Spot the Terrorist
AWB scandal, Australian issues, Terrorism, Terrorism laws, Values - - Posted on April, 1 at 3:10 pm by Aussie Bob
One of these men is a “terrorist”.
All three like to show off with guns, but that’s where the similarities end. Only one of them has his gun fetish presented as proof positive of alleged “treason”.
One started an illegal war that has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians that the same war was supposed to save from a brutal despot. He has never been tried for this crime and, in fact, claims to have total legal immunity from ever being charged. This man, incidentally, happens to be a friend of John Howard.
Another was Chairman of a company that sold over a billion dollars worth of wheat to that despot, $300 million of which was paid back in kickbacks, with which the despot bought arms and munitions, some of which were used against our own soldiers in the war that the first bloke started. He also has never been tried. However, he was brought before a Commission of Inquiry which recommended senior employees of his be prosecuted, but which also ruled that the bribes paid to the despot by his company were tax deductible. It is unlikely, therefore, business being business (especially National Party business), that he will ever be actually brought to justice. This man also happens to be a friend of John Howard.
The third guarded a tank, shot at some troops in a separate conflict that occurred prior to the one which resulted in his arrest and incarceration. After his arrest he was beaten and tortured, then thrown into solitary confinement for five years in a jail which was ruled illegal by the highest court in the land and vilified by politicians and pundits high and low in his own country, before being tried under retrospective laws made up a few months before his trial (although several years after his alleged criminal acts). This man does not even know John Howard… although lately you could have been forgiven for thinking John Howard was indeed his greatest friend.
***********************************
MORE MUSINGS: Something else just struck me as odd. The man who is a terrorist has been given a suspended sentence: 7 years nominal, written down to 9 months to be served. If, when he gets back to Australia, he repudiates his guilty plea (claiming to not, in fact, have been a terrorist) our Foreign Minister has said that his sentence could be extended to the full 7 years because this would be perjury, making him an even worse person than he already is.
So we would have a situation where admitting that he lied about being a terrorist would be the trigger for increasing his sentence for terrorism, even though the reason his sentence would be being increased was because he was now saying he was not a terrorist. If perjury about saying he was a terrorist - meaning he didn’t believe he was - makes him a worse person, then why is this? It must be because Downer believes he is guilty no matter what he says in his own defence. Apparently, pleading not guilty is a worse moral and legal offence than pleading guilty, even though he believes he is is not guilty. Whither justice?
The farcical contention that the Terrorist has a choice in this matter (or has ever had a choice) is thus starkly revealed for the crock of poncy bullshit peddled by the idiot son of landed gentry that Downer truly is.
Posted in AWB scandal, Australian issues, Terrorism, Terrorism laws, Values |
April 1st, 2007 at 4:10 pm
A cracker of a post AB!
There are criminals…& then there are CRIMINALS…this pathetic act of diversion by Bonnie Prince Bush & Jester John will be shown for the truly pathetic piece of media manipulation it is.
April 1st, 2007 at 4:18 pm
bravo! i’ve linked to this post from my blog, because i think this is the best summary i’ve seen of the situation regarding Hicks. well said.
April 1st, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Okay, so if Howard is the real terrorist, why do so many of us keep re-electing him? And probably will again at the next election. It’s got me tossed.
Could it just be slightly possible that the Australian electorate has been completely and absolutely WRONG?
April 1st, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Aussie Bob, I am a novice at this site, but this is the best piece of yours I have seen to date.
I wrote a piece of invective immediately after watching Andrew Dolt and Glenn “self- medicated” Milne on ABC Insiders this morning, but the post got eaten by the cyber genies before it loaded - and I thought that might have been a bit of a warning sign, so I let it go…….
Your work here far more elegantly and graphically encapsulates the point I was trying to make.
Andrew Bolt was repitiously screeching
“Hicks trained with al-quada and al-quada killed Australians” this morning, without bothering with the full story — that al-quada is a bastard love-child of the CIA born out of the Cold War.
The CIA conceived, founded, funded and trained al-quada — including Bin Laden.
So Uncle Sam is complicit in the deaths of US and Australian citizens as a result of al-quada terrorism.
Now Dollie Downer and Bolt are already running a line to hook the lynch mob about the risk Hicks poses if he should ever get to frequent the shopping malls of CBD Adelaide.
Forget that parolled murderers, rapists, pedophiles and armed robbers among others walk our streets daily…. If Hicks needs some sort of control order, than the mechanisms exist.
Just who is the terrorist indeed!
April 1st, 2007 at 5:07 pm
You forgot another interesting fact, Aussie Bob, one of the above has actually shot and grievously wounded an American, an innocent civilian no less!!
Hint for those who usually live in the carefully crafted Rupert “$20/barrel oil” Murdoch news cocoon: It wasn’t the bloke on the left, but one of Howard’s bosom buddies!
April 1st, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Off topic…
I’m pretty sure that the revolver being held by Flugge is actually a replica. It looks to me like the chambers in the cylinder and the barrel are blanked off.
