Off topic - David Hicks

[Chris von D]

Hi,

I am unsure which forum this is best posted in.

I just want to share this if I may.

Many of us are sons and grandsons of those that fought. The fight for justice however never stops. The baton of responsibility is passed from one generation to the next.

No one nation has the moral high ground always. We are all people, all the same.

Here is one story I wish to share.

Thanks,

Chris


+++++++


Friday 1 December 2006


Media Release: David Hicks Tally Board

From: Australians for David Hicks to come Home

Summary: Australia has 226 politicians in the Australian Parliament in Canberra. From Sunday 29 October 2006 to Friday 8 December 2006 each member will have been asked to make a Conscience Vote. Either "Yes, bring David Hicks home NOW!" or "No, leave David Hicks to the Americans!"

Results are still coming in and will be finalised on Saturday 9 December 2006 when David Hicks will have survived 5 years in the American Concentration Camp at Guantanamo Bay. Please visit 'David Hicks Tally Board' for details. Please scroll down to 'Campaign Notes' for further information.

If you can help save the life of David Hicks, then please do so.

Thank you,

Chris

Australians for David Hicks to come Home
freedavidhicks [at] iinet.net.au



David Hicks Tally Board
http://www.geocities.com/notinmynamesay ... _home.html

David Hicks Tally Board - mirror
http://members.iinet.net.au/~chrisjohn3 ... _home.html

[Rand]

Let him rot.

[Tom Houlihan]

This is going to be volatile. Do not allow it to turn into a political rant, from any side. Do not allow it to become a mud-fest, either. You can be adamant about your opinion, but do it with at least a veneer of courtesy.

This will be the only warning.

[Scott Revell]

Rand,

You are entitled to your opinion and I will leave it at that. However, he has not been charged with anything. If he had been tried, found guilty - then perhaps "let him rot" as you say. But he hasn't. I think it is inhumane to keep someone in those conditions if he has not been charged for anything.

my two cents

Scott

[Jacky]

Hi

David Hicks is only one of many who is still in the American Concentration Camps. Obviously the democracy that America is trying to push onto everyone does not apply to those it considers 'evil'. As for there being no criminal cases - that may happen - they just have to invent the evidence first as happened in the British case for going into Iraq. Its funny how the people who rule us have the intelligence of an ant while the rest of the population know it's incorrect.

Jacky

[Chris von D]

Hi

David Hicks is only one of many who is still in the American Concentration Camps. Obviously the democracy that America is trying to push onto everyone does not apply to those it considers 'evil'. As for there being no criminal cases - that may happen - they just have to invent the evidence first as happened in the British case for going into Iraq. Its funny how the people who rule us have the intelligence of an ant while the rest of the population know it's incorrect.

Jacky

Well said Jacky.

[Hans]

The best thing that can be said about this man is that he was in Afghanistan of his own free will and with the blessing of those in power, which is more than can be said for the poor buggers that are there now. If he has committed a crime than he should be tried by either the Afghanies or the Australians not by some third country whose "political" leaders consistently flout human rights in the name of democracy.

- Hans

[Chris von D]

American Professor gives a lecture on Australian David Hicks torture.


++++++


Date: 13 December 2006

To: Prime Minister John Howard - every member of the Australian Parliament

Subject: David Hicks torture details

From:
Australians for David Hicks to come Home
freedavidhicks [at] iinet.net.au

Source:
Australian son David Hicks 912 Campaign - main site
http://www.geocities.com/notinmynamesay ... _home.html

Australian son David Hicks 912 Campaign - mirror
http://members.iinet.net.au/~chrisjohn3 ... _home.html




START QUOTE:



David Hicks torture details


Email received Wednesday 13.12.2006

"Dear Chris: Yesterday, at our state's commemoration of UN Human Rights day, I gave a lecture at the Wisconsin State Capitol, under the grandly soaring rotunda, which contains a discussion of the HIcks case. Best of luck with your efforts, Very best, Al McCoy"

Chris email reply to Al, "Thank you for helping to save the life of Australian David Hicks."


