The Prime Minister has revealed that he could have successfully pressured the US to release David Hicks from Guantanamo Bay and had him returned to Australia had he wished to do so. The reason given for not doing so is that he would return home to freedom, having not committed any crime under Australian law and the government being unwilling, on principle, to introduce such a law retrospectively.
However he is quite willing to sit back and allow the US to charge David with breeches of laws that didn't exist at the time he is alleged to have committed them. ie allow the US to do to David what the PM finds unacceptable to do to any citizen, including David, within Australia.
On the other hand US hypocracy is equally breathtaking. It proposes to do to David what it would not allow to happen to the three US nationals captured in Afghanistan, one of whom was released on the condition that he move to Saudi Arabia. Another was sentenced to 20 years by a US Federal Court and another is awaiting trial before the Federal Court. None were detained for any significant time at Guantanamo Bay.
The new military commissions currently being set up are little different to the previous version which was found by the US Supreme Court to be in breech of the Geneva Convention.
Few US citizens, or even US Senators, know of the David Hicks case. The aim of the whole exercise has been to create a home grown terrorist we can all learn to fear and loathe. A frightened electorate will vote for the party/man/woman who promised to protect them. Or so the conventional wisdom says.
Unfortunately for the PM and fortunately for David, the PM's credibility following "Childrem Overboