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And this is What John Howard Supports?

The Guardian Unlimited newspaper carries this most disturbing report on what the US proposes in relation to its facility at Guantanamo. Rights for inmates? Forget it! Now the Americans want to abrogate whatever limited rights presently exist.

With the David Hicks matter again in the news and John Howard, Lord Downer of Baghdad and the A-G supporting what the US is doing in relation to Hicks, Australians must protest what is happening here. Any semblence of justice, let alone fairness, is being thrown away.

An updated footnote @ 3.30pm 14/11/05: Stephen Hadley, Security Advisor to Pres. Bush, has now said that the US won't rule out the use of torture - see this in this morning's SMH. Strange! Just a few days ago Bush said in South America that the USA does not engage in torture. Also read this piece on the USA's double standards by David Cole, Professor of Law at Georgetown University, in Slate magazine.

For how long, and what will it take, for the Federal Government to categorically state that it does not go along with US policies in relation to renditions, the way Guantanamo is "operated", the shameful way in which Davis Hicks is being treated and torture? Is our "friendship" with the USA such that principles simply do not exist?

A further footnote: Apropos the above with respect to how our Ministers have been responding to the continued incarceration of David Hicks, Christian Kerr in today's Crikey says it all, succinctly:

"Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on the weekend that while [Dana Vale] was entitled to her opinion, there would be no special treatment for the terror suspect. “Why would we make some special arrangements for somebody who has been training with Al Qaeda and is facing charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes and attempted murder that we wouldn't make for someone who is up on drugs charges in Argentina or somewhere?” he was reported as asking on the ABC.

The thickhead answered his own question. Hicks, dear Alexander, whatever his faults, has already been singled out for very special treatment – treatment in violation of international treaties and the norms liberal democracies such as Australia and the United States supposedly subscribe to and draw their moral authority from upholding.

Your “someone who is up on drugs charges in Argentina or somewhere,” dear, dumb Foreign Minister, would have enjoyed the benefit of due process. Hicks hasn't."

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