April 1st, 2007 at 6:14 pm
So Mars, he’d be firing blanks?
or just flugg-ing it?
April 1st, 2007 at 7:09 pm
I’d go with the blanks, ID.
Either way it’s in keeping with the Keystone Cops character of the neocons. They are so utterly inept, witless and transparent that it SHOULD be f&u{king hilarious (if it wasn’t for the high number of corpses). Cheney the immoral, chest-thumping chickenhawk shots a friend in the face while on an organised hunt and Flugge shows his manliness by posing shirtless with a toy gun. IT’S BLOODY PATHETIC.
It just frustrates me to tears how these witless fools continue to get away with their clumsy, half-baked schemes. They’ve got all the subtlety of a wet-fart at a Papal Mass. If it wasn’t for the support they get from a lazy, timid, compliant corporate media, they’d be laughed into obscurity.
Seriously… just LOOK at those wankers. These aren’t cunning criminal masterminds! They’re just a bunch of grotesque clowns using a corrupt system and public apathy to get a free pass!
April 1st, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Wholy Smokes- Great blog!
April 1st, 2007 at 7:30 pm
(Source: Steven Hurst in Baghdad, The Age, Apr 1. 07)
Nope, not an April Fool’s joke…a reality of the Cheney planned & promoted Iraq War.
(Dick Cheney: June 20, 2005)
Such amazing insight.
Next stop Iran.
Anyone think it’s an amazing coincidence that the Brits, Aussies & Americans have been taking in the movie ‘300′ during the merry month of March?…just as the Americans abduct Iranian embassy staff in Iraq, the US naval battlegroup shoots off a practice load in the Gulf, the UN places sanctions on Iran…whilst ‘Phony’ Tony ups the ante after a boatload of Brits just happens to make its way into the hands of the swarthy Persians?
Just another month of manipulation in the grand plan of the Neo-Cons.
April 1st, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Aussie Bob - hard on the heals of this successful “pick the terrorist” post - perhaps you are the right man to give us some sort of ironic comparison or equivalence between confessions extracted by the Iranians from some all at sea Brits, and confessions extracted by Uncle Sam from our very own Worst of the Worst, David (once-met Bin-Laden) Hicks?
April 1st, 2007 at 7:51 pm
It’s a score, AB! Bannerman has linked you.
April 1st, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Hey nasking… remember when the war-mongering wingnuts went into a frenzy about the Iraqi casualy figures (over half-million at the time) produced by the Lancet study? There was all sorts of crap and misdirection about the “methodology” and credibility of the study. Of course none of it had anything to do about getting reliable stats about the impact of this UNPROVOKED war on the Iraqi people. Instead the uproar was about protecting the hides of the wingnut’s political pinup boys.
Well it appears that Brit govt KNEW that the study was sound…
Iraqi deaths survey ‘was robust’
By Owen Bennett-Jones
Monday, 26 March 2007
The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt.
Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet.
But the Ministry of Defence’s chief scientific adviser said the survey’s methods were “close to best practice” and the study design was “robust”.
Another expert agreed the method was “tried and tested”.
Mortality rates
The Iraq government asks the country’s hospitals to report the number of victims of terrorism or military action.
Critics say the system was not started until well after the invasion and requires over-pressed hospital staff not only to report daily, but also to distinguish between victims of terrorism and of crime.
The Lancet medical journal published its peer-reviewed survey last October.
It was conducted by the John Hopkins School of Public Health and compared mortality rates before and after the invasion by surveying 47 randomly chosen areas across 16 provinces in Iraq.
The researchers spoke to nearly 1,850 families, comprising more than 12,800 people.
In nearly 92% of cases family members produced death certificates to support their answers. The survey estimated that 601,000 deaths were the result of violence, mostly gunfire.
Shortly after the publication of the survey in October last year Tony Blair’s official spokesperson said the Lancet’s figure was not anywhere near accurate.
He said the survey had used an extrapolation technique, from a relatively small sample from an area of Iraq that was not representative of the country as a whole.
President Bush said: “I don’t consider it a credible report.”
But a memo by the MoD’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: “The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to “best practice” in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq.”
‘Cannot be rubbished’
One of the documents just released by the Foreign Office is an e-mail in which an official asks about the Lancet report: “Are we really sure the report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies.”
The reply from another official is: “We do not accept the figures quoted in the Lancet survey as accurate. ”
In the same e-mail the official later writes: “However, the survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones.”
Asked how the government can accept the Lancet’s methodology but reject its findings, the government has issued a written statement in which it said: “The methodology has been used in other conflict situations, notably the Democratic republic of Congo.
“However, the Lancet figures are much higher than statistics from other sources, which only goes to show how estimates can vary enormously according to the method of collection.
“There is considerable debate amongst the scientific community over the accuracy of the figures.”
‘Mainstreet bias’
In fact some of the British government criticism of the Lancet report post-dated Sir Roy’s comments.
