"One hopes that John Howard, Philip Ruddock and Alexander Downer enjoyed their Christmas dinners -- an occasion which, I understand, celebrates the birth of Christ as well as the triumphs of retailing. Presumably the Christian jailers of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo had turkey and pud, too, and you can bet there were some macabre Chrissie decorations about the place. Tinsel and Santas to go with the carols, Rudolph and I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas. Talk about the clash of civilisations.
Hicks has had five years in and out of wire cages and solitary confinement, John. That's 60 months, Philip. Or more than 1800 days, Alexander. Though treated as cruelly as any criminal on earth, Hicks has never been formally charged -- let alone convicted -- of anything. And his term of imprisonment shows no sign of ending. Best estimate? Another two years before Hicks has his day in some parody of a court. But we can't bring him back here, can we, gentlemen? Because there's no appropriate crime on the Australian statutes with which to charge him. So Australia remains complicit in a gross breach of human rights, not to mention ethics, morality and common decency."
Phillip Adams, writing in The Australian, fairly and squarely addresses the situation of two people with totally opposite positions as far as the Americans go - Fidel Castro in Cuba, and David Hicks, also in Cuba, but imprisoned by the Americans with the active and shameful complicity of the Australian Government.
Hicks has had five years in and out of wire cages and solitary confinement, John. That's 60 months, Philip. Or more than 1800 days, Alexander. Though treated as cruelly as any criminal on earth, Hicks has never been formally charged -- let alone convicted -- of anything. And his term of imprisonment shows no sign of ending. Best estimate? Another two years before Hicks has his day in some parody of a court. But we can't bring him back here, can we, gentlemen? Because there's no appropriate crime on the Australian statutes with which to charge him. So Australia remains complicit in a gross breach of human rights, not to mention ethics, morality and common decency."
Phillip Adams, writing in The Australian, fairly and squarely addresses the situation of two people with totally opposite positions as far as the Americans go - Fidel Castro in Cuba, and David Hicks, also in Cuba, but imprisoned by the Americans with the active and shameful complicity of the Australian Government.
Comments
If he had been tried convicted and sentenced justly within a month of being arrested, then he would have served his time and be free now.
He is obviously just an idiot - and god knows there are plenty of those at the footy and the races - who went to the wrong place at the wrong time. So much easier for the huge CIA to punish a dopey Australian whiteboy, than to actually catch any real terrorists.