UN Human Rights Day: A Beacon for All Americans Troubled by Torture



"4.) Then, US soldiers tortured David by kicking, beatings with rifle butts, gunpoint death threats, and anal penetration.

5.) After being flown to Guantanamo in January 2002, David was subjected to regular sleep deprivation, handcuffed tightly for up to 15 hours, and offered enticements to cooperate.

6.) After the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh capitulated in July 2002, the Pentagon picked David to be the very first detainee tried before the Military Commissions.

7.) To soften this model case for trial, David was isolated inside a closet-sized, windowless cell and denied all sunlight or human contact for an unbroken, unimaginable 244 days.

8.) After he became the first detainee to face Guantanamo’s new Military Commissions in August 2004, the official Australian legal observer concluded, “a fair trial for David Hicks is virtually impossible.”

9.) As legal and legislative battles slowed his trial, in March of this year David was returned to solitary confinement where he remains, six months later, isolated 22 hours a day inside a cement room with a solid steel door.

10.) Under the new Military Commissions law, David faces another 2 to 5 years of such soul-destroying solitary confinement.

11.) In full view of the entire world, the United States has

--subjected a detainee to endless imprisonment lasting 7, 8, or 9 years on mere suspicion,

--denied him habeas corpus rights,

--tortured him with sophisticated psychological methods to bend before this presidential court and accept its pre-determined verdict,

--allowed use of evidence extracted under torture in a US court,

--and dragged him before a drum-head tribunal that, according to the US Supreme Court, mocks the civilized standards of Justice."

“UN Human Rights Day:
A Beacon for All Americans
Troubled by Torture”

Alfred W. McCoy,
University of Wisconsin-Madison

State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin
UN Human Rights Day,
11 December 2006"

[Paddy Keating]

Hi

David Hicks is only one of many who is still in the American Concentration Camps. Obviously the democracy that America is trying to push onto everyone does not apply to those it considers 'evil'. As for there being no criminal cases - that may happen - they just have to invent the evidence first as happened in the British case for going into Iraq. Its funny how the people who rule us have the intelligence of an ant while the rest of the population know it's incorrect.

Jacky

The people who rule us are very cunning and intelligent. Underestimating the enemy breaks a foremost rule of warfare. Our leaders and the extra-national businessmen who control them are not our friends and the Bush Junta is not pushing "democracy". The people who have had a stranglehold on the West for centuries know there's nothing else to steal. We're bankrupt. So they are moving operations to China and India whilst ensuring that their political puppets put in place legal or quasi-legal precedents to jail or even kill us under laws aimed at combatting "terror" when we start expressing ourselves in relation to our birthrights, wealth and social fabric, all of which have been looted and pillaged. Make no mistake: the War on Terror is not about suppressing a few unruly towelheads with homemade bombs. It is about oppressing us when the time comes and we start clamouring for the answer to a very simple question, which no politician seems inclined to answer in a straight way: what have they done with our money since 1945?. Why are we paying more and more in direct and indirect or 'stealth' taxes yet receiving less and less back? Where is all our money going?

Dangerous question. The time will come when we will be locked up in places like Guantánamo for asking it, unless we are very, very careful. It may already be too late.
PK

[Paddy Keating]

"4.) Then, US soldiers tortured David by kicking, beatings with rifle butts, gunpoint death threats, and anal penetration.

Not unlike the pre-trial experiences of Jochen Peiper and his men, fitted up for the Malmedy massacre. Fortunately, not everyone in the United States ascribes to maniac behaviour so Peiper and his men were saved from judicial murder.

Hicks and his fellow prisoners are unlikely to be murdered by the Bush Junta, unless the Bushites stage a coup d'état if it looks likely that a Democrat will take the White House, but after the treatment they have suffered, many of them will be spiritually and mentally dead. In fact, they may be so damaged that death would be merciful release.