Speaking six days after Sir Roy praised the study’s methods, British foreign office minister Lord Triesman said: “The way in which data are extrapolated from samples to a general outcome is a matter of deep concern….”
Some scientists have subsequently challenged the validity of the Lancet study. Questions have been asked about the survey techniques and the possibility of “mainstreet bias”.
Dr Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway London University says that most of those questioned lived on streets more likely than average to witness attacks: “It would appear they were only able to sample a small sliver of the country,” he said.
Dr Spagat has previously conducted research with Iraq Body Count, an NGO that counts deaths on the basis of media reports and which has produced estimates far lower than those published in the Lancet.
If the Lancet survey is right, then 2.5% of the Iraqi population - an average of more than 500 people a day - have been killed since the start of the war.
The BBC World Service made a Freedom of Information Request on 28 November 2006. The information was released on 14 March 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6495753.stm
April 1st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I love youse all. The idea just came to me in a flash.
April 1st, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I do indeed Mars…nice work…it seems our Phony Tony Blair is turning out to be a RIGHT NUTTER. I sometimes wonder if he & his War mates are more than just puppets of the Military Industrial Complex but true believers in some kind of Apocalyptic scenario.
If you scrutinise the news you can see the path to the CRASH…the price of Gold (a tangible asset in case of market crashes etc)…& Oil (soon to hit all-time records)…the disintegration occuring in Pakistani society (whilst simultaneously testing a ballistic missile)…the calls by Al Sadr in Iraq for mass demonstrations on April 9th to protest the US occupation…the readying of Hamas & Hezbollah’s armies…the battle in Somalia…& if Nicolas Sarkozy wins the French election on May 6, I reckon he’ll incite Islamophobia in order to take the French down the path to War…I mean these MORONS are taking us down a road of no return.
Imagine if the West is caught in an across the Middle East War?…they end up bombing the crap out of Iran & Syria, invading Pakistan as it crumbles…who hit India…who retaliate…whilst the horror spreads to Turkey as they decide to take on the Kurds…then Europe is set on fire (millions of Moslems becoming very tense there)..
and the Chinese decide we are financially & militarily weakening but pose a future threat to World stability because we’ve proved ourselves to be inherently dangerous & exploitive Imperialists…& use the Olympic period to promote Chinese Nationalism & Re-Unification platforms
…eventually invading Taiwan (& justifying it by pointing out that a pre-emptive strike was necessary to offset the possible use of WMDs provided to Taiwan by the Imperialist Americans)…& calling on North Korea, Russia, some African & South American States (Venezuala, Bolivia) to rise up against the RAMPANT CAPITALIST Fascists. In turn Japan hits out at China…
Need I say more.
Hellclone.
If you think it can’t happen…think again…remember the World Wars? Shit does happen. Humans are very adept at making it happen.
And our children will be sent to die in grizzly circumstances because these INSANE MORONS who have no regrets…who never have the decency to look pained, strained & on the verge of a nervous breakdown like Johnson in the Vietnam War - Rove, Bush & Howard grinning & joking smugly whilst so many die shows how sick these bastards really are.
The Leaders of the Coalition of the Gullible & STUPID decided that opening the Islamic Fundamentalist Box was a good thing for the bank balance & their ambitions.
And they’re still there. Threatening.
April 1st, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Funny you should mention that as a festering sore.
It appears that the bloody bumbling, ham-fisted yanks just INSIST on having a hand in everything! Way to keep winning those hearts and minds, duuuuudes!
BTW. Do you reckon the locals like the idea that the yanks and the Brits get a say in what happens in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia?
Anger at US ‘rendition’ of refugees who fled Somalia
By Steve Bloomfield in Nairobi
23 March 2007
At least 150 people arrested in Kenya after fleeing violence in Somalia have been secretly flown to Somalia and Ethiopia, where they are being held incommunicado in underground prisons, human rights groups say.
It is alleged they were questioned by US and British officials.
Flight manifests seen by The Independent show that three charter planes left Nairobi for Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, and Baidoa, the seat of parliament, in January and February, carrying around 80 people suspected of links with al-Qa’ida. The flights left at night, and the manifests appear to have been filled in hastily with many of the details, including the plane’s destination, left blank.
Several of the suspects are understood to be held in underground prisons at Mogadishu airport where they are held shackled to the wall. Most have since been sent on to two detention facilities in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia has been accused of routinely torturing political prisoners. A further 50 or 60 people accused of belonging to Ethiopian rebel groups fighting alongside Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts were sent directly to Ethiopia.
Fighting has reignited in Mogadishu this week following Ethiopia’s lightning offensive at the end of last year, which drove the Somali Islamists from the capital. On Wednesday at least 21 people were killed and more than 120 wounded in clashes that led to the burning of five uniformed soldiers, who were either Somali or Ethiopian.
The televised incident was reminiscent of events of 1993 when Somalis dragged the corpses of US soldiers through the streets, hastening the US withdrawal from the country.
