The Dead Roo

Comment from Ray
Time: March 27, 2007, 12:46 pm

Presumably Hicks will be released so the government can get him out of the news, but I sincerely hope you keep the government’s foul-ups IN the news until the elections.

Comment from Kieran
Time: March 27, 2007, 12:53 pm

It’s all of our responsibility to keep holding the government to account.

Comment from Alex
Time: March 27, 2007, 1:02 pm

Hicks was really left with no choice other than to accept a plea bargain (I’m assuming that’s what happened), as there was never going to be the possibility of a fair trial.

My suspicion is that he’ll be sentenced to time already served and released just in time for Howard to wheel him out for the election.

Comment from Kieran
Time: March 27, 2007, 1:21 pm

A nice six months in prison first, prevents him coming home with shocker stories to derail the election, but not long enough for anyone to get seriously outraged about it.

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 27, 2007, 2:45 pm

I think that this is a good result. The reality is that he will probably do no less time that Lhodi from Sydney a good twenty year stretch and we should expect no less than that.
As I and so many other conservatives have said all along he has admitted, in letters to his dad that he was playing at being a terrorist and he has been man enough to admit it in the court and kudos to him for doing so. But don’t fool yourselves that the court will give him time served and release him; the US have a much more realistic attitude when it comes to sentencing and If he gets to spend his old age as a free man he should count him self as a very lucky indeed.
The left have been baying for him to stand trial and now he has and you lot should accept that he has done the crime and that now he has to do the time..

Comment from Pterosaur
Time: March 27, 2007, 3:13 pm

Iain Hall;

“The left have been baying for him to stand trial ”

Well. if you regard :-

1. A process specifically designed to ensure that

(a) a conviction be obtained
(b) that no reasonable defence could be mounted,

as a “fair trial”

2. On charges which were non existent at the time of the alleged offences,

as worthy of prosecution.

then you may have a point.

However, I, and many others who you may care to characterise as “the left” do not consider that such a process constitutes anything approaching an honest judicial system, but rather as the type of “kangaroo court” adopted by such notables as Stalin and Pinochet whom I’m sure, from your writings, you must admire greatly for their forthright approach to “justice”.

I also consider that in Hick’s position. it would have been an extremely difficult choice to enter into, but given the farcical nature of the tribunal system he faced, and given that no other verdict was possible, his decision was probably inevitable.

I hope he is free soon, after having faced years of torture in the Guantanamo concentration camp .

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 27, 2007, 4:49 pm

pterosaur
I am well aware of both the jurisdictional argument and the issue of the fairness of the process but lets not cite technicalities to dismiss the clear fact that Hicks was devoted to a despicable cause for which he is deserving of a very long time in Jail.

Comment from Alex
Time: March 27, 2007, 5:05 pm

The left have been baying for him to stand trial and now he has and you lot should accept that he has done the crime and that now he has to do the time..

That’s an extremely dishonest statement. It hasn’t just been the left complaining about the gitmo travesty; it’s been virtually every legal practitioner on the face of the earth, plus an overwhelming number of conservatives that recognise the fact that democracy can’t be destroyed as a means to saving it.

Comment from Pterosaur
Time: March 27, 2007, 5:08 pm

Iain,
good to see that you regard such “technicalities” as irrelevant, and that you are able to confirm Hick’s guilt in the absence of any evidence to the contrary.

Seems that I was accurate in my evaluation of your admiration for the methods of Stalin, Pinochet et.al.

I pose a question to you -

If we are fighting a war against those who would destroy our way of life - then why should we abandon the things which make us strong ?

For example, a fair and transparent judicial system .

Comment from Alex
Time: March 27, 2007, 5:16 pm

I think that from this point on, we should abandon the legal system in favour of a committee of wingnuts who can make a determination about the innocence or guilt of the defendant on the basis of a ‘gut feeling’

Comment from The Editor
Time: March 27, 2007, 5:36 pm

“but lets not cite technicalities to dismiss the clear fact that Hicks was devoted to a despicable cause”

You’ve never let pesky technicalities get in the way of a good bad argument, Iain.

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 27, 2007, 5:41 pm

Pterosaur
Did Hicks not make free admissions of his terrorist adventures in various parts of the world in letters to his father? Or are you going to say he wrote the letters under torture?
Were he an “innocent” I would be right in there saying release him but he was never that. And that is why I have absolutely no sympathy for his plight. He was an idiot, but an idiot who was (is) devoted to an organisation that’s raison detre was the destruction of modern western culture. Now you seek to compare my position to that of Stalin or Pinoichet but don’t forget the nature of the regime and the terrorist group your beloved Davo was loyal to, Both Al Qeada and the Talliban makes Stalin and Pinoichet look like pussycats.
You may complain about the process but the result is entirely consistent with natural justice. A self admitted terrorist will be sentenced shortly, and in the end that is what is important.

