Bring David Hicks home (from Guantanamo) before Christmas!

I know this is an old quote, but I don't think the average American has anything to do with the Patriot act, and the associated deviances from the Geneva convention rules for combatatants or non-combatatant suspects.

Lied into war, the Americans were also lied into paranoia. A key control tool of the Jacobian mindset of the current crop of "leaders".

It's all about money, my friends. The rich get richer, and Hicks (along with the rest of us) gets it in the sphincter.

Just bend over and ride with it.

Or not. Remembering that the revolution is never televised.

Wilso.
If I went to a "foreign" country with the intent to join a terrorist organization in that "foreign country"... I would be a hypocrite and expect "simple justice" whatever that may be... in that country. and if I got caught like Hicks, I would be a hypocrite would expect my home country to get me out of it... or, if, when I was in Hicks original position, I would of liked to become a terrorist and kill a few infidels, then expect to die in the act and be rewarded with a truck load of virgins... or if I was a martyred Muslim female virgin I suppose I would like to be in the truck.... being delivered to someone like Hicks. I've been overseas many times but never to learn the art of terrorism, went, only to look at how others live and marvel at all the wonderful things man-woman kind have done over the the preceding century's... all the time wishing all man-woman kind would take responsibility for their actions
Anything else you would like to know about what i would accept.... with all respects, all you are doing is crying over spilt milk. Well that's what I "believe"... you "believe" differently" .

I'm not Wilso, and don't know Wilso from a bar of soap, but when I come across such waffle and drivel as you just posted, I can't resist fisking it for what it's worth.



The Taliban and Al Quaeda were funded and equipped by the US CIA when Hicks joined up. That makes him an ally.



Anyone accused of a crime is privy to a legal representative, and a prompt court hearing. The admin wanted enough water under the bridge before they attempted to slander a man that they were actually funding.



Why not? The British pressured the US to release all the Brit nationals incarcerated at Gitmo, which is also on the last vestige of communism in that corner of the world.



David never shot anyone. His crime was dissemination of propaganda. Not to be forgetting that the CIA had the Koran translated into new languages as part of their propaganda campaign against the insurgent USSR.

Pot/Kettle/Black.



You're stretchin' it pretty thin, Anton. He was admin. The Taliban are fighters, not suicide bombers.



Who are you shilling for? I'm guessing you've never experienced passion for anything other than food and beer.



I'm guessing the KonTiki tours were your "experience" of life in another country.



A noble adventure. Did you ever sit down with some locals in Islamad and drink the local poison?




This is what the real world is expecting of America's defunct admin. I wouldn't advise holding your breath on that issue.



Would you accept a president that doesn't really give a flying farque whether you believe him or not?



We have a globe to live on. Just the one. What are you doing to ensure it stays in one piece?



You sound like a recorded Whitehouse message for the deranged and deluded. Get a grip my friend, and take a good look around you. :wink:

I know that you're not prepared to give others the rights you would want for yourself, regardless of what you say you "believe". You're no better than those who you criticize.

"material support for terrorism".
So after 5 years of hell this is the most serious charge they can come up with? Clearly the proposed "attempted murder" charge was a beat up & an ambit claim.:

...American prosecutors signalled yesterday ... the Guantanamo Bay detainee was formally charged with providing material support for terrorism.And now they're repeating history and they're making up a new charge … this can't be tolerated." .....

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/5year-minimum-for-hicks/2007/03/02/1172338882514.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

---------------

Ah, plea bargaining on the agenda again!
I knew it!

Prediction: David Hicks will plead guilty & with a bit of luck (for Howard, Ruddock & Downer & the Liberal party!) will be back on Australian soil before October, the predicted date of the Australian federal election!
It's all about politics .... of course!


....Hicks' military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, was outraged that the sole charge Hicks faces is a domestic charge introduced after the 1994 Oklahoma bombings that was offered up last October as part of the redrafted US Military Commissions.

He will seek to challenge the commissions on this, once the interest of the US judiciary has been established.

Hicks' Adelaide lawyer, David McLeod, also points out the charge is a civil offence, not an offence under the laws of war. It is conceivable then that Hicks could also challenge his status as an enemy combatant, again if the courts agreed to listen.

Hovering above the legal minefield ahead is the prospect of a plea bargain acceptable to both prosecution and the defence. The abandonment of the more serious charge of attempted murder makes plea bargaining less hazardous politically.



http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/hicks-gets-a-date-but-some-hurdles-remain/2007/03/02/1172338882538.html

Hmmmm...
I wonder who this "senior government source" could possibly be? :wink:
Now, if he'd asked for David Hicks's return years ago, as did most other civilized countries, with their detainees at Guantanamo..... well, David Hicks wouldn't now be an issue in the 2007 Australian federal election, would he? And the Libs wouldn't now be involved in these desperate face saving deals with the US government!:

Guilty plea deal could allow David Hicks to come straight home
Phillip Coorey and Tom Allard
March 3, 2007/SMH

DAVID HICKS could walk out of Guantanamo Bay a free man and return to Australia if he agrees to plead guilty to the lesser charge of supporting a terrorist group, the Federal Government believes.

The assessment from a senior member of the Government follows the decision yesterday of the Convening Authority for the US military commission system to drop the most serious charge against Hicks, attempted murder, for lack of evidence.

The charge of providing material support to terrorists was approved by the authority. Hicks faces a committal hearing in 30 days, by which time any plea bargain is supposed to be hammered out.

A senior government source intimate with the Hicks case told the Herald there was a good chance that in return for a guilty plea the time Hicks had served would ensure his release.

While any plea bargain would have to be sorted out between Hicks's lawyers and the Convening Authority, it would be an outcome that was not only probable but acceptable to the Government, the source said.

The Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, while not commenting on the specifics of any plea bargain, said an agreement would be a good option for all concerned. .....

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/deal-to-bring-hicks-home/2007/03/02/1172338885123.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Interesting reading.

http://www.theage.com.au/editorial/2007/03/02/d20070301hicks%5B1%5D.pdf

It would seem to me the U.S. want their laws to apply in any country of the world.

And that persons held without charge can have laws that did not exist at the time of their arrest applied.

Hicks seems to me to have been at all times engaged by or involved with the military wings of variouse organisations. Ie a designated combatant. and involved only with defense of assests or soveriegn soil.

Lastly (a little childish I know) The U.S. threw the first punch.

What's the world coming to when (Oz) 60 Minutes runs a sympathetic story about David Hicks's situation? And a fairly accurate one, too. The PM cannot be happy!:

Transcript: The Inside Story:
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/sixtyminutes/stories/2007_03_04/story_1857.asp

I caught that one msolga. I couldnt help wonder if American 60 mins would run it.

There is some interesting reading on Hicks at this Australian forum:

http://www.debaterelate.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=595

Greetings, Whitlam. Lovely to meet you! How's Margaret? How's the retirement going?
Hey, an Oz political/discussion site! I'm interested. Thanks.

Dadpad, I doubt that US 60 Minutes would be very interested in David Hicks at the moment. And anyone in the US whose interested already knows all they need to know about Guantanamo Bay. Most Americans wouldn't know about David Hicks. (Nor probably care all that much at this stage, I reckon)
But if the trial ever actually does happen, then the whole world will definitely be interested! I mean, David Hicks, first cab off the rank after 5 years of hell, with such incredibly pissy charges, compared to the big guys! Very very embarrassing for the US & Howard. (& Howard, as you can see, is getting more & more desperate, viciously going for Rudd's jugular, a minister resigning to demonstrate his (Howard's) integrity! Getting Hicks out (but "guilty", by his own admission) is an important part of Howard's election campaign.) This is about John Howard & his re-election, nought else.

So I'm wondering about this article (below) in my morning paper.
What's going on here & how does it fit into Howard's Hicks time-table? Is Major Mori not playing the game? (Howard & Ruddock are almost begging for plea bargaining & it doesn't appear to be happening yet)
If Major Mori is removed then could the whole David Hicks fiasco finally be over? Hell, Major Mori might even agree to go to put an end to this disgraceful process, who knows?! If Mori was removed & the trial process is further delayed, then Howard could legitimately demand that David Hicks be returned to Australia, post haste. And become the peoples' hero! (Ha, that's what he thinks! :wink: ) Anyway, I sincerely hope that Major Mori doesn't become a convenient scapegoat for the US & Oz governments. He's been so impressive throughout this whole sad & sorry fiasco. (Who was it who described him thus?: "Looks like Gomer Pyle, acts like Atticus Finch".):

Hicks trial at risk if Mori taken off case
Tom Allard
March 5, 2007/the AGEn off case



Mori: Accused of breaching military rules.


MAJOR Michael Mori, the defence lawyer for terror suspect David Hicks, could be removed from the case after threats from the chief US prosecutor to charge him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The intervention may derail Hicks' trial and possibly prompt his return to Australia.

It would take months for a new lawyer to get to grips with the case and the new military commission process.