The suspects deported from Kenya were interrogated beforehand by American FBI officials in Kenyan prisons, where they were accused of having links with al-Qa’ida.
“This is extraordinary rendition,” said Maini Kiai, chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission. “Britain and America are involved in interrogating suspects.”
Following the US-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops, thousands of Somalis have tried to escape the violence by crossing the long, porous border with Kenya. Many of those caught on the Kenya-Somalia border were accused of belonging to the Islamic Courts and refused entry.
At least 150 of those who managed to get through were detained by Kenyan police, including 17 women and 12 children, one a baby of seven months. Many needed medical attention but did not receive it, including a pregnant Tunisian woman who had a bullet lodged in her back.
All were held in Kenyan prisons for several weeks without access to lawyers and family members. As well as being interrogated by the FBI, human rights groups in Nairobi also claimed British officials were involved.
“The Americans had direct access to the prisoners, one on one,” said Al-Amin Kimathi of the Muslim Human Rights Forum, adding that US diplomatic vehicles carried the suspects from Nairobi police stations to be questioned.
“Senior Kenyan police officers told us they had nothing to do with the operation,” said Mr Kimathi. “It was out of their hands.”
Four of the people taken to Somalia were British. But the day after they arrived in Mogadishu, they were questioned by British diplomats then released.
The US has claimed that Somalia’s Islamic Courts, which controlled much of the country until December, was run by an al-Qa’ida cell. Ethiopian troops, backed by US intelligence and logistical support, overpowered the Islamic Courts within a few days of fighting at the end of last year. An interim Somali government, which had been confined to its base in Baidoa, has since taken control of Mogadishu, but guerrillas linked to the Islamic Courts have launched an insurgency with almost daily attacks against government and Ethiopian troops… {more}
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2383898.ece
April 1st, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Aussie Bob - a comment on your “more musings”.
Some stuff that is starting to leach out about the closed-room out of court rabbit-out-of-hat deals that Magician Mori has dazzled us with.
It seems that what Hicks actually pleaded guilty to was something along the lines that he believed the military commission had evidence it would use to convict him. Emphasised by the fact he was losing lawyers at the rate of one a minute at the get-go.
Given he had been told he had to either plead guilty or face life imprisonment, it is reasonable to assume that he did in fact believe the commission was going to use whatever to convict him.
Another musing - in January when JWH, aka The Rodent, started to feel the blowtorch of public opprobrium applied to his delicate, snowy innersole, he decided to act.
And on the surface he had a win - Hicks was charged almost within Howards prescribed timeframe; Hicks had a show trial and Hicks dutifully pleaded guilty and voila! the tin-pot pin-head terrorist was out of Gitmo and off the election agenda.
Or so JWH may have thought. Instead, the lattesipping set have even MORE to chatter on and on about - namely how extraordinarily CONVENIENT the duration of Hicks sentence and the meejah gag, relative to the Oz election.
Rather than have Hicks disappear into an Adelaide duststorm, there’s possibly a gaggle of us perverse bastards who are gagging to see how close the meejah can get - and what Uncle Sam can or will do if Hicks does spill his guts.
And another thing? Why does Hicks have to do time in a maxiumum security prison?
I havent read anything about the US
CaptainColonel Kangaroos directing what sort of custody he must be subjected to.Is he THE WORST OF THE WORST, or is there some mechanism to have his actual security risk profile properly evaluated?
Pedophiles, rapists, murderers have been known to serve home detention (much to community disgust, but it happens) …. Is Hicks a threat to the community?
What would happen if he were to wander the shopping malls of Adelaide on day release, the very idea of which has Dolly all a-tremble?
April 1st, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Yes Mars, Ethiopia is acting just like ‘torture camp’ Egypt…& we know how well that method of oppressing Fundies worked out.
(source: Council on Foreign Relations. org)
Nothing like rendition practices & barbaric interrogations to turn idealogues into terrorists.
Lessons never learnt.
April 1st, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Well, It wouldn’t surprise me that AWB took a replica revolver to protect themselves with in Iraq.
On another note - Hicks gagged: Remember in November
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:03 am
With that post, wingnut heads explore everywhere - particularly the “I refuse to understand any facts that undermine my prejudices” remnants still vainly attempting to argue at Blogocracy that Hicks is a terrorist and his trial was fair and well deserved…
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:08 am
Terrorism: the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear for bringing about political or social change.
That sums up Cheney and the other neocons twits… EXACTLY!
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:27 am
Nasking says:
“Nothing like rendition practices & barbaric interrogations to turn idealogues into terrorists.
Lessons never learnt.”
Yes, indeed. And the really annoying the is that the rest of the world can see this quite clearly. It’s only a handful of ignorant, bedwetting wingnut tools, here and in the US, who still INSIST on trying to defending the indefensible.
Bush war on terror draws fire as misguided venture
Thu Mar 29, 2007
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Five-and-a-half years after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism has emerged as a wasteful, misguided exercise that poses its own threat to U.S. national security, experts say.
