The politics of Hicks

April 03, 2007
The politics of Hicks

DAVID Hicks will return to Australia under circumstances best described as unsettling and surprising.

The short sentence and the undemocratic gag order have added further layers of contradiction to a story that is as weird as it is unpredictable.

There are many straightforward questions that need to be answered, starting with who ordered the political fix, why such a short sentence, and why stop a guilty man telling a story of his own wrongdoing?

The Pentagons Crooked "Judicial" Process

April 2, 2007
The Pentagons Crooked "Judicial" Process

With the U.S. Constitution, our American ancestors brought into existence the finest criminal-justice system in history. With the Bill of Rights, everyone whom federal officials accuse of a crime, including terrorism, would be entitled to rights and guarantees that stretch back centuries into British jurisprudence. Those rights and guarantees include right to counsel, right to confront witnesses, right to a speedy and public trial, right to trial by jury, and many others.

After 9/11, the president and the Pentagon persuaded a frightened American public to accept an alternative military-justice system in Cuba in which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be ditched for some (but not all) "enemy combatants" in the "war on terror." We now see the results of that decision: David Hicks, who is a kangaroo skin hunter back in Australia, has himself been skinned by a crooked, corrupt, and rotten kangaroo court where politics trumps justice.

POW Sentenced to Nine Months

March 31, 2007
POW Sentenced to Nine Months

Blackanthem Military News, NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Australian detainee David Hicks, the first person convicted under the Military Commission Act of 2006, was sentenced here today to nine months in confinement, a sentence he will serve in Australia under a diplomatic agreement.

Since his capture, Hicks has cooperated with U.S. authorities and worked on completing his high school diploma, Mori said. Hicks's guilty plea shows that he is on his way to being rehabilitated, Mori said, asking the commission to set the sentence at one year and eight months, which would make Hicks's total confinement since his capture seven years.