Comment from Pterosaur
Time: March 28, 2007, 9:08 am

Iain, you claim

“Both Al Qeada and the Talliban makes Stalin and Pinoichet look like pussycats.”

WTF ??? How do you justify such a claim ?

Or do you think that state sponsored murder is of a “superior” nature to other forms ?

Comment from Kieran
Time: March 28, 2007, 12:38 pm

I’ll have to join you in expressing extreme disbelief at that statement.

State mass murder and totalitarian terror and control is far more destructive than the largely uncoordinated attacks of a small band of terrorists.

A self admitted terrorist will be sentenced shortly, and in the end that is what is important.

Would you be so confident in these claims if the confession was coerced? If it was the result of torture?

How can we accept a confession that was the result of some pretty serious coercion, ie. the threat of another five years or more in legal limbo?

Even you have to admit that any “confession” under these circumstances is highly suspect, and any punishment inflicted as a result of such a confession is highly unjust.

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 28, 2007, 1:24 pm

The confession I refer to was freely made in letters home to his father long before he was captured in Afghanistan. So your suggestions of coercion are not even relevant. That his admissions made at Guantanamo bay may be consistent with previous admissions suggests to me that the gitmo admissions may in fact be quite accurate.

Comment from Alex
Time: March 28, 2007, 10:14 pm

Iain,

Hicks’ anti-Semitic rambling is quite offensive, no doubt. The documentary, the president vs hicks terry hicks reads the offending letters. The documentary dates back to 2004.

Hicks admits to training with the Taliban, and to his hatred of Jews; none of which were crimes at the time.

Can’t wingnuts appreciate the danger of retrospective law making? It means we could be lawfully living our lives at this very moment, only to be told at a later date that the law has been changed retrospectively, and we’re now being charged It’s obscene and indefensible.

Comment from Kieran
Time: March 28, 2007, 10:37 pm

Way to change the subject Iain. By “self confessed terrorist” we’re talking about someone who plead guilty to the charges. The guilty plea, even you must admit, is dodgy.

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 29, 2007, 6:35 am

Alex
The documentary may date back to 2004 but the letters predate his capture .and the law about giving material aid to terrorism actually dates back to 1993 after the first attempt to bomb the world trade center. The only retrospective aspect of the process in gitmo is to make military commissions able to try such offences. Fighting for the Talliban may not have been an offence IN AUSTRALIA but it certainly was under US law as they claim universal jurisdiction in such matters.
Kieran
What is dodgy about a man who has done what he is accused of admitting his guilt? This it was expedient for him to plead guilty line is very shallow when you consider his aforementioned admissions. Like so many common criminals he has done the sums (as you do) and figured he has a chance of doing less time by admitting his guilt. Don’t take away from the man the dignity of confessing his sins and admitting his errors by putting it all down to expediency.

Comment from John S.
Time: March 29, 2007, 4:32 pm

“Like so many common criminals …”

He’s a common crimminal now? I thought that he was a member of a group that made Stalin look like a pussycat.

Like I’ve said elsewhere, I guessed he’d plead guilty and I was right (and I also predicted they’d never find any WMD’s and they’d change the reason for the war to bringing democracy to Iraq - hey, what do you know?), and I don’t even care that he has. Everyone I’ve spoken to (sorry, Andrew, Tim and Iain - I mean everyone I’ve engaged in groupthink with) can see it for what it is. Frankly, I don’t blame him at all and look forward to his book.

Pingback from Club Troppo » Missing Link
Time: March 29, 2007, 5:20 pm

[…] big political news for this missing link segment is Hicks pleading guilty. Kieren Bennet at Dead Roo asks what it means and comes to the conclusion that the plea legitimises the way the US handled […]

Comment from MrLefty
Time: March 30, 2007, 8:52 am

“Whilst I emathize with his desire to get the hell our of Guantanamo, even if it is just into a US military prison, as soon as possible, this is a blow to human rights.”

Hicks isn’t in a position to deliver “a blow to human rights”. His pleading guilty proves precisely nothing other than that holding show trials can result in getting someone to plead guilty. Duh.

The “blow to human rights” is the apparently widespread acceptance on the right of the idiotic notion that if we think someone’s a “bad man” then they don’t deserve fair treatment before the law. It’s outrageous and disturbing - and these are people who claim to admire the achievements of western civilization.

They’re very quick to abandon the notion of western law when convenient, though.

Comment from Kieran
Time: March 30, 2007, 11:53 am

When any person offers percieved legitimacy to this kangaroo court in Cuba, they do strike a blow against humanity’s collective experience of rights. I agree with you, the blow to human rights actually comes from people’s acceptance of these false notions of a lack of rights, but by pleading guilty Hick’s has reinforced these notions.