A growing number of analysts and former U.S. officials say the global war on terrorism has undermined U.S. influence abroad, forced onerous costs in American lives and money in Iraq, and unleashed a huge government spending spree that has often funded projects unrelated to national security.
It has also produced a climate of fear in the United States that helped justify the war in Iraq and the curtailment of civil liberties at home, they said.
“The atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty, and the vagueness of the definition of the enemy, makes the country more fearful and more susceptible to being steered in irrational directions,” said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was U.S. national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.
Unlike the muted response to attacks by Britain and Spain, experts say the U.S. has overreacted to the September 11 attacks that killed 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania in 2001.
Congress has spent nearly $271.5 billion on homeland security since September 11, with money often going to projects that have nothing to do with security but that are important to politicians and their constituents, according to a survey by the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
At the same time, the number of potential terrorism targets identified by Congress has exploded from 160 in 2003 to 80,000, allowing such unlikely sites as a Midwestern apple festival and a roadside theme park in Florida to bid for funds.
Meanwhile, the private sector — lobbyists, interest groups, industries, the media and even universities — has also used the national security label aggressively to sell its own agendas, experts say.
“What’s clear is that there is no focus whatsoever in the way we are fighting terrorism,” said Veronique de Rugy, author of the AEI study.
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke dismissed the criticism as old and inaccurate, saying the Bush administration had never viewed sites such as small theme parks to be critical national assets deserving of funds. “This has no basis in fact,” he said.
Knocke’s boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, has also taken issue with the assertion that the U.S. response to September 11 is exaggerated.
“If we begin to heed arguments that somehow our concern about security is overblown … then I feel we’re going to feel consequences in the loss of lives,” Chertoff said in a speech outlining his priorities for 2007.
But terrorism experts say the United States has yet to develop a clear understanding of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups, despite the war on terrorism and a total of $500 billion spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The most pernicious effect of the war on terrorism has been the Iraq war, which has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and damaged U.S. standing in the Muslim world for generation, experts say.
“Iraq has been vastly worse than anything terrorism’s ever done,” said Ohio State University political science professor John Mueller…. [more at link]
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2920646520070329?pageNumber=1
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:47 am
At least it’s confirmed one reason for Cheney’s visit.
The Gitmo prosecutor wasn’t even in the loop when the sentencing deal was stitched up. Who did Hicks’ lawyers deal with?
The grub’s infantile ‘nothing to do with us it was all the military commission’s own work’ line must surely breach even the Australian public’s tolerance threshold for barefaced lies and cynicism, especially following his earlier boasts about being able to get Hicks home any time he wanted by putting in a call to the White House.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
Here’s another thought: what happens when (inevitably) one of the Gitmo detainees challenges the legality of these v2.0 military tibunals and sends the whole process back to the US Supreme Court, who previously ruled v1.0 illegal?
It is 99% certain that the Supremes will reassert their verdict (little has changed since v1.0), in which case Hicks’ entire plea bargain deal will be rendered legally obsolete and any prisoner exchange deal with the US government will fall apart, given that said prisoner cannot legally be detained any longer under US law.
What will the Australian government do then? Re-arrest Hicks and send him back to Gitmo?
Who cares, right? As long as it doesn’t happen till after the next election!
Might be interesting to watch Four Corners tonight: David Hicks: The Untried Case.
PS: Tim, we think you should apologize to Gandhi and invite Daryl Mason back.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:18 am
Thanks for that link Ken,
I am fascinated with learning more about the behind- the-behind the scenes deals, double crosses and outight expediencies of all.
Of course Hicks is out of Gitmo now - a result for him, but the rest of us are still screwed.
I for one wanted to see him PROPERLY tried.
I read on the issue, but until evidence is presented in court and vigorously defended, how can we know what is real, what is neocon wet-dream fabrication and what Hicks really would say under oath in a real trial with a real sentence as the outcome?
Given what I have followed so far, I seriously doubt he is the worst of the worst, but I’d still like to know what sort of security threat he may present.
Real Answers - not Rodent/Bush/Cheney BS.
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 am
Nice Post AB.
If Howard thinks he’s heard the last of the Hicks matter, he’d better think again.
Robert Richter, a leading Melbourne Criminal silk has just weighed-in, comparing the Hicks trial to a Stalinist show trial. It’s all over todays SMH.
Now the punters mightn’t give a rats what some QC says, but it seems to me that the penny has dropped with them anyway.
What they can’t figure out is why some guy the Government has tried to portray as the Devil Incarnate, gets 9 months plus time served for trying to bring an end to the world as we know it.
It just doesn’t compute.
They know you’d get more than that for handing-out a flogging to the missus or driving with a skinful.
Plus there’s that gag order. WTF is that all about? They’d be wondering about that too: Why can’t the guy tell his side of things until after the Federal Election? What has the Government got to hide?