Again, this is what is in store for us if we continue to sit by without doing anything to protect ourselves from our leaders and the immoral people who fund them. This is just the beginning. The Arabs and Muslims are not the target. They're irrelevant. We're the target. All of this is The Establishment's 'pre-emptive strike' against the peasants.

PK

[Chris von D]

Excellent posts there Paddy.

[Troy Tempest]

Hi Chris, I was having a spray about Gitmo and David Hicks on the Saving Private Ryan board on the IMDb, it's absolutely disgraceful what has happened to him, and our government is so craven for allowing it. Here's what I wrote over there:

The worst part about Gitmo for me, is your use of it as an offshore prison in 'the war on terror'. You know you couldn't do on mainland US soil, what you do over there. It's wrong, really wrong. We have a prisoner over there, David Hicks, who is the only 'white' man left in Gitmo. The only western prisoner there. England under Tony Blair had all her citizens returned because Tony Blair demanded they either be charged or returned, so you guys returned them, rather than charge them with anything. What does that say about your Presidents claim that Gitmo houses 'the worst of the worst'? Why would you release them at all, rather than charge them? Because they were there falsely. Yet our quisling Prime Minister refuses to do the same for our remaining citizen. What the US says, he complies with. George Bush commands, John Howard obeys. David Hicks has been in solitary confinement for FIVE years! Five! He still hasn't been charged with anything! That is absolutey disgraceful. You can not defend that. You wouldn't be able to do that if he was housed in an American prison on American soil. You only get away with it because he's in Cuba. REAL Nazi and Japanese war criminals were treated better than you are treating David Hicks. He's not allowed to see his family! Because it represents a threat to American National Security? Get real brad! Mass murders and multiple rapists and REAL war criminals are entitled to be treated better than your government is treating him. It's an outrage. I'm not saying David Hicks is not guilty of something, but it does not take five years to bring a charge, and to refuse his family access to him is preposterous. How can regular visits from his mum and dad harm American national security? It can't, but thank God for Marine Major Michael Mori, his 'appointed' lawyer. (He's not even allowed to appoint his own lawyer!). Major Mori is doing more for him than your or my government is. And it's all possible because you have Gitmo. Major Mori is a real credit to the Marines, he's worked tirelessly for years trying to get him released because as he's stated repeatedly, he will not get a fair trial in Gitmo. Major Mori has said he'd much rather be in Iraq, but he will not rest until David Hicks is freed. I'm so grateful for his actions and his dedication. He is a beacon of hope where both our governments work in the dark. It's so wrong brad, really.

How John Howard (prime minister), Alexander Downer (foreign minister) and Phillip Ruddock (attorney general) can get away with this is so un-Australian. When John Howard professes his love of 'Australian values', and on the other hand lets George Bush tell him to leave David Hicks there is a shocker! I am not anti-America or anti-American, (you guys saved our arses in the war - thank you!), but this is so wrong. I hope Marine Major Michael Mori is made (unofficial) Australian Of The Year for '07, he sure deserves it!

Troy

[Chris von D]

Hi Troy,

What is happening to David Hicks is an evil. I for one won't be silent. One ought never to be silent on injustice and over 5 years of torture is pure evil.

Not even Saddam was treated so badly, even though they killed him.

George W Bush likes to kill people. He then calls himself a Christian.

Well I think God will decide that one.

All the best,

Chris

[Paddy Keating]

It will be interesting to see what happens as the reality of their failure to end up controlling the three arms of government in the USA starts to hit home chez Bush and his Neo-Con puppetmasters. They'll get really nasty. Just as well, perhaps, that the armed forces are all over in Iraq and Afghanistan, otherwise you might well see martial law declared in the US by the Bush Junta and troops in the streets as part of a real coup d'état as opposed to the bloodless political one pulled back in 2000. Maybe American democrats should be clamouring for the army to stay in Iraq in order to impede a military takeover by the Neo-Cons and their allies in the event of a likely Democrat victory in the next presidential elections...

PK

[phylo_roadking]

Watch this space......

what elections?......