Courtesy Bill Leak and The Australian
If only David Hicks had read Harold Hark's handy hints for political prisoners, he might have hung on long enough to test the illegal travesty of Gitmo.
We all know why he pleaded guilty. I'd have probably done the same. And Hark? He fled three squares a day for the vagaries of vagabondage in Europe. Rumour has it he's being rendered somewhere in Poland.
Seriously, it would take a real mensch to have looked the kangaroos in their watery eyes and said, "Not Guilty. Go for it."
One such mensch was Alexandros Panagoulis, who suffered your basic inhuman torture at the hands of The Generals during the Greek dictatorship of Papadopoulous. He is immortalised in Oriana Fallaci's book, A Man.
There's a big difference between Hicks and Panagoulis, however. Hicks took up arms with the fascist Taliban in its war with the fascist Bush Administration, while Alekos was an anti-fascist who fought against what they both stand for.
Here are some eloquent letters from The Age on David Hicks:
The Hicks affair is a longstanding disgrace. It will forever remain an irremovable stain on the Howard Government — which, for years, has actively supported and promoted the prolonged solitary confinement, the denial of human and legal rights and the psychological torture of an Australian citizen.
It has supported a regime that has rewritten the law at Guantanamo to remove the basic legal rights and safeguards we all expect. Rights of habeas corpus have been removed. Retrospective laws can make anyone guilty of anything. The Geneva Convention has been eliminated. There is no longer any form of presumption of innocence for suspects — just pre-trial statements of guilt. You can be convicted on secret evidence that you cannot access. The legal system is now "plead guilty now or rot in this hell-hole forever".
However the key issues are not about Hicks. They are about the fundamental changes to the basis of Western law and human rights. With the exception of our inappropriately named Attorney-General, the Australian legal fraternity has universally condemned the process. Regrettably the real terrorist attack on democracy is coming internally from our own Western leaders, not from Islam nor from al-Qaeda.
The disappointment is that a majority of Australians have long been too uninterested or self-absorbed to understand or protest against this erosion of our legal system and our fundamental rights. -- Graeme Scarlett
The Howard Government is in La-La Land if it thinks David Hicks is no longer an election issue. Late last year, a seachange occurred among Coalition voters. Maybe it was the five-year anniversary of Hick's incarceration that did it, but something caused the scales to fall from their eyes and they finally saw Howard, Ruddock and Downer for what they really are: so ruthless as to drive an Australian citizen to the brink of insanity in order to appear tough on terrorism. And they saw that these three only found "compassion" when they realised they were out of step with the vast majority of their supporters. They will not forget. -- Lloyd Swanton
For David Hicks to be held in jail in Australia to serve whatever sentence the Guantanamo tribunal may dispense (The Age, 28/3), he will have to be denied the normal resort to appeal, review and habeas corpus that is every other Australian prisoner's right. Otherwise, any Australian court before which he were brought would be bound to release him on the ground that he has neither committed any offence that obtains under Australian law nor been convicted by any legal process that an Australian court can recognise.
In keeping Hicks in jail at the behest of the US military's irregular tribunal, Messrs Howard and Ruddock will be betraying more than this one desperate Australian citizen. Once he is returned to Australia, they have committed themselves to subverting the foundations of Australian law and, accordingly, to degrading the very freedoms that the so-called war on terror was meant to safeguard. -- Patrick Wolfe
David Hicks' plea does not reflect his guilt. His plea is a product of the coercion that saturates the entire military tribunal and its relationship with Guantanamo Bay. Five years of torturous conditions with the prospect of it continuing indefinitely would be enough to make even the most stubborn man admit he did something that he did not necessarily do. Such conditions could even break John Howard's resolve to never apologise or say "sorry" for wrongs (even if he felt he was not personally responsible). -- Jay Tilley
When they sentence Chickenhawk Johnny for his crimes against just about everything, let's hope they give him five years in the David Hicks Honorary Jail Cell. Instead of keeping the light on 24/7, they can keep him in total darkness while piping in a 24/7 continuous loop of Philip Glass music. Say, Music in Twelve Parts followed by Music with Changing Parts. The Man of Steel will plead guilty to every crime ever committed within 24 hours.
-- Olney Garkle
It's really depressing. In the wash up following the outcome of Hicks' sentence, the question which must be asked is, "What have the Governments of the US and Australia got to hide regarding Mr Hicks and the Military Commission process. If it was as free and fair as they incessently claim, then why all the fucking secrecy?
Read more of my rant at my blog if you can be fucked.
Essentially Hicks is fucked either way. Plead Guilty, we'll fuck you up. Fight the case and we'll get medieval on your arse. You'll be in prison here at Gitmo for the next 40 years, and we'll make your life hell. Just one is a lot worse. Which would you prefer Mr Hicks? Ain't Democracy Howard-style grand?
Posted by Nahum on March 31, 2007
Nahum, I went to your site to comment on your excellent posting, but found the rigamarole (wow! that word slipped in from a past life!) offputting. Commenters just wanna comment, not think of disclaimers. -:)
Posted by Olney Garkle on April 2, 2007