Hicks was a dummy who boned chickens, did drugs and found in Islam some point to his fairly pathetic life. But he was prepared to kill people on behalf of murderous thugs. He deserves a hefty jail sentence and the bulk of people’s compassion can be better placed elsewhere.
As The Australian remarks:
‘ the suburban boy from Adelaide who left his family to join the cause of violent Islamic fundamentalism has not spent the past five years jailed at Guantanamo Bay because of a youthful misadventure, but rather because he committed some very real crimes with very real consequences’The US is fighting a war against international Islamic terrorism. It could never have said to David Hicks ‘We know you are an immature prat. Now go home and don’t do it again’. It is the standard rationale for a judically-imposed punishment – to deter future adventurers from such ill-conceived actions. The most plausible basis for a terrorist attack in Western countries will come from deluded residents of Hicks' ilk.
The cries of injustice in Australia are ludicrous – a ‘traversty of justice’ The Age proclaims. It wasn’t. I’ll wait to see the wailing and the gnashing of teeth that occurs when he is transferred back to Australia. Not matter how small his prison sentence is there will predictably be a clamouring to get him out of jail as soon as possible.
Update: Hicks will come home to Australia to serve 9 months. His scatterbrained leftwing supporters must derive pleasures from SA Premier Rann's anguish over the crime problems associated with releasing a known terrorist into the community. Peter Costello got it right: This guy is no hero - he joined a terrorist organisation which killed Australians. He does not deserve much sympathy.
Update: The lunatics in the Australian Democrats had said they would welcome David Hicks as an election candidate. John Howard rightly slams Rann's nervousness about having a terrorist back as a member of the community - wasn't every state branch of the ALP in Australia clamouring for his return! Finally, in Amnesty's The Human Rights Defender, April/May 2007, p. 15 David Hicks' father Terry Hicks describes his terrorist son as 'just a kid going overseas'. Delusions compound delusions - as I suggested in the original post we will come to treat David Hicks as a hero. It is a disgrace.
Posts
32 comments:
This has been such an interesting issue Harry, and one that has been so polarising for the population. Almost nobody holds a moderate view on this issue (myself included), and I have discovered that I am completely unable to predict how people will feel about the issue. People who I thought would be outraged by Hicks' detention have expressed a desire to have him executed, while others whom I thought would want him locked up are saddened by the whole episode.
Myself - well, what can I add that hasn't been discussed verbatim before? Basically nothing. Nobody is going to convince anyone else to change their mind on the issue at this point.
Nonetheless, I find the whole thing terribly disappointing. The point is (for me) that Hicks has pleaded guilty to a crime that was not a crime at the time of its commission. The legal principle behind this is far more important to me than David Hicks himself. Yes, Hicks was a missguided idiot, but that alone is not a crime. Yes Hicks probably trained to kill innocent people, but a) he didn't kill anyone (evidence seems to suggest he has never even fired a shot in conflict) and b) it wasn't a crime to do what he did at the time. Retrospectivity is the most shameful thing we could ever introduce into a legal system.
While I know people will disagree with the analogy (ignoring the fact that it is an analogy to explain a princple); I liken it to this situation: Imagine if the local council changed the speed limit on your street Harry, from 50km/h to 30km/h. As a result, because you did 50km/h last week, you are now a criminal.
A simplistic analogy I know, but a situation like that would offend most reasonable people's sense of fairness, and I think that is the biggest complaint I have with this whole system. Yes terrorism is a tragedy and affects many people, but at the end of the day our society moves on and is stronger for the experience. The way that Hicks' case has been handled actually weakens our society.
Anon, I think there is an enormous difference between breaking a speed limit and training to fight on behalf of a terrorist group. The former might be an inadvertant error - the second would clearly not be.
I feel no concern with retrospective laws to capture gaps such as this if they are needed - I am not certaion they are. That would reflect a defect in the law. It would be an injustice if Hicks suffered no punishment for what he has done.
Moreover it would send out a totally inappropriate signal to terrorists and their nitwit sympathisers in the Australian community.
hc
The problem with retrospective laws Harry, is that they are merely arbitrary power weilded by the executive arm of government.
