Is "The Base" a Dirty Word?

Getup! is not really "Press" but who knows after today's censorship I'll be more interested to see where they are going...

These two (below) got through. (I have left the layout as paste put it)

Wednesday, 7 February 2007
Sorry to the decent minded on this blog, but this is a real concern. These quotes below add meaning to the phrase: "sent to a penal colony". One can only wonder what they were, and are, searching for? Bastardry? Bin Laden? Training manuals? So, why use lubricant? What they have on their fingers is on their sick minds: and people wonder why there is hatred for our ‘civilization’ out there! Our ongoing silence to this filth is tacit approval. I for one object and ask: did this happen to David Hicks, who is innocent until proven guilty? And if so when did the government know about it? Like the AWB fiasco, it is now far beyond plausible deniability.Anxiety over the backlash? I don’t think they stoop that low. What has Howard and to say about this treatment? Has it continued in Cuba? Age (07-02-07): … "I noticed that one of the MPs (military police) was lubricating two of his fingers preparing to perform the anal probe instead of the medical person," says the officer's sworn statement, made in Kandahar, Afghanistan."Without warning the EPW (Enemy Prisoner of War), and in a cruel way, he push[ed] both his fingers into the EPWs anus."This caused the EPW to scream and fall to the ground violently."…See: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/witness-backs-hicks-abuse-fears/2007/02/07/1170524141396.html Posted by Russell_c at ----- PM


Wednesday, 7 February 2007
I note that our Prime Minister John Howard has said “… he is satisfied with the US government implementing a retrospective law to charge Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks.” (AGE, 040207, http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/plea-bargain-fear-for-hicks/2007/02/04/1170523946307.html)So, why not introduce a retrospective law into Australia with a maximum penalty of 5 years? Then David Hicks can be tried here and found guilty and set free for doing his time in Cuba.Its’ a “win-win-win”: …we get to really screw our system of justice; Hicks gets ‘found guilty’ in accord with Howard’s wishes; and he get to come home to his country to live in freedom having served his time. Come on Democrats … keep the bastards honest! Put up the legislation to prove their real intent to cripple our legal system. And once the precedent is set then we can look forward to the real AWB story coming out, via the US Congress, and Downer serving time for his part in a clear case of ‘implausible deniability’. Posted by Russell_c at ---- PM

But this one was first and was not published! I have email in to find out why.

PART 1/2

Quotation: “But while acknowledging community discontent, he insisted Hicks could legally only be tried under US laws. Sources said Mr Howard commented that he could have easily asked the US to send Hicks home, but this would not resolve the problem of being unable to try him under Australian law.” (Age, 070207, http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/howard-feels-heat-on-hicks/2007/02/06/1170524094625.html )

This says it all! Howard has engineered 5 years of incarceration and torture of an Australian citizen based on prejudice, hatred and xenophobia. Bush appealed to the fundamentalist to sneak through the last US election – using an irrelevant referendum on homosexuality in a marginal seat. Here ‘Hansonites’ seem to be achieving ‘sexual-orgasms’ by proxy at the persecution and suffering of Hicks: a disorder in normally associated with labels such as ‘psychopath’ and ‘sadist’.

What is it about this demented country? Is some deep dark criminal element in our collective past emerging? A loop-hole in the global justice system has been exposed. One we should all be fear as a deliberate and base instrument of governance. The Hicks-case is little more than an echo of convict banishment to a lawless antipodean hell-hole.

Howard is clearly indulging in a petty tyrant power trip. The quotes above should be submitted to the courts in any civil trial being taken by the Hicks group. They indicate some degree of premeditated malevolence against Hicks by Howard who has now declared his accountability in this charade of justice.

There is no valid reason why Hicks cannot be brought home now if Howard demands it. If the Americans ever manage to set up their alternative punitive justice system then I assume Hicks could be extradited to face a fair trial.

No? Why not? Because he will return to the battle field? I think not! It is illegal now unless you are fighting for Israel or Lebanon as a dual citizen.

[continued…]

PART 2/2

The core issue now is not Hicks: it is the US on issues of wheat (AWB), Qantas, Hicks etc. It’s all part of the same malaise: Howard is an impotent puppet of foreign powers, and now it’s showing. Our collective shame is three-fold: (a) we don’t want to see the truth of our situation; (b) we don’t want to act to improve the situation; and (c) we are not hanging our heads in shame.

A cynical mind would say that Mr Baird’s concerns about “…receiving constant letters and phone calls about Hicks from Liberal voters in his conservative electorate in Sydney” (Ibid) is more to do with Australia’s self-proclaimed elite finally understanding their low standing within the world community. Unfortunately it’s more likely connected with vanity than authentic remorse.

David Hicks is not Australia’s shame: this more rightly falls on Howard head and those of us that let him set this perverse ‘tone at the top’.

Well, the fat-lady has sung: and I am told by reliably that Vanstone’s buffoons’ ballade ‘Shame Under Southern Stars’ is a “most pompous of British imperial anthems … [which] … even the composer went to his grave detesting.” So I conclude: Howard’s three act play (plus encore) is over. Next please!

p.s. When will Australian & American women go audit the ‘disappeared’ in this US-Cuban Al Qaida (‘the base’) meant for the secret maltreatment of our legal system: surely a basement of perverse practices of modern-age torment that the Catholic Inquisition could only weep over in the name of peace and love the ‘American way’?