Prime Minister John Howard has told Washington that any action leading to further delays would be unacceptable and would prompt him to demand the return of Hicks, 31, after being held for five years at the US base at Guantanamo Bay.

Colonel Morris Davis has accused Major Mori of breaching article 88 of the US military code, which relates to using contemptuous language towards the President, Vice-President or Secretary of Defence.

Penalties for breaching the code include jail and the loss of employment and entitlements.

Major Mori denied he had done anything improper, but said the accusations left him with an inherent conflict of interest.

"It can't help but raise an issue of whether any further representation of David and his wellbeing could be tainted by a concern for my own legal wellbeing," Major Mori told The Age. "David Hicks needs counsel who is not tainted by these allegations."

Major Mori, who has been to Australia seven times, will seek legal advice.

The issue will also have to be raised with Hicks when his legal team next sees him.

The Federal Government has highlighted Major Mori's work as proof of the fairness of the much-criticised US military commission system.

However, Colonel Davis said Major Mori was not playing by the rules and criticised his regular trips to Australia. He said he would not tolerate such behaviour from his own prosecutors.

"Certainly, in the US it would not be tolerated having a US marine in uniform actively inserting himself into the political process. It is very disappointing," he reportedly said.

"He doesn't seem to be held to the same standards as his brother officers."

Hicks' lead defence counsel, Joshua Dratel, a New York attorney, said Colonel Davis' threats were the latest example of the "corrupt" system that will try Hicks.

Mr Dratel pointed to the former senior Pentagon official in charge of detainee affairs, Cully Stimson, who resigned last month after urging businesses not to hire law firms that had worked for Guantanamo prisoners.

US prosecutors are under intense pressure to offer Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner and father of two, a plea bargain deal by the end of the month.

Senior Australian Government members want Hicks to come home a free man, provided he agrees to a pre-trial plea of guilty.

Amid rising public anger in Australia about Hicks' long wait for justice and alleged mistreatment, any Hicks trial risks becoming a public relations disaster. He is to be the first person to appear before a military commission.

The world's media will be focused on the case, including al-Jazeera and other Middle Eastern outlets.

They will hear graphic testimony of abuses and torture by US guards and interrogators. It will involve a man, Hicks, whose alleged offence pales alongside the serious accusations made against alleged senior al-Qaeda leaders at Guantanamo Bay.

Thanks, nice to meet you too! The retirement is going fine! Tea right on time, every day. That Aussie forum is great, lots of discussion going on. I'm there often.

Hicks facing Indian probe over Kashmir shooting

By Chris Merritt and Bruce Loudon

February 10, 2007 12:00am
Article from: The Australian

DAVID Hicks, already facing the possibility of 20 years' jail on terrorism charges in the US, is the subject of a new investigation by the Indian Government over his attacks on their armed forces in Kashmir.
The investigation has been triggered by disclosures in American prosecution files about the involvement of Hicks with a terrorist group that has killed thousands of people in the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir.

The prosecution file states that the former kangaroo skinner and father of two who converted to Islam joined the terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan, travelled to the border with Indian Kashmir in 2000 and fired on Indian troops.

Reports of the American disclosures were sent to New Delhi this week by the Indian deputy high commissioner to Australia, Vinod Kumar.

Senior officials in New Delhi yesterday confirmed they were examining that material.

"We're looking into it and finding out the facts," an official in New Delhi told The Weekend Australian.

"If Mr Hicks was involved with them at any level, and if he was indeed firing weapons at our troops, then, most certainly, we'd like to talk to him about it.

"We'd be interested to talk to anyone who has done that. We don't take kindly to attacks on our soldiers -- even attacks by people like Mr Hicks."

The American file is consistent with a letter Hicks wrote to his family in Adelaide in which he admits to firing hundreds of bullets in Kashmir at the enemies of Islam.

In a March 2000 letter, Hicks told his family "don't ask what's happened, I can't be bothered explaining the outcome of these strange events has put me in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in a training camp. Three months training. After which it is my decision whether to cross the line of control into Indian-occupied Kashmir."

The training camp was run by Lashkar-e-Toiba, the army of the pure, Islamic fundamentalists fighting to free Muslims under Indian rule and designated a terrorist group by Australia in 2003.

In another letter on August 10, 2000, Hicks wrote from Kashmir, claiming to have been a guest of Pakistan's army for two weeks at the front in the "controlled war" with India.