As with all things, government policy often involves tradeoffs at a national (or societal) level. We have traded civil liberties (freedom from arbitrary detention, for example) on the assumption that the utility gained from greater 'security' from terrorists outweighs the costs. The debate around this issue, I think, is really about which provides the higher net benefits - civil liberties or greater security.
The whole point of my analogy was not that speeding is a lesser offence than terrorism - that really does go with saying. The point is that if the law was changed to make you a retrospective criminal, you would (hopefully) feel that to be terribly unfair. That is the principle being applied in the Hicks' case.
A large part of our legal system is about deterrance, and restrospective laws can't possibly act as a deterrance to anyone, because the offence has already been committed!
The further problem is that the guilty plea has no more validity than the videotaped confessions we see on TV from people kidnapped by one or other of the Iraqi militias, which is pretty much what happened to Hicks. He may be guilty (as may the others) but his captors made it clear that he would not be released without a guilty plea, even in the unlikely event that he was acquitted.
John Q
harry - I couldn't help thinking; were your "opinions" (ref: post up near top) like this when you were smoking?
harry - hicks has already got five pretty bloody hard years in the can outside Australia without charge or trial.
You saying that this sends a weak message to those who want to join the (resurgent)Taliban?
John, He received US government sponsored legal support in a situation where US interests were very much under attack. His lawyer has done an excellent job of portraying this guy as a victim of US savagery. It isn't true.
fxh, I don't know how to react to your question. I thinkl Hicks is pretty much a bottom of the barrell person who was siding with literally the worst terrorist organisations on earth. I cannot understand the outcry over his treatment. What about those killed by the dark forces he was supporting?
5 years for plotting to kill innocents by supporting terrorism. How would you rank this penalty against other crimes like rape or assault and why the sympathy?
Yes he was misguided and foolish but he wasn't that young. He carries culpability for a terrible set of actions and a signal needs to be sent that this tomfoolery is intolerable. In less civilised societies he would have been executed.
The problem Harry is that this fellow Hicks may be coming back to Australia. When he does come back he will certainly have access to our legal system, because that's how things are in Australia.
Now the Australian courts will have to decide whether to uphold Hick's sentence. This decision will not be based on the evidence against Hicks but will be based on a judgement concerning whether we should respect the sentence; the issues will concern standards and process.
Had Hicks pled guilty in a usual US court, all this would not have been an issue.
I simply don't understand why the US insisted on a military commission in Gitmo. He could have as easily confessed in a US court, and he would have spent much of his life in prison. Unfortunately for all, the US has stuffed this one up and Hicks will be returning to a country that considers process important.
In all honesty, if we are to fight a war of civilizations we ought to take our own civilization seriously. We shouldn't be picking and choosing those parts of our traditions that we want to uphold. The US in the case of Hicks decided to descend to the judicial culture quite inconsistent with our Anglo-Celtic traditions. I don't know why, but it seems to me that a group of people without the slightest respect for our Anglo-Celtic heritage decided that it might be a good idea in the war of civilizations to disregard all that distinguishes us from our enemies. The consequence is that a person who is very likely a terrorist will probably be set free upon his return to Australia, because Australia is simply not going to put up with the uncivilized way in which his case was treated.
By the way, I agree with you about the traditional headdress in Afghanistan. I'm sure that your comment has created an existential crises throughout the Islamic world.
"with nappies around their heads"
A rather gratuitous comment, Harry.
Rabee really. The US army supplied him with an attorney. He spent 5 years in jail much of it due to his own defence team's manouverings for what many would consider to be a treasonous act. To adapt a phrase of your mate Chairman Mao 'a war is not a dinner party'. And it is a war and Hicks backed the wrong side.
Hicks will come back to Australia, serve about a year, in jail and publish his memoirs. In 18 months he will be attending Socialist Left rallies in Adealaide and Melbourne condemning the imperialists for their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All the baloney about ill-treatment - he looks fat and healthy and seemed very collected in court. Don't misjudge the bleatings of an attorney for his client - yes doing what he is supposed to do - for fact.
There are so many people in this world who deserve sympathy and compassion - the women in Afghanistan for starters and the young girls denied the right to attend school because some poorly-educated boorish prats confuse mysogyny with religion.
