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can someone please explain to me the difference between David Hicks being guilty of aiding and abetting terrorists by firing off a few rounds in a training camp and the AWB's donation of $300 million to Saddam Hussein's despotic regime.
One had govt 'backing', thus making it legit... the other didn't
David Hicks had WMD's, Saddam had an RPG launcher.
Or maybe it was the other way round.
Hang on, I'll ask little Johnny.
No, AWB members vote liberal, Hicks Labor.
This from Crikey.com - sad but true...
Because we live in a true liberal democracy, we’ve decided to publish a special Crikey edition. A special David Hicks edition.
Containing 21 stories, we present the inside David Hicks story -- by the man himself and by those key figures around him, including his father Terry and Australian Attorney General Phillip Ruddock.
We hope you find this special Crikey edition useful in understanding the important legal, political and societal issues in the Hicks case.
It won’t take long to read (because we live in a true liberal democracy).
Because we live in a true liberal democracy, we’ve decided to publish a special Crikey edition. A special David Hicks edition.
The Hicks Case
1. Why I made a guilty plea
2. The guilty plea: how I advised David
3. My island home: first weeks at Guantanamo
4. Ten torture techniques in 12 months
5. Solitary confinement was one thing, just don't get me started on the food
6. I never met a DFAT official I didn't like. Come to think of it, I never met a DFAT official
7. Afternoon tea with Osama: My thoughts on a terrorist mastermind
8. The orange people: The daily grind of Guantanamo
9. After three years in solitary, I lost my mind on a Tuesday
10. Things my son has told me
11. Afghani diary: training for Al-Qaeda, a day by day account
12. How a shy Adelaide boy became an international political pawn
13. The real story of my long hair and those prison pyjamas
14. What the US Senator said when he saw me in chains
15. What the judge said I couldn’t say and when I couldn’t say it
16. How I’ll be voting in this year’s election
17. Why even Adelaide was better than Guantanamo
18. Gitmo diet: How to lose 30 pounds in a month
19. The thrill of war: my Afghan adventure
20. On release: why I'm not planning to take my revenge on the West
Further down they have it set out as articles with large headlines and then lots of white space. V funny.
Those are great! Just looking at Hick's time served, he got off relatively easy with 5+ years. John Walker Lindh, the "American" Taliban, who was tried in a legal court of law as he is a US Citizen, got 20 years in the can for similiar things, and he's not getting out anytime soon.
The process Hicks when through is deplorable, and Guantanamo is an abomination, but Hicks got the better deal than the guy who received "due process of law."
I was pissed to hear they banned him from 'profitting from his story'
And I thought there was no way they could get more ridiculous in my eyes
Well, they banned Schapelle and her familty from profiting from her story as well. What gets me is the extra-territorial reach of the "no profit from crime" laws. Hey, if you're convicted in an Australian court, then fair cop, you should not profit from your crimes. No one wants to read the memoirs of Ivan Milat, I suspect anyway, but neither Hicks or Corby were subject to Australian law, and their conviction/confession(s) are dubious at best.
they banned Schapelle and her familty from profiting from her story as well.
So who got the money from the book she published?
Also from Crikey.com
I've bolded the interesting bit...
What a string of circumstances. David Hicks gets plucked from an Afghani taxi. He gets flogged off to a posse of passing American spooks for $1,000. Then, after five years in US solitary confinement without a trial, he finds himself professing his guilt to terror-related offences and gets sentenced to a further nine months in some as-yet-unnamed South Australian prison.
But wait, there's more. This story actually gets worse, for Hicks has now been banned from even talking about his experiences for twelve months, the duration of the Australian federal election campaign
That's 'cause Bushie is taking care of his deputy-sherriff mate, Johhny the Boy.
Then we have to make sure we keep talking abt it....
Get Up! are.
4 April 2007
Tomorrow, thanks to the support and donations of GetUp members, we'll
be publishing a full-page Open Letter to the Prime Minister in The Australian newspaper - highlighting the costs of Guantanamo justice.
A preview of the ad will be available shortly.
I can't embed the YouTube video because I am not a member and can't become one today because of site maintenance. Can someone go get it for me puh-leez. Tankyou.
There you go
haha oh dear....
Hicks case now being used to argue for a reduction in sentence for American Taliban Lindh:
(04-04) 13:13 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Lawyers for John Lindh, Attorney James Brosnahan, joining Lindh's parents at a San Francisco news Hicks was sentenced to nine months in prison, in addition to the more than Lindh was sentenced in July 2002 after reaching a deal in which terror His attorney has twice appealed to Bush to commute or reduce Lindh's Brosnahan, a former federal prosecutor, pointed to a "climate change" since A White House spokesman today referred calls to the U.S. Justice Department, Brosnahan declined to provide a copy of the 25-page petition for legal A convert to Islam, Lindh went to Pakistan to study his religion and somehow His attorneys depicted him as a naive young man who got in over his head. He "John did not go to Afghanistan to fight against America," his mother,
the Marin man seized with the Taliban in northern Afghanistan in November 2001,
made a third attempt today to ask President Bush to commute or reduce his
20-year federal court sentence.
conference, cited a lighter sentence given by a U.S. military tribunal last week
to David Hicks, an Australian and confessed Taliban-allied gunman convicted of
supporting terrorism.
five years he spent at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, in a plea deal that
bars him from speaking about any alleged abuse he suffered in custody.
charges were dropped and he pleaded guilty to aiding the now-defunct Taliban and
carrying weapons for it. He has 13 years left on his sentence, Brosnahan said.
Now 26, Lindh is at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo.
sentence, in September 2004 and December 2005. Brosnahan said the administration
had not responded to his past petitions.
the months after Al Qaeda's attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, in
which Americans are less fearful and "in a better mood to get justice." He said
Lindh had a "genuine religious experience that I think the President can
understand."
where a spokesman declined to comment on the petition, which Brosnahan said
would be mailed today.
reasons; under Lindh's plea deal, he is barred from speaking about his case to
anyone other than his lawyers and family. The petition includes information
covered by the special measure.
ended up a foot soldier in the Taliban, although he said he never fired a weapon
in combat and never intended to fight against Americans.
was 20 when he was captured.
Marilyn Walker, said in a statement she read at today's news conference. "He
never fought against America. John has spoken out strongly against terrorism in
any form."