In an ideal sense Hicks had a duty to refuse to accept the legitimacy of a process he should not be subject too. He should have refused to cooperate.

I say “in an ideal sense” because in my heart I agree with you, this is too high a standard to set. But the plea was dissapointing none the less, had Hicks followed the example of Mamdouh Habib and refused to cooperate, the case against the process would be somewhat easier to make.

But too high a standard. It’s a bit rich my demanding Hicks sacrifice himself in order to make our task a little easier.

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 30, 2007, 4:39 pm

Jeremy
It would be nice if you could explain just why the normal criminal law should apply to anyone who is acting in the context of a war, declared or undeclared. Because the entirety of your many Pro Hicks rants seem to be based on the assumption that acts of international terror is not that different to shoplifting.
It has been a very long established that when one acts in what could be construed as the “laws of war” jurisdiction that the niceties of the normal criminal law do not apply. Thus a captured combatant may be detained for the duration of a conflict, not as punishment but to take them out of the equation in military terms with out an invocation of habeas corpus. As an admitted combatant Hicks was detained and even offered more protection than he really should have been entitled to (he was not shot as a spy). Yet you persist on insisting that he should have been treated the same way, as your low life clients would be here in Australia.
Over at my blog I have a thread, which seeks to find out just what is an apt punishment for acts of terror or conspiring to commit acts of terror. Thus far my resident Lefties seem incapable of giving me any answer so perhaps you would be prepared to offer an opinion, you being in the lawyering game and all

Comment from Kieran
Time: March 30, 2007, 8:16 pm

To deal with your shoplifting analogy:

Say you were shoplifting in Afganistan. The United States’ military abducts you, takes you to Cuba, and throws you in a detention camp for five years. Now, instead of charging you with any established law, they invent a new one “plotting to distablize the economy”, which in it’s definition includes shop lifting.

Then they presume to try you.

Several points: 1. the shop lifting was not conducted in America, nor are you an American subject to a hypothetical law against shop lifting overseas. 2. You have no broken Australian law, which might apply to your actions over seas, and Afganistan declines to do anything about your shoplifting offense.

This is a question of whether or not the American government has universal judistriction over the actions of everyone everywhere, and whether they can invent the charges as they go along as well.

Its about whether they can hold someone, for any period of time, for five years, of indefinitely, because of the allegations they level at you.

Iain, you have been answered.

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 31, 2007, 6:58 am

But Kieran
You ignore the “at war ” factor and the right of the United States to detain any enemy combatants for the duration as ahs been the case since the dawn of warfare… it was not really that long ago that detained enemy soldiers would have just been put to the sword.

Comment from Kieran
Time: March 31, 2007, 10:32 am

If you are arguing he is a prisoner of war, then these “trials” are even more absurd.

The fact of the matter is that the US is treating the act of being someone they declare an enemy as a crime.

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 31, 2007, 11:05 am

Being an actor in the drama of war is one thing however the actual charge is “giving material support to terrorism” which has in it the explicit understanding that the aim of terrorism is to attack civilian targets. Had Hicks been entirely devoted to the despicable Talliban then it could be argued that he should not be liable for any prosecution, however his training and loyalty were to Lascar el toiba and al Qaeda who both sought out and attacked civilians, which under any interpretation of international law is an abomination and war crime.

Comment from Kieran
Time: March 31, 2007, 1:01 pm

Alex’s Prediction:

My suspicion is that he’ll be sentenced to time already served and released just in time for Howard to wheel him out for the election.

My Prediction:

A nice six months in prison first, prevents him coming home with shocker stories to derail the election, but not long enough for anyone to get seriously outraged about it.

And the outcome:

Australian Guantanamo detainee David Hicks will be sent home to serve nine months in prison after being sentenced by a military judge at the facility. - BBC

Naturally I will condemn the government if they do anything other than release him immediately upon his return to Australia. We should not honour the decisions of an unlawful self-appointed kangaroo court.

Comment from The Editor
Time: March 31, 2007, 4:29 pm

Iain sez: which under any interpretation of international law is an abomination and war crime.

Um, except for all those interpretations made by many, many commentators who say Hicks is guilty of no war crime.

Comment from Alex
Time: March 31, 2007, 5:09 pm

Extraordinary - Locked in a cupboard for 5 years; his jailers constantly bleating about the fact that he is the ‘worst of the worst’, and he gets the same sentence as someone with a terrible driving record.

This is an absolute abomination.

Comment from Iain Hall
Time: March 31, 2007, 7:57 pm

Scott
which comentators say that the deliberate targeting of civillians IS NOT a war crime?