Harry,
There is some difference between being seen to do the right thing and doing the right things. I might be able to appreciate that the process was indeed fair. But there was unacceptable lack of transparency.
Unfortunately for those who designed these secret trials Australians find secrecy unacceptable. That probably has to do we the fact that people like you and I think that the boundaries of western civilization are set firmly to the west of Brussels. Have we forgotten 1938?
Rabee, I missed that what was secret about Hick's trial? The press were there and reported the whole thing.
His attorney has been wandering the world presenting his case.
Harry,
My understanding is that the judge removed Hicks' lawyer Joshua Dratel, because "he agreed to abide by all “existent” rules, but refused to agree to “all” rules for the tribunal without first knowing what those rules stated."
So what are these rules of the tribunal?
Sounds like something your mate L.D. would have had in store for us had western (British) rules of civilized conduct not prevailed.
Nappyhead Responds:
Harry,
as a longterm "nappyhead" myself, I would like to respond. The turban is worn in large parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan by people other than just the Taliban. It is part of the dress in those societies. Your characterization of it as a "nappyhead" reminds me of the simple anti-Muslim bigotry of uneducated people (e.g. GIs in Iraq). Those with more intellect or education can usually think of more interesting terms of racial or cultural abuse.
I am not sure there is much difference between abusing people because of their physical characteristics or their basic cultural manifestations such as dress. I am sure that you would not refer to orthodox Jews by ridiculing the ringlets they wear in their hair or by their headdress, so I can only think that your referral to Muslims or Afghan dress because it is easy to do so and a positively received type of bigotry.
There is really no wit or wisdom or indeed courage required in ridiculing Afghans this way.
Harry, you go to great lengths to identify your website with your name, your employment and your photograph (such as it is), despite this your are anonymous.
It is the most pervasive form of anonymity, that borne out of mediocrity. Your thoughts words and insights in fields beyond your employment rarely rise to the levels of even a moderately educated man.
The great irony of your website is that as a vehicle for your own personal proclamation it serves only to underline that your opinions and thoughts are those of other people, often imperfectly reproduced.
kindest regards
nappyhead
Nappyhead,
The description was intended to be humorous. You are so like so many of your ilk - you can dish it out (to George Bush, infidel Australians or whatever) but cannot take it. The underlying reason is that you have very justifiable doubts about yourself.
You criticise me for my anonymity - despite the fact that everyone who subscribes to this blog knows who I am - and yet you sign yourself 'nappyhead'.
The criticisms I made were clearly directed at the evil cretins in the Taliban and Al Quaeda.
I deleted a further abusive comment from the anonymous poster who described himself as Nappyhead.
What next, Harry - are you going to refer to Jews as "doily heads"? Or maybe your bigotry is highly selective, so you'll just start referring to Arabs as "sand niggers".
And if you can see how the last para is offensive, surely you can see how your original one was also offensive. You've let yourself down, mate, and should apologise.
DD, The term 'Nappyhead' was introduced by the commentator not me. Why don't you read before you comment?
The last para I wrote was completely inoffensive so I assume you didn't read the whole post - including the bit beneath the fold. Again why don't you read before you comment?
Some people love to manufacture instances of offense where there are none - I was pointing to the ugly culture David Hicks was supporting and stick to that description. In this case your criticism reflects only your own carelessness.
Are you not one of those who refer to JWH as rodent? What about your descriptions of American troops in Iraq?
DD, The exact quote I made was:
'I felt a moment’s sorrow for this deluded nitwit who hates Jews and who sees misogynist, hateful Taliban thugs, with nappies around their heads, as the future of civilization. It is the same type of sorrow I feel for a drunken teenager who kills his companions in a car crash'. (my bold)
That is fair comment about the Taliban. I resent strongly the implication that this is a suggested instance of racism, anti-semitism or anti-Arab sentiment.
nappy head bigotry?lol that comment is to nice muslims are brainwashed into hating everyone.Islam is a brutal facsist cult invented by a illiterate mass murdering robber slavetrading rapist and pedophile.Hicks aligned himself with the purist form of islam he trained in killing camps three times to hone his skills,when he was caught guarding a taliban tank he had grenades in his undies,he has told other inmates that he still wants to kill jews.Australia just has the misfortune of him being born here.
