There is something deeply wrong with people who travel to seek out war, whether they are George Bush or David Hicks. Gitmo is completely off the deep end, but that is where my sympathy stops.

Hicks had little choice other than accepting a plea. The US judicial system is rife with Reich-caliber judges, particularly at the federal level. The Supreme court is refusing most cases that challenge the executive, so they are deferring to the circuit courts of appeal which are heavily stacked with unqualified zealots. I agree with the previous comment to sue Bush. Wait until he’s no longer president and sue him personally on the grounds that his actions while occupying the Oval Office are not immune because he was never duly elected under US law. A fraudulent president enjoys no immunity. This also applies to Cheney—he was never legally elected and is therefore personally liable for his actions as a private citizen while squatting in the White House. The Constitution doesn’t provide for sovereign immunity. That is a contrivance of inferior courts. The right of redress stems from the Magna Carta, circa 1215. Hicks would have likely died in captivity before his appeals were ever resolved. He’s no terrorist. The real terorists reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. We won’t trust their prosecution to the failed US judicial system. They are going to the Hague.

The latest that’s come out about Hicks is that he will be subject to a one-year gag order once he’s returned to Oz. (He’ll serve his time in a prison near his hometown of Adelaide, but one that houses the worst murderers Australia has produced. It’s supposedly for Hicks’ own “protection.”)

That means Hicks can’t talk about how he was abused until AFTER this year’s Commonwealth parliamentary election. Crime Minister John Howard was getting a lot of flak for letting an Aussie rot forever in America’s gulag, and this hurry-up show trial was designed to defuse that as an issue that could be used against the “Deputy Sheriff of the Pacific’s” Liberal Party. But Aussies are politically savvy, and it’s universally recognised here that this was all cynical political timing. So much for Hicks being a dangerous terrorist, if his release could be manipulated to help one of America’s foreign allies.

Hicks was reviled when news of his capture was first made known in 2002, but he’s become a cause celebre for people horrified about America’s behaviour since. To the poster worried about how Hicks would fare with Gitmo on his resume, look to the example of Mamdouh Habib. He’s an Aussie of Muslim descent who was also swept into Guantanamo Bay. He was way less guilty than Hicks, so was released two years ago. Since then he’s been traveling around the country giving speeches about how he was dealt with, and he’s well-received. From what I’ve seen, Aussies seem to be more forgiving of people who have been caught up in the criminal justice system than Americans are. Must be the convict heritage…

DEVELOPMENT, GROWTH & CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLVEMENT!  When will we learn, acknowledge and act on the reality that it’s all a developmental issue; not a religious one to become moral, or of needing to know history so as to not repeat it, or related to having laws to try and regulate behavior.  The most under-developed humans have cajoled, forced, lied and cheated themselves into running and ruining the world.  The rest of us have allowed them to run government and all other human endeavor because we’ve been looking at the problem the wrong way.  If children took control of the schools no one in their right mind would expect much education.  Thus, we musn’t exepect decent governance, justice, democracy or anything else while stagnant, primitive and rabid (not rugged) individualist minds continue to be allowed to run government, or anything else for that fact.

AMY GOODMAN
Love at 1st Sight

Reparations after Bush will be lengthy, costly, difficult and necessary.

What the American people need to understand is this is not an isolated occurrence. Every American indicted by the courts in every county in America is charged with so many crimes relating to his alleged transgression that he is forced by logic to take a plea deal in the hopes of one day resuming his life. Our court system is a farce! With over 8 million citizens in the
[in]justice system at present, it’s amazing to me that American’s assume them all to be truly guilty and that they allow this true crime to continue. As it stands now, every American knows someone who is eith in prison/jail or has been in. Soon every American will have a relative inside. When government comes for you it’ll be too late.

Cheney, Gonzalez, Rove, Bush, Rumsfeldt, et. al. are all war criminals.  Being an unreformed liberal, I cannot condone having them executed when they are finally convicted of treason.  Thus, we need a good prison to put them in.  It would have to be someplace isolated and easily guarded so that these dangerous lunatics could not escape and do more damage.  But where….?