Nope. Regardless of Richter’s opinion, the Mug Punters, Johnnie’s aspirationals, have already figured-out that the whole deal, charges, trial, plea and sentence stinks.
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:15 am
It’s pretty obvious that Cheney, Bush, Howard, Downer, Blair & Berlusconi’s War has not only led to CHAOS & MASS DESTRUCTION in Iraq & emboldened Iran…but led to dividing Western society as effectively as the Vietnam War…if not more. The hate & anger expressed from both sides is full on at times.
The mistrust of the Busheviks is so intense it has even spread to the 9/11 issue. The debate is happening thick & fast at Huffington Post…so far 26 pages worth…must be nigh on 700 comments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/comments/2007/03/31/44669/1
It’s about time we had these debates…it’s the sign of a Democracy beginning to breathe again.
Many Americans are also more than annoyed about Hicks only getting 9 months. They’ve been told he’s an EVIL TERRORIST, part of the 9/11 gang…& reckon that Bush stitched up a deal w/ Howard for the election because of Australia’s support for the War. Ironic eh?…:)
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:28 am
Has it occurred to anyone else that this Hicks Gitmo thing is a bit of a Life Imitating Art surreal deja vu trance experience???
There was once a movie staring Tom Cruise. He was flow to Guantanomo Bay, Cuba to defend two marines who were accused of - murder and conduct unbecoming -
The Cruise character is chosen because the Powers That Be think he is a lazy showpony phoney who will want outa Cuba ASAP so will plead guilty for clients and case closed.
But to impress the chick Cruise switches to macho advocate and argues the case - the murder charge is dropped, but the unbecoming charge sticks.
Meanwhile the real guilty party, the repugnant obsenity of a neocon nazi masquerading in a US uniform, (played by Jack Nicholson) is exposed and - oh happy ending - himself facing charges as the credits role…
Now, no disrepect to Major Mori, who now should be known henceforth as Magician Mori….. I just wonder if and why he was chosen.
I mean he has revealed himself to be an absolute shining example of the very best that the US has to offer the world, but I wonder in 2002 or whenever, his jug ears and goofy smile and labrador gestures might have left his superiors thinking he was a good choice to play the part of “”plead guilty….nothing to see here folks… move along… case closed”".
I mena he seems the sort of guy who till now could be relied on to follow orders and salute the flag and be the my-country-right-or-wrong sort of patriot, right.
Trouble was, with Mori they got themselves the real freaking thing - and absulute true blue dinki-die US patriot who REALLY loves his country ….. so…
The Big Brass had obviously never seen the Cruise movie, right?
Cause Mori follows the Hollywood script - fights for his client like Cruise infused with bloody Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mocking bird.
Mori’s client beats the murder wrap, gets a wrist slap for conduct unbecoming - deserved because he shat on a fine fine country and ran of to join with some thugs who wanna make the world live in the Dark Ages—
But just like in the Cruise movie, Mori’s real genious is the collateral damage he inflicts with his guileless exposures of the perverted abuse of Rule of Law and due process and the Bush/Cheny/Howard nexus that is prepared to do anything, say anything, screw anyone,
to stay in power
Someone should make a movie out of it!!!!
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Ken, the link to Andrew Sullivan’s article is highly appropriate in these contentious days…it spells out, as you mention, one of the reasons why Cheney visited the Great Southern Land…the involvement of Susan J. Crawford tells us heaps about ‘how bona-fide’ this process was…& hearing Foreign Minister ‘Dolly’ Downer pathetically deny the obvious brings back sickening memories of him denying AWARENESS of the (AWB) Wheat Board scandal that saw nigh on 300 million bucks being gift wrapped & sent to Saddam as a bribe from an Aussie company…it’s all political bastadry of the highest order…this government will go down in History as a motley crew of liars & charlatans.
Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly examines the Hick’s decision & tells it as it is:
I think many Americans are beginning to see how important a role a number of Aussies have been in aiding & abetting the CON perpetuated by the Bush administration on the Western…& Middle Eastern peoples….particularly the Australian Federal Government under John Howard’s leadership…& a certain media mogul w/ dual citizenship.
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Musing more on Maestro Mori.
The man is an absolute rolled-gold certifiable genius. Gotta be.
I dont know where Moe Davis was before Dec 2006 when he seemed to arrive on the scene all Team America (with strange jerky puppet movements and subliminal clues to strange sexual practices).
Arrived late on the scene with threats that we saw right through. Thought he was clever when he got a gag put on Mori.
But Mori had been up front and on our screens and in our face for some years.
I’d seen him on Denton, I’d seen him on this that and the other program, and most recently on Jennie Brockie’s Insight.
Could be just projection on my part, but I’d long ago formed the impression that Mori just GOT us as Aussies, y’know?
We seemed to just GET him, and he SEEMED to just get us.
Maybe it was the common no BS mindset.
Moe Davis just didnt get that Mori and the Aussies GOT each other and GOT “”ÏT”"”.