Harry:
sigh.
- "the last para" referred to my last para, not yours. Tu quoque for the reading.
- "Misogynist, hateful Taliban thugs" are hateful because they are misogynist thugs, not because of their headwear. There are millions of people in the world with similar headwear who are not misogynist thugs.
And Nappyhead asked a perfectly good question that you haven't answered - would have been as relaxed about making a casual slur on Orthodox Jews' ringlets? If some pro-Palestinian blogger had spoken of "brutal girly-ringleted Zionist land-thieves" wouldn't you suspect that blogger was an anti-semite?
DD, Again you can't read. The person who describes himself as 'Nappyhead' (didn't ask me a question at all.
He said:
'I am sure that you would not refer to orthodox Jews by ridiculing the ringlets they wear in their hair or by their headdress, so I can only think that your referral to Muslims or Afghan dress because it is easy to do so and a positively received type of bigotry'.
This is a statement that is clearly wrong. The statement I made is directed to the Taliban and there is no doubt about the limits of my dislike for that group. There is no slippage in the statement at all - it is unambiguous.
Your last sentence is a gem of illogic. Congratulations - you've surpassed yourself.
This among the strangest of posts you have ever put up Harry. Honest, mate. I am genuinely surprised. Let me take issue with some of the points.
1. Neither misogynism nor antisemitism are against the law - yet - neither in the US, nor in Australia. They are views that many people hold. We may not like them, but there it is. As regards antisemitism, Australia's department of immigration was not too keen to admit Jews in 1948 as immigrants because of the perception that the population wouldn't cop it and thus cause a political problem for the government. Also, if antisemitism were a crime, you'd have to charge a significant proportion of the populations of France, Poland, Ukraine and Germany, to name a few.
2. "Hicks was a dummy who boned chickens, did drugs and found in Islam some point to his fairly pathetic life." Well, Harry, some people have to take the employment available to them, such as skinning of kangaroos or boning chicken so you can have your wife go to the supermarket and pick up a nice clean plastic-covered packet for dinner. To use this as a means of colouring the perception of Hicks is a vulgar way of arguing a case. And is hardly a logical reason to single out an individual for torture, denial of normal justice you and I would expect for ourselves and our children. Even mass murders and war criminals have got proper, recognised trials. Kaltenbrunner and Goering were not chained to the floor during their conversations with their lawyers and lights and while they awaited their trials in their cells lights were switched off at night so they could sleep. They did not have objects inserted into their bums, nor were they made to stand for 12 hours or had their cells heated and chilled to a pain threshold.
3. Hicks was "prepared to kill people on behalf of murderous thugs". Well, that's the point. He was not prepared to kill someobody and for this reason he deserted his post. Unlike John Walker Lindh, who did indeed fight the US CIA irregulars and was possibly complicit in the murder of a CIA agent who interrogated him, Mike Spann. Lindh, who got a head sentence of 20 years but will serve about 16, possibly less with parole, was arraigned for trial in the US proper, in a real court. No such trial for Hicks, and the reason for this is because there was no evidence against him apart from the manufactured evidence obtained by hearsay, by use of torture and by coerced self-incrimination, all of which would be open to a successful legal challenge if such evidence was led in an open court or even a regular military court martial in the US.
4. "He deserves a hefty jail sentence and the bulk of people’s compassion can be better placed elsewhere." It is funny, isn't it, that even the US Gitmo kangaroo tribunal doesn't think that Hicks deserves a hefty jail sentence, and that he does deserve compassion and "another chance", according to the prosecutor, the one-time mule-skinner and bail bondsman, Col. Moe Davis. It is incredible to me, Harry Clarke, that you have shown yourself more gung-ho and less compassionate than a US Army prosecutor in Guantanamo Bay.
5. The sentence handed out to Hicks is tailor-made for (a) assuaging the spontaneous and poll-validated public outrage about Hicks. It is just long enough to keep Hicks under lock and key until after the next federal election AND, note this, under an embargo from speaking to the media. Is that in the public interest? What has Hicks got to say now that it so inconvenient that it has to be put on ice until after the election? Where is the public interest?