This guy would have given up his mother to get out of Guantanamo and back to Australia after the five years of hell he’s been through.

Why is his coerced confession believed and the supposed coerced statements by those British sailors in Iran not believed?

Coercion is coercion, isn’t it?

The bush regime doesn’t have any evidence on anyone so they just torture people for years and then get a confession out of them.

Evidence would imply a court of law, rights, witnesses, etc. bush can’t allow that.

Maybe this guy is guilty.
One thing’s for sure, though.
We’ll never really know, will we?

Demand a new, true 9/11 investigation.

http://www.911truth.org

At least it aint Brazil http://www.filmsite.org/braz.html . If it were so, Hick’s would have to pay for his interrogation.

Referencing Comment #61126 by ART ...

Excellent point!

And Comment #61141 by DK ...

There won’t be any recoup of U.S. credibility with a change of Administration. That’s because the global community no longer just blames this Administration. They have started to realize that Americans themselves have to be held accountable. In a democratic system it has been long touted that the people rule. Here, it has become obvious that “people” do not rule over this Administration, and can’t even effectively convince their own Representatives to actively stop the atrocities.

We are setting an example, and its not a good one. It will take generations to change the perception that is already there unless ... unless ... people stand up now, immediately, and get those changes going. It’s going to happen, and every day that passes it will be harder and harder to convince other nations that democracy is credible, much less Americans are credible or worth anything.

My perception…

In 1948 the US signed up to “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” This administration have effectively torn it up. In particular with reference to Article 5. “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” and Article 9. “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” This regime have another 663 days in which they can continue to bring the US into further disrepute internationally but perhaps the American people now are recognizing they need to restore to the highest office in their land, an appointee capable of respecting both real legality as well as the appearance of legality. And since when was Democracy about giving absolute power to the winner of a corporate sponsored multi-billion dollar horse race anyway?

After one’s résumé includes “Guantánamo Prison, 2002-7,” the court plea or verdict probably does not matter much.  Those found innocent will not return to any “normal” life.  They will languish unemployed and be objects of cruel gawks or blank pity, at best.  Those judged “stoolies,” plea bargainers, or agents might be targets of revenge killings.  Home country authorities may still impose arrest or execution, regardless of the Gitmo verdict.  Those found guilty might not want to return to prison in their country of origin.  Once your life is ruined, you are stuck with life confinement of one sort or another.  Confinement in a cell, free food, daily exercise, and a little reading material might not be the worst thing.  In other words, if some detainees seem to lose interest in habeas corpus or truth for its own sake, it may not be purely irrational.

You should learn of all of the “kangaroo courts” that affected more than 11,000 German Americans and some 3,200 Italian Americans in the United States during World War II.

Read more regarding the German American internment victims in the United States during World War II at http://www.foitimes.com

Writing from Sydney Australia ... the widely accepted view of this plea bargain is that anyone would accept the deal to escape a limitless imprisonment and torture.  Whether Hicks is guilty of something is irrelevant to the injustice of the treatment he has received.  It would seem he isn’t guilty of much, given that all charges relating to anything which was a crime before he was kidnapped by the Northern Alliance and sold to the U.S. have been dropped.

Most Australians are horrified that our government has not done more to get Hicks out of the American system (as every single other Western nation did years ago for all of their citizens ... to my knowledge not one of them had a case to answer when returned home and all have been freed). 

That John Howard has remained Prime Minister is largely due to the poor quality of alternative leaders that the opposition has been able to run against him.  Hopefully that will change in the election later this year.  I do not particularly believe that the opposition party is any less a slave to corporate money than Howard’s mob but at least they have not yet commited crimes against humanity or war crimes.

I would expect that Hicks will be sentenced to time served plus some additional prison time in Australia so that his return is not a festival at the airport.  He will be quietly released from a prison somewhere later this year ... and hopefully sue the U.S. government for a billion dollars.  It’s a pity it couldn’t come straight from the war profits of the Bush family, it seems that money is one thing they understand.