I think Mori GOT us so well, that as he was negotiating the plea deal for Hicks, Mori just knew the ugly, stick in your throat revolting bits — Aussies would be onto like a shot.
No need for him to argue with the Military goons who wanted to silence Hicks till after the election - just get the best deal he could and get Hicks out…..
Now comes the fall-out. Davis has been shafted so comprehensively from all sides he still doesnt know which orifice is sore.
Meanwhile Lying Rodent is lying low - outcome nothing to do with him, all the (kangaroo) Military Commission doing (Howard shafted, cause he wanted to score big brownies with the mob for making that phone call to the White House and bringing Hicks home witha snap of the fingers..but now has to pull out the overused plausible deniability)
And cause Mori GOT us all along, he knew all he had to do was be SEEN to be gagged, be SEEN to stop talking, and let the Aussies just shine their BS detectors all over this…..
Pure Mori magic.
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union makes some valid observations on the Hick’s outcome…his article brings to light once again the bizarre aspects of the case…& questions the effectiveness & legitimacy of the US Military Tribunal process.
Read the rest:
http://blog.aclu.org/index.php?/authors/10-Ben-Wizner,-ACLU
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Remember how we used to shake our heads in disgust whenever we heard of some unfortunate Soviet citizen being carted off to a gulag for being an “enemy of the state”? No proof was need… at best they got a show trial.
So now the wingnuts and the communists have something in common.
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Yr’know how Al Capone went down for tax evasion - not paying postage, or some insignificant shit…
well wouldnt it be funny if Hicks was the “”"”David”"” that brought down the newcon Goliath???
I mean he is such a tiny gnat such a tiny insignifiant pawn the grand chessboard of neocon geopolitics.
Big Guys dont have time to be bothered with something as piss-nothing as Hicks.
And there is Mori gnawing away for his client.
And those Aussies getting all uppity and stir=crazy about some no-account piece of shit rotting in Gitmo.
So - without REALLY thinking it all through the Cheney chucks Howard the crumb he’s squalling for…
What if by asking for some dumb favour like releasing Hicks eventually unravels everything and Howard becomes the weakest link in the COW??
I mean, we all know he’s piss-weak, but he likes to think he’s peeing with the big boys with us in Iraq - what if, what if
Hicks proves to be the tipping point issue, where enough people here -in the US and elsewhere - wake up and smell the neocon/depleted uranium in the morning
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
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April 2nd, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Sure, they both love authoritarian rule by a self-appointed elite … nothing new there.
No wonder Lee Kuan Yew’s respect for Australia is on the rise.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Now the “Bogan made Good” type of terrorist above, whilst looking for adventure fell in with the wrong crowd, and adopted their war-creed, often called Islam. Now under standard Islamic teaching apostasy if viewed as a crime punishable by death, but to the level-headed secularist of this world, i.e. me, his only true redemption (rather than being my enemy’s enemy, my enemy being A.Downer) is through becoming an apostate, but the Australian media isn’t reporting whether Hicks is currently a muslim or not. Why is this not reported ? Does no-one know ? Or is there some form of self-censorhip, or indeed another form of censorship? We are all free to make value judgements on what the truth may be in regards to his current war-creed/religion, but it’d be nice to know one way or the other instead of having to guess. And yes I think the public has a right to know, what is usually a private matter between a man and his gods, because there he is holding a gun, and therefore we have a right to know.
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Of all the many thousands of words that I and I’m sure many others have read about David Hicks in the last few months, these are easily the best AB. It shows perfectly the absurdity of the whole charade. This is justice, in the world of the WoT.
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
That got me chuckling. Nice one Ken.
Premiere Rann wants to know more details about Hick’s imprisonment in Australia. Perhaps Phillip ‘Nosferatu’ Ruddick could grab his big metal key for the Christmas Island Guantorture Bay Version 2 & let Hicks have a dry run.
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Why do “we” keep re-electing Howard? Where do most of us Aussies get our “news”? When was the last time Murdoch and co; paid out on Howard the way they do on Labor? Both sides are as bad/good as each other it’s just that one has a permanent PR line which papers over the faults of one side, even running supportive “evidence” of any stance or policy the government is trying to sell.
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
“Now under standard Islamic teaching apostasy if viewed as a crime punishable by death…”
Under standard Islamic teaching? Well of course it is, dear.
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:01 pm
If the lying rodent and co. get back in, we will end up like USA. Doomed. I would like to know where the main parties get their bribes(donations) from? Is there a web site that collects data for veiwing by citizens, on who gives to who? Johnny of to check on uranium mine ,now that hicks thing is sorted.
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:48 pm
ID, I very much like your Cruise/Mori thesis.
If I may venture a slight adjustment?
Mori doesn’t come across as the very credible, cool professional, wordy, authoritarian type we’ve come to expect from officialdom. Not exactly Rumpole, ok?
So let’s say he gets picked because he can be seen as a bit of a bumbler, whether he is or is not, in fact, a bumbler.