6. It was said that Hicks was the "worst of the worst". In the weeks leading up to the plea-bargain, the US military prosecutors, knowing all the time the deal was nine months were teasing us with the 20 years head sentence, and before that, life. Now, nine months and 20 years, that’s a bit of a difference, isn’t it? And it exposes the whole process for the sham that it is - not any sort of justice.
To sum up.
The crime that Hicks pled guilty to was not even a crime on any statute books 6 months ago.
More bullshit followed. The Gitmo kangaroo court announced that Hicks would probably be sentenced to less than 7 years and that most of the sentence could be carried out in Australia. Again, seven years is a lot more than 9 months!
Then, in time for Saturday morning papers – on advice from Downer’s office - it has now been revealed - on Friday night, the military commission in Gitmo released the actual deal of 9 months. Remember, the actual deal was done on the very first day. How is the whole thing not a scam?!
So what did Hicks admit to? Most of his "admission" has nothing to do with what he did aiding terrorism but everything to do with Hicks promising NOT TO SUE the US and NOT TO TALK about the torture and NOT TO TALK to the press for one year, i.e. until after the elections are OVER and, also promise not to say he pled guilty just to get out of that hell-hole.
Hick’s terrorist acts: Hicks admitted that he carried a gun for two hours in December 2001, as a tank guard for the Taliban, but that he never fired from it – not just at any Americans, at anyone - and that he tried to sell the gun after those two hours so he could buy a ticket out of Afghanistan.
The Taliban was not at that stage a proscribed terrorist organisation for the purposes of the charge.
He also admitted to training in an Al Qaeda camp.
Those two things together make up the charge of providing material support to a terrorist organisation. Although that charge did not exist at the time until this year.
How does Hick’s materially aiding a terrorist organisation compare to the $300 million slung to Saddam Hussein, personally, by the Government enterprise, AWB? I mean, we went in to destroy the Saddam Hussein regime, at a cost of somewhere between 100,000 and 600,000 lives and a destruction of a country because it was a terrorist regime aiding and abetting terrorists everywhere.
This is the most Kafkaesque and bizarre a set of rationales I have heard since Stalin apologists tried to put a positive spin on the Stalin-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939.
Australkia is NOW a banana republic, it's system of law a pitiful sham, it's political system compromised to the level of a Kazkhstan regime or similar. Borat, where are you?
Jack,
None of the points you make convey much sense and the patronising-cum-barbed tone irritates. Hicks was supporting the wrong side in a war against the US.
1. Who said anti-semuitism or mysognyny were illegal? I said they were the values Hicks was targeting when he went off to fight the good fight. The values that would lead to a superior civilisation based on Taliban rule. I reject this organisation as an uncivilised bunch of thugs.
You say in your patronising way that you are surprised at my views. That's one way of seeking to illegitimise someone's views but don't waste your breath trying it on me. I am surprised at the grief extended to Hicks. I am surprised at the extent to which people such as yourself bend over backwards to forget what he did and who he supported.
2. Yes I am saying Hicks was a loser who took on a foolish philosophy to add a bit of meaning to his life. No apologies. It is the 'foolish teenager' model. Even the drunken teenager who kills his friends in a car crash is not just told 'don't do it again'. Particularly given the incentive implications such forgiveness might have for other home-grown terrorists in Australia and the US.
3. Your claims at the end of your point 3 are conjectures. Whatever the US did or did not do it did detain an enemy combatant who was a member of the Taliban, a force they were then fighting.
He was just about to leave them - I don't know that.
They appointed Hicks a lawyer and the Australian government forked out hundreds of thousands of dollars in consular and other support - nothing to do with Borat or Stalinism here. At the end of the day Hicks seemed in good condition. Plump not gaunt - he will end up spending 6 years in jail for being part of a military force fighting a war against the government who imprisoned him.
Hicks got a trial and pleaded guilty to assisting the enemy. I don't think he pleaded guilty because he was forced too - there was no other plea he could have conceivably made given his history. The case was watertight - he did support a terrorist group.
4. I don't know the nature of the deal done on his sentence and neither do you. You are reciting the propaganda provided by his attorney and father. It was obvious that the US cause faced difficulties in Australia - some Australian Labor politicians sought to have Terry Hicks declared father of the year! Read the editorials and leaders in papers such as The Age over the past few weeks. If the US were to reduce pressure on themselves (legitimate or otherwise) whatr were they to say? BTW you selectively quote: Another US prosecuter described Hicks as the eEuropean closest to Bin Laden.
