicks has any criminal charges to answer for, such as acting as a mercenary, then his own nation has the sole right to charge and try him in a civil court. Habib is an entirely separate case given that he was NOT captured as a POW, but kidnapped out of Pakistan, taken to Egypt, from there to Afghanistan and thence to Guantanamo Bay. Even the Pakistani Government have stated they had nothing to hold him on, and had released him.
As always, I see your human rights and raise you human responsibilities
If he is entitled to protection under the Geneva Convention then he is a POW thus the military are his peers.
Quoting the Geneva Convention is a red herring. The convention was born in a different time for a different set of problems. It was to protect soldiers of structured nations and armies. Ideological terrorism at any level does not fit the bill and we need to think it through again. Even then the West where the only ones who stuck to the convention and I?m damn sure the Taliban or other terrorist organizations or individuals aren?t thinking Geneva ? got to be nice to the infidels!
It doesn?t even come into the equation
Stephen Kenny does know more about law than us non-legal types but not necessarily more about justice or what’s fair and and he is arguing on an ideological base rather than on points of law. He lost his credibility when he did that.
Repatriation to his country comes after the war is finished and on that basis he can be held until the last terrorist shakes hands with his God or they stop killing woman and kids because they don’t believe in the same god.
In the long term I don’t think he will spend much time in the brig after a Trial/Commission/Court Martial as I haven’t heard he has actually killed any Coalition forces. But it’s not unreasonable, in my opinion, to keep him locked away until the war is over just to protect him from his own stupidity and to stop him actually killing Coalition forces.
Under no circumstances should he be repatriated to Australia. Our soft legal system will have him on the streets in a week and likely back in the Middle East somewhere on another Jihad.
Our courts have let other terrorists out on bail so they can go back to trying to kill us- they will likely do the same with him.
Kevin, as I expected, you fail to understand the basic premise of my argument. You concede the point – as yet unproven mind you – that Hicks appears not to have actually killed anyone, coalition forces or otherwise. Yet you persist in this postulation that by association with a Government for which he fought, Hicks is guilty of terrorism. That is the red herring, not Geneva Conventions. Whether or not said Conventions were formulated in a different time for a different set of problems is totally irrelevant to the question of basic human rights. Would you like to have been held by the North Vietnamese, totally incommunicardo for over 2.5 years under conditions similar to Hicks and Habib, had you been captured during your military time? Remember, that war had never been declared either, just as the so-called War on Terrortm has never been declared. Would that have made you any less of a POW in your eyes? Would you have expected any less than all stops out to get you released once the conflict ended?
Your naivety over the probable outcomes of the US Kangaroo Court being proposed for Hicks and likely Habib is strangely encouraging. Just as your dragging of religion into this debate is somewhat strawlike. Let’s face facts, as scant as they are. Hicks fought on the losing side in an undeclared conflict. Sure, lock him up until said conflict is deemed complete. Afghanistan is, according to Bush, complete and has been for some time. That’s a highly debateable point on it’s own and an entirely separate subject. Under the fourth Geneva Coonvention, Hicks is entitled to repatriation, declared war or no declared war. I seriously doubt there are any ordinary rank-and-file fighters from the Kosovo conflict still held incommunicardo anywhere. Good case in point, I’d say.
Ideologies aside, you, I, David Hicks, Saddam Hussein and even George Bush & his cronies all have basic human rights. Civilised societies acknowledge and act on those rights, they don’t abolish them as & when the internal political need arises. This is the crux of my argument. Not whether Hicks actually killed anyone, not whether he is or isn’t a terrorist because none of that has been proven. Ignorance of those rights places such societies right down in the slime with those societies they decry. Those women abusers and free speech haters which rational people find so abhorrent. Religion is not a valid basis to deny basic human rights, I’m sure you’d agree. Why then does this country allow what it calls as it’s closest ally to treat our citizens in the same manner it claims it’s ideological opponents treat theirs? You are correct on one point. This conflict, this made up political leverage point for the right specifically designed to strike fear and loathing of one religious belief system into the hearts and minds of it’s believers, is a war of sorts, but it’s not ‘good against evil’ from either camp’s point of view. It has become an ideological war for those very hearts and minds. It has little to do with the spreading of democracy or freedom of speech because those elements are intangibles. It has to do with control.
This is why David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib are still held in Guantanamo Bay. This is why Howard aligns himself with the US. It’s also why the Wahhabists want control of the Middle East and why they want their brand of Islam and no other throughout the world. Control. This is why we should decry the erosion of our rights and why we should stand against those who would erode them, from whatever ideological viewpoint they come.
However, with your background and idelogical leaning, I doubt you’d understand my point.
Niall…stop banging your pots…
and eat your apple sauce…
Somebody should remind Terry Hicks (just as they reminded the loony left parents of Johnny Taliban) that he’s a failure of a father for bringing up a violent, thickheaded gun-nut, who’s attracted to killing and enslaving people in the name of a stupid medieval religious cause.
Niall again quotes his benign concept of what is fact and what is fiction. If Hick’s is entitled to all manner of representaion and freedoms as a prisoner then surely he himself is in breach of those very rights by supporting a regime that enforces Sharia Law. The geneva convention is sparingly used to support dilusional claims by wannbe US haters but they never apply it’s codes and practices to the miscreants like Hicks. It would seem that if Hicks was indeed involved in war, Holy or otherwise, then he himself must adhere to the same rule of law. To claim that a Jihad is a war by fundamentalists would then mean they are ruled by the Geneva conventions rule. However, i fail to see how putting the muzzle of an SKS to the head of a woman accused of adultery can be viewed as compliance to that law. The Jihadees claim that they wage war not only against the west but against moral terpitude and that killing unrully women is part of their fight. So good old David Hicks sighned up for this most “ETHICAL” conflict. Tell me then Niall why he feels he is entitled to more justice than his friends meted out to unnarmed civillians in the name of their vile war.
Now you claim that the US is “the enemy of light”. Wow Niall, your compassion for murderous zealots is profound indeed. Tell me, will you lambaste the Iranians, Syrians, Sudannese, Somalians, and so on for their egregious treatment of people or will you put that down to “CULTURE” so you can find a way to justify genocide???
I am amazed at your comment that the Pakis claim they had nothing on Habib. You know that isn’t true either because the Pakistanis have been monitoring Habib for more than 3 years prior to his arrest and charges of financing and supplying weapons to banned groups and the Paki’s have expressed an interest in laying charges against Habib. Naughty Naughty Niall.
But Niall, you go on to criticise Kev for bringing religion into it, well sunshine, so have the prisoners. They claim that some forms of interrogation should not apply to them as it contravenes their religion. Stiff fucking shit. I would suggest that when the Quran was written there were no provisions for placing an SKS to the head of a woman and spraying her brains over a soccer field all in the name of a religios ideal, Sharia Law.
Im glad the world never had to rely on the likes of you to take on the beaches of Gallipolli or Normandy.
Oh, look Scott, either get a life or get an argument. You could do with a damn good dose of both from the drivel you’ve written above.
Niall
When was the last time you had a root?
Murph
(Your cat doesn’t count)