Hey, Alignment Man!

Hey, I email an early version to my favourite (read useful) Pollies [10 Jan 2007 @ 13:53 pm] and the next day fix a few typo's and submit to the Age blog. Then I see that Mr Rudd (*) has also said much the same in the Age newpaper in respect to the logical next step of bail for Hicks while we all wait ...(see last para below). I originally used "parol" in place of "bail" as he seems to be guilty until proven innocent.

Hmmm, I would just love to claim 'causation', but best stick with synchronicity. Great minds thinking alike and in anticipated synchronisation. That's it. Done. Proved the point. System 3* works. It can be done, and in the lunch break as well! Great! Fast, efficient democracy @ work. Sweat! The Cyber-age has come of age, in the Age. Now back to sleep in the 'burbs'.

(* e.g. See http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Release-Hicks-on-bail-says-Labor/2007/01/10/1168105037065.html and time of January 10, 2007 - 2:25 pm)

--------------------
The Age should be congratulated for this focus on a David Hicks as he enters his 6th year in a system of American 'justice'. Well done. I am another one to add to your 6,500+ concerned citizens who are outraged at the continued mistreatment of Mr Hicks.

Congratulations on prompting Mr Ruddock to answer the many pointed issues in "Why He Can't Return" (Ruddock, 2007) (http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/why-he-cant-return/2007/01/06/1167777323596.html?page=3)

I believe that although Ruddock writes clearly about the challenges his government faces in protecting an Australian citizen from unfair denial of justice in a foreign land (and it seems, a plight also shared by our great Governor General who appears equally impotent in honouring the statement in the front of every Australian passport) something must be done, and done soon.

I am even more concerned to learn that "We have spent more than $300,000 on Australian legal consultants assisting Mr Hicks" and to hear that 16 year old Canadian children have been imprisoned in US Cuban military bases so long that they have turned 20!

And we dare to stand up and claim moral superiority based on higher standards!

I note that Ruddock says: "Mr Hicks was charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the enemy in June 2004. The charges expired when the US Supreme Court ruled the military commission process was unlawful because it was established without the express authority of Congress."

This is careful weasel word play and somewhat deceitful I believe. The truth is they did not "expire". They were found to be illegal. When something like this happens in a valid court of law, the party goes free: No charge.

So we really have the situation that David Hicks (and others) have been illegally held without valid charges. Therefore Ruddock has had ample opportunity to bypass this whole complex mess and request Hicks be returned to Australia forthwith -- especially as no valid charges have been brought in over 5 years. If he had the will to do so, then I'm sure it would have happened long ago.

Ruddock et al are now playing the "poor us" hand, victims of international politics beyond our control: well, I read that as simply 'beyond our competency'. And now that we have lost our AWB wheat business in Iraq there is little or no reason to play the US game anymore.

I would like to point out the simple and obvious: (a) Hicks did not break any Australian law at time; and (b) there are many Australian citizens engaged as mercenaries fighters throughout the world, from Israel through to Lebanon through to Africa and elsewhere I'm sure where ever the 'money for bullets' is good. What is different about Hicks? Maybe just the religion he chose.

I note that if Hicks had joined the other Afghan force, the drug running 'Northern Alliance' then he would not have been subjected to this mistreatment by a US/Australian military-executive-government alliance. Is being party to a system of pumping heroin into our streets any less a crime against society than a few sharp explosions that might, or might not, take place at some future time? There is far greater risk from explosive gangland violence than a few disgruntled local 'islamists' in my opinion.

Ruddock, Howard and Downer are party to this travesty against a single individual who it seems to me has been selected out as an example because he is 'white' and one of us 'anglo-saxons', and fighting overseas as a mercenary without pre-training in the Australian armed forces! Some of these comments (above) are quite vile and others use the word 'traitor': these say more about the mentality of our nation than Hicks.

The question I have is this: If this is a long and involved process for the US administration to 'work through' with their Supreme court, then why cannot David Hicks be released on 'bail' to live in Australia while he awaits the lengthy process of confirming that 60 year old standards of justice defined in Geneva and other places still hold true?

Posted by: Russell at January 11, 2007 10:50 AM