5. The AWB helping Saddam Hussein was a set of criminal activities that should be prosecuted in the courts. It has nought to do with David Hicks.
Wow Hicks' defence attorney would have loved your second last para. The hyperbole is rich.
I am starting to tire of this discussion. I am concerned with what Hicks did and the fact that no country can afford to allow its citizens to fight in military actions that oppose the national self-interest. It sounds to me like those who oppose my views oppose the processes used but, I hope, are not Hicks supporters. I say I hope because it is not clear that is true.
I hear very little condemation of the Taliban or Al Quaeda causes from leftists such as yourself. The general stance is to seek excuses for the terrorist actions -past US misdeeds and so on. There is the same type of indirect support for people such as Hicks. And always the ever-present condemnation of all things American - worse than Stalinism - you are writing nonsense.
The Americans make mistakes - the Taliban and Al Quaeda are evil and Hicks supported them. Enough said.
I am not a leftist. I am a moderate.
I hate all theocratic regimes including the Taliban and the one currently in Iran. I condemnd them utterly and without a skerrick of reservation!
I loathe the notion of religious police.
You have never heard me making excuses for islamofascists such as Al Quaida and I am amused at your desperate attempt to put me on the same platform as those that do, but this is what is left to you: without any evidence whatsover you try to taint me, falsely, by association.
Worse still, you impute motives to my defence of human rights and the rule of law, suggesting they are not what I say they are but because I am some sort of advocate and even a fifth columnist for religious fanatics.
By making a voluntary stand on your public blog to defend political corruption of the system of law in Australia by John Howard you are directly complicit in making Australia a lesser country.
Jack, How specifically did John Howard corrupt the system of law in Australia? Wasn't Hicks a
prisoner-of-war in the US military justice system?
Once you have explained this please explain to me how anything I have written drove corruption of the law by means of the Australian political system.
This puzzles me since, as far as I can see, I didn't discuss Australian politics at all.
Harry, I take the point about your blog, you make above. And I am sorry if I contributed to your blood pressure rising.
If it is any consolation to you, my blood pressure rose as well. I hope you don't take my comments too personally, it is just that I feel very strongly about this issue.
I won't now respond directly to your question but instead recommend Paul Sheahan's column in today's SMH. Sheahan is certainly not a leftist. Quite the contrary. Here it is:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/small-fry-in-irans-big-picture/2007/04/01/1175366077772.html
Also, by way of obliquely arguing my point about the corruption of a legal system, I urge you to see a movie called "The Lives of Others." To put my money where my mouth is, I have arranged for two gift vouchers at the box office of Kino Dendy 45 Collins Street for you, which you can collect upon production of an ID.
Jack, Absolutely none of those comments were directed at you. Absolutely none.
Its fine to disagree and you can see from the numeerous comments above that I can live with disagreement.
Thanks for the tickets. I'll report back on the show.
"Al Quaeda"
Harry,
Something that's been bugging me for a few months.
It's al-qaida, or al-qaeda.
not al-quaeda, which doesn't make sense.
It's the rule of law that's the issue - not Hicks' stupidity.
This peice of shit cowardly sniveling traitor should be hanged until dead.
I'm suprised many people want him home and think of him as a 'hero' or 'misguided boy' or 'poor you'.....I see him as a bastard who commited treason, and his fucked up father making a scene and making australians look like sissys....
When he serves his 9 months, and is set free...He will be killed in the streets! I'd kill him myself if I could, but I live on the other side of Aus.....I DONT like traitors who weasled their way out of the law....and if I did kill him and was 'arrested' I'd get set free by saying 'the police roughed me up' and get off on a techniquality....such is the loopholes in our law...Australia has let me down severly.
We can do better tham this.
People have such short memories….
In 1939 we interned all Germans for the “duration”. This was done for the safety of the war effort. Many people who hated Hitler spent 6 years in prison camps. When they got out they were hated by everyone.
The war isn’t over yet, and we let the evil out of the bottle.
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