I quote from Geoffrey Robertson’s book “Crimes Against Humanity” describing the treatment of prisoners of Stalinist Russia during the pre-WWII Show Trials:
“They were put on ‘the conveyor’—a disorientation procedure which alternated psychological pressures of sleeplessness and starvation with interrogation to enhance suggestibility and acquiescence.  This was interspersed with beatings and physical torture, such as burning the body with a molten knife.  As each victim agreed to ‘confess’ he was confronted with others who had broken, and together they were encouraged to elaborate further hypothetical scenarios ... “
Compare this with the well publicised accounts of the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.  It is almost identical ... even down to “the defendants were allowed counsel, but only to speak after their convictions, in mitigation of their confessed crimes”.  The veneer of legality and judicial process is only to be believed by those with a reason to justify the process.

Guantanamo. Do your time then admit to the crime to get out of jail. If I were in Guantanamo, facing charges punishable by five years in jail, I would own up to the accusation at the four year anniversary of my incarceration.

This guilty plea is highly suspect and does nothing to validate the charges against this person.

It’s worth remembering that John Howard’s stated reason for his failure to demand Hicks be returned to Australia in the first place was that he had committed no crime under Australian law and would have to be released.  As for his guilt, as others have pointed out, the charge he eventually pled to, ‘material support for terrorism’, or whatever, is so vague that anyone could be convicted of it, particularly if the MCA rules of evidence applied.  If there were any substance to the allegations against the Guantanamo detainees, the Bush regime would have no compunction about bringing them to trial under existing legislation and conventional rules of evidence.

It’s also worth remembering that just a day or two ago, real terrorists, who a judge found had authorised truly gruesome torture against people subsequently released without charge, were found to be outside the court’s jurisdiction.  That would be Donald Rumsfeld, et al.  (http://tinyurl.com/2gb7q6).

Finally, commenters here might find it useful to consider the history of US interventions abroad going back to, say, the annexation of half of Mexico in 1848, as well as the ongoing colonial occupation of Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, etc. to get a more realistic picture of what the US ‘stands for’, and it’s not liberty and justice.  Furthermore, a dispassionate consideration of the actual activities of the state in relation to health care, housing, employment, wages, OSH, education, social security, and taxation, etc., not to mention intrusions into civil liberties - Haymarket, Sacco & Vanzetti, Japanese internment, Leonard Peltier, Mumia, the recent Black Panther arrests… leap immediately to mind - will, I think reveal that its true function is not ‘to protect the individual rights of American citizens’.  Rather, it is to protect the profitability of US business, whatever the cost to individual rights anywhere.

Security asked: How much longer would he have been held if he had not plead guilty to that one remaining charge?

That is essentially the problem Security. It took Hicks five years to get to a preliminary hearing during which two of his lawyers were dismissed by a judge who was literally making up the rules as he went along. With further challenges occuring in US courts to the Commissions Hicks was facing two more years in Gitmo even if in the extremely unlikely event he was allowed to be found not guilty. The military had also said that even if found not guilty Hicks may still have been detained.

I desperately wanted him to hold out so the sham court could be exposed for what it was but I frankly understand why he could not. It is a matter of shame for both the Australian and US governments. Americans however can be extremely proud of Major Michael Mori who conducted an incredibly vigourous defence of his client and restored some Australians’ faith in your military.

It’s times like these that make me wish I’d paid more attention in my government classes and studied law.  127001 has a valid point.  We Americans have become too lenient with our government.  We’ve allowed too many transgressions against our liberties. 

I’m not a legal scholar, but I believe this whole mess began when Congress interpreted it’s welfare obligation in economic terms rather than rights.  This enabled legislators to impose government subsidies and restrictions in the name of the “public good.”  This also empowered Congressmen beyond the bonds of the Constitution.  Now, we’ve spent decades under an intrusive government which has steadily lost sight of it’s proper function: to protect the individual rights of American citizens from foreign and domestic threats to said rights.

There are so many reasons why this whole situation was wrong - not only for David Hicks, but for the liberty all of us.

I cannot accept as fact, a guilty plea by someone who has been held in these conditions, who has faced torture, who has been kept from proper legal proceedings.

In Orwell’s 1984, people were always tortured and virtually forced to give guilty pleas; often on Television - all to support the power of the state.