He could, in fact, be a dreadful bumbler in his practice, but he is still hideously popular with Australians precisely because he comes across as a bumbler. No tall poppy syndrome opportunities where Mori is concerned. He doesn’t use big, confusing words and he doesn’t assume U.S. superiority on anything.
He didn’t need to have his head turned by either Hicks or some leggy babe because he turned our head by being his bumbling self.
What if the mistake of the powers that be was not so much anticipating his failure as a legal representative, as anticipating his appeal as a fairly ordinary bloke?
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Excellent points Lyn…the Yanks bein’ so ultra competitive probably thought his scatty style would be his undoing…but like you said, he rose to the occasion & showed what a regular bloke can achieve when his heart is TRUE & his opposition obviously corrupt & manipulated. Regardless of what Howard & Co. might desire, we ain’t no 51st State…closer…but no carbon copy.
Consumed yer stuff too ID….well articulated.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:12 pm
You Bloody legend, AB.
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:10 am
[...] Pictures of three well known gun fanciers head a nicely crafted polemic by Aussie Bob. Hicks is the one in gaol for terrorism, but his crimes pale beside those of Dick Cheney and Trevor Flugge. The normally searing Jeremy takes everything back now that Hicks has pleaded guilty. [...]
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:51 am
I wanna T - shirt!!!
But seriously, there was a great letter to the editor in the “West Australian” today. It was from Michael Jardine, he reckoned that it was a great exercise in sanctimony by Howard. Hicks was ripe for the plucking. I don’t reckon Jardine’s far off the mark but I think it’s going to badly misfire. I’d be surprised if he spends more than one night in jail (well, OK, a week max!:-) once the lawyers get it into court.
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:16 am
I for one hold “Magician Mori” in high esteem. Indeed Gregory Peck pales in comparison. I just hope the American people can appreciate what a fantastic ambassador for America he’s became in this country. Man what courage of conviction, unbelievable stuff. This is the type of American that inspires friendship and trust between nations, and peoples of nations, Mori for PM! God o mighty, he’d outshine jug head John without raising a sweat.
A lot of what happens now will depend on David Hicks himself I suspect, if given the opportunity to do so, highly unlikely. I mean what will this government do if the cone of silence is lifted purposefully by Hicks once on Australian soil? This government would be up shit creek without a paddle. As it is Liberal’s are about as popular as a fart in an elevator. They would be in a world of hurt. Does the Government think that 9 months in an Australian pen will appease a pissed of electorate, to me it just makes me more interested in why the sentence was so lenient, and I want some bloody answer’s. I’m new to this posting but keep up the pressure on these charlatans of justice! good show what?
I was watching the today program (out of boredom) this morning and the newsreader was going on with this crap about Mr.Hicks, she recons that there still in the process of finding out what he knows about terrorism, what! The buggers had five years to stew his brain. What the hell is this media up to, what total crap! Commercial reporting in this country is akin to picking up a copy of picture post at the newsagent, and that’s being unfair to this esteemed publications credentials.
So long as people are exposed to this inadequate journalism, what hope the truth is known? And if this report has substance it’s beyond belief.
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:38 am
Is this who you are referring to Ian?
http://texasmonthly.com/mag/issues/2007-01-01/index.php
Great post by the way
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
“…she recons that there still in the process of finding out what he knows about terrorism…”
Too late. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has confessed to everything.
April 4th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Particularly nice post, AB.
May there be many more of them.
Agreed.
April 5th, 2007 at 1:34 am
Terry Hicks said that David couldn’t mix with other Gitmo prisoners because they believed he was a CIA stooge, an undercover prisoner put in Gitmo to mix in and then inform on them.
Getting nine months off a plea deal, and then a very public announcement is made that Hicks will return to Gitmo, but only to testify against other Gitmo inmates, will have to make him a marked man in Al Qaeda circles, if they are as revenge-crazed as the neoconians continually tell us they are.
Why no fatwa from Osama on Hicks yet?
It would be very interesting to know what is being said about Hicks on all those jihad and Isamextremist sites. I’m sure ASIO already know.
I would imagine that once Dave has done his Gitmo duties he may well ‘disappear’ somewhere, so as not to be a visible, viable target for Al Qaeda type wanting to dish out some explosive revenge.
The Hicks story is not over yet.
April 5th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
“It would be very interesting to know what is being said about Hicks on all those jihad and Isamextremist sites. I’m sure ASIO already know.”
I’m sure ASIO knows what’s going on here to! scary.
They may do a John Lennon on us and refuse people entry into the ACT!
April 5th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
“…Hicks will return to Gitmo, but only to testify against other Gitmo inmates, will have to make him a marked man in Al Qaeda circles, if they are as revenge-crazed as the neoconians continually tell us they are.”
I’m fairly sure that Hicks knows bugger all about al Q. And any information that he might have will be well-and-truly stale by now.
“Why no fatwa from Osama on Hicks yet?”
See comment above. He’s not worth worrying about…