"I got to fire hundreds of bullets. Most Muslim countries impose hanging for civilians arming themselves for conflict. There are not many countries in the world where a tourist, according to his visa, can go to stay with the army and shoot across the border at its enemy, legally."

Australia has an extradition relationship with India as a fellow member of the Commonwealth that could allow the transfer of a suspect in special circumstances.

Hicks has been detained at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba since being captured in Afghanistan in 2001 where he was fighting alongside Taliban forces.

US prosecutors last week announced Hicks will face a US Military Commission to answer new charges of attempted murder and providing material support to a terrorist organisation.

LET has waged a brutal insurgency aimed specifically at "destroying" India and "annihilating" Hinduism and Judaism, having proclaimed Hindus and Jews to be enemies of Islam.

It has over the years - including 2000 when Hicks was apparently in action with it - waged a war not just targeting Indian troops in Kashmir, but also rounding up Hindus and Sikhs in the disputed territory and massacring them.

LET militants in 2000 massacred 35 Sikhs in the village of Chittisinghpura.

Since hostilities broke out in earnest in Kashmir in 1989, an estimated 5000 Indian soldiers and paramilitaries have been killed. Estimates are, too, that 80,000-odd civilians have perished, and hundreds of thousands of others have been displaced from their homes.

John Howard yesterday expressed extreme frustration at the time the US is taking to bring Hicks to trial, vowing to press them "almost daily" over the matter.

The US last week began the process of charging Hicks. But US officials have admitted the final charges could be a month away - falling short of an Australian request that the issue be dealt with by the middle of February. And they have admitted a full trial could be as much as a year away.

The Prime Minister said he was reasonably satisfied that the process was now in train, but was concerned about how long it might be before Hicks actually goes to trial.

"Let me, without getting into the weeds of the technical jargon, let me simply say that it has gone on for so long now that we will be pressing the Americans almost on a daily basis," Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

G'day Olga, how's sunny Australia treating you?

Very informative read this - unbelievable how long it's
taken them to give this man a trial.

D'you mind if I put a link to here on my Revo' thread?

Peace
Endy

More pressure to cut a deal.

G'day to you, too, Endy!

I'm very busy in sunny Oz right now. A lot on my plate that needs to be dealt with, rather urgently.

Always good to see folk outside Oz show interest in this sad & sorry situation. Many thanks for yours. Yes, feel free to add a link.

I think things are coming to a head now. No matter what the outcome is, many of us are likely to be too forgiving (nor congratulatory, should David Hicks be returned to Oz soon) toward the PM, the attorney general & the minister for foreign affairs. A pox on them for allowing this totally avoidable situation go on for so long, before showing the slightest (poll-driven) interest!

Yup!
You're right you know, dadpad!


Perhaps a bit more retrospective legislation, to cope with this fresh revelation?

Oh, that's not what he meant at all!
Nothing what-so-ever vaguely threatening intended!
Oh right. So he was just shooting off his mouth then?
Just as well, there would be major outrage here if any discipline of Mori actually occurred. He's an Australian hero now. Really. We love Major Mori! One of the few prominent people who've consistently acted with integrity throughout this whole disgusting fiasco! :

Prosecutor denies threat to Mori
March 5, 2007/the AGE

The chief US military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis says he never threatened the lawyer of alleged Australian terrorist David Hicks with court martial.

Fairfax reported that Colonel Morris threatened to charge Major Michael Mori with using contemptuous language toward the US executive - a charge under the US military code.

However, tonight Colonel Davis said he had never made any such threat and had no power to charge Major Mori.

"The only talk I've heard of that is in the news media," Colonel Davis told SBS. "I'm not aware of anyone who is looking at taking any disciplinary action against Major Mori." ... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/prosecutor-denies-threat-to-mori/2007/03/05/1172943314413.html

Hate to say this but mori looks a little like Gomer Pyle in the photo above.
perhaps its just that all them murricans look alike to me.

They've charged Hicks? "Well gooooooollyyy."

They sure have.
And furthermore ....

Hicks to appear in court in 12 days
March 8, 2007 - 11:38AM/SMH

Australian terror suspect David Hicks will plead not guilty when he appears in a US military court for arraignment later this month, his American lawyer said today.

"It will be a plea of not guilty,'' said Hicks's US civilian lawyer Joshua Dratel.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced today Hicks will make his first appearance at a court at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on March 20.

Hicks has been charged with providing material support for terrorism and faces a maximum sentence of life in a US prison if found guilty. ... <cont>

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hicks-to-appear-in-court-in-12-days/2007/03/08/1173166846572.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1