I fear that we’re seeing the beginnings of such a nightmare here in America too.

These two article discuss the dangers of such policies - when the government acts in this way, we are all less safe….we are all less free.

Should the US Military be Allowed to use Torture?

To Whom Does the Bill of Rights Apply?

Amy Goodman has covered the story of David Hicks for very long time now, so if she didn’t fill in the backstory, I think she can be forgiven. However, this isn’t about whether he’s innocent or guilty, this is about cowardice. The cowardice of the Bushoviks in not allowing even the most basic aspects of the Magna Carta to be in effect. This isn’t about American law, this is about basic human rights worldwide, and that was what the Magna Carta was about (read up on it…I won’t provide the backstory here).

How dangerous are these people that they cannot be tried in public, by a jury, with transparency. Are they aliens from another world with mind powers to control humans with a mere wink and a nod? Are they all Hannibal Lecters who will eat anyone alive who comes near? The obsessive secrecy and obvious fear of these people seems to be all encompassing now.

Another way to consider it is, they have been abused so completely, that they’ll look like a zombie out of Night of the Living Dead if photos of them were allowed to be made public. And then of course, Bush’s comment that “we don’t torture” would be exposed as the wicked lie it is. And thus no photos will ever be released, and no audio recordings will be heard, because this is about keeping the wraps on what they’ve done there. Doesn’t take a genius to read between these lines, an obvious perversion of law in, as Amy Goodman says, the Kafka-esque mode.

This “Kangaroo Court” system considers “evidence” that was gained thru torture and “evidence” gained from hearsay to be OK to use for trial.
And some of the evidence is kept secret, so you or your attorney can not see or use to defend yourself.

How many US citizens out there could withstand a trial if the above mentioned tactics to gather evidence was used against them?
Keep in mind that the trial would take place after five, long years of captivity, solitary confinement and torture?

They could convict Mother Teresa of murder if she was tried at Gitmo.

Here’s an idea:  Let’s put Bush and Cheney on trial at Gitmo for their massive number of war crimes. If they are hesitant to confess, then, use the “waterboarding” technique against them.
After all, Attorney General Gonzales stated that it’s not torture.

P.S. Hicks was in Afghanistan fighting in a civil war before King George decided he needed to act tough and destroy a country that couldn’t defend itself. 
Pakistan was where Bin Laden was hiding, but they have nukes.

“Comment #60916 by Jim on 3/28 at 6:53 am

It would be nice if the author of this piece got down off the soapbox and considered the fact that perhaps Hicks is guilty and was in fact a terrorist supporter, if not an actual terorist.

Why isn’t the author asking why Hicks was in Afghanistan in the first place?”

It is now IMPOSSIBLE to determine if he is truly guilty or terrorized into confessing.  What have we turned into, the 1930’s Soviet Union with show trials and bogus confessions followed by quick executions?

Anyone who claims he or she could NEVER be forced into a false confession is a liar.

You either believe in the American system of Justice where you are innocent until PROVEN guilty or you don’t.  This is black and white, no shades of gray. I believe in it. Clearly Jim does not.

You either believe it is better to set a guilty person free rather than imprison an innocent one, or you believe it’s better to imprison the innocent rather than letting a guilty man go free. That’s the position of “The State” in “1984” and in “Atlas Shrugged”.

I believe the former, Jim the latter.  I am a True Patriot because I believe in what our nation stands for.  He, like all neo-cons is not a True Patriot because he actively believes in DESTROYING what our nation stands for: Liberty and JUSTICE!!!

Hicks was in Afghanistan BEFORE the U.S. invaded. The charges against him, including attempted “murder” of U.S. troops, were dropped. He never fired a shot in any battle. He had some training in weaponry but that was about it.

He was held for five years for nothing. The last charge that he did plead guilty to was a “new” crime, known as “ex post facto”, after the fact. It’s like getting a speeding ticket after they’ve changed the speed limit on a street, even though you were driving on it before it was changed - one of the new provisions of the Patriot Act. If you’re okay with that, you must accept that ANYTHING you’re doing now you may be imprisoned for in the future, including reading this website.

The “crime” Hicks was accused of was not a crime when he was imprisoned.

This is a show trial. Australians are getting pretty upset with the Howard government. Hicks was released so that Howard, an avid Bush supporter in everything, can win re-election. In any just system, if Hicks had committed a crime, he should have either faced charges in Afghanistan, just about impossible because of a non-existent justice system, or been sent back to Australia to face charges, whatever they were, not imprisoned in the Guantanamo Gulag “at the pleasure of the president”.

It would be nice if the author of this piece got down off the soapbox and considered the fact that perhaps Hicks is guilty and was in fact a terrorist supporter, if not an actual terorist.

Why isn’t the author asking why Hicks was in Afghanistan in the first place?

Here, here!

This travesty has all the likely truth of the Zinoviev and Kamenev trials in 1936. And the Bush Regime all the honor of the Soviet system.

What a disgrace this verdict is to the United States. But please don’t expect any relief with the likes of candidates Clinton, Mc Cain, et al. All voted for the monstrous MCA that gives this “trial” the patina of legitimacy. It is precisely as though Clinton were herself the judge. And some here would serious consider making a sow like her President. Oy!

John Lowell

I am no friend of the Abrahamic Relgions. Why? The reason is the dogma lacks humanity, is contradictory and just plain crazy. It is George Bush and his personal conversations with GOD that have him convinced that he has the right to ignore not just the Bill of Rights, but any laws, even those supported and expected by the majority of Americans and Yes, even by most advanced societies. Oh! and did I mention he also doesn’t believe he has to follow the lead of his own supporters?

This lawless practice of this arrogant and spoiled child/man is not just a danger to people outside our society, but even to ourselves and the future generations. He has dis-honored the sacrifice of this country against the Nazis and made a farce of the Nuremberg Trials and the progressive movement to make it difficult for any country to do to the World what Hitler did to Germany and the World. He has thrown it all in the dirt for the sake of his Religious certitude and his over whelming greed and sick arrogance.

If our Congress would do its job, if our courts would do their jobs, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. I think Jimmy Carter said a remarkable thing, something that all people who “have Relgious Certitude”, in regard to his response to abortion during his Presidency, “he was against it, but he was also President of the United States and bound by its laws and not by his personal preference” (not verbatim, but I think at the heart of what he said).

Impeach and convict Bush/Cheney together and repudiate the violation of the Geneva Convention and our own Bill of Rights.

Why was his attorney dismissed?

How much longer would he have been held if he had not plead guilty to that one remaining charge?

I’ve been blasted recently for repeating items I’ve read on Truthdig that reflect the opinon of the site (which I totally agree with). Some days it all gets to be too much and I can’t take in anymore of any of it because of the anger that this is happening. But some of us don’t have the luxury of turning a blind eye like the many who still support the Twig and his Bushies, or any of the many at lower levels of politics.

But I get emails daily from people within the U.S. court system, not Hicks-types, but normal everyday people in everyday situations. And what’s being ignored is where the root of all of this comes from. The Twig and Gonzales both were “educated” in the Texas legal system, which is bloody, merciless, and completely against individual’s rights. Walk in downtown Houston and ask how many work for the high-end law firms there. Entire blocks of law firms, many representing the perps in these cases.

And look at the lower courts. If you don’t think its bloody, atrocious, disfiguring and perverted, tell me why! Because this exact thing is happening in the courts across this country, and threaten every American.

The detainees treatment has gone this far because Americans just don’t understand that the judicial system in this country has gone to hell; why wouldn’t that same system be used on others such as the detainees. Law enforcement is the same. They wouldn’t <u>do</u> this if they didn’t already know they could ... because they practiced on Americans, found out it worked, and expanded it.

Civil rights ... for everyone! is what this is about. I don’t care if Hicks is Australian, or if he is accused of something. From what has been reported about his story and all the others is completely out of line with what is supposed to be American principles and beliefs. And Americans have shown the world who and what they are. Not the Twig and his Bushies. We have because he is still in office and these courts are still holding trials.

I am an American of 1776!

Go to hell 2007!

127001
Civil Gideon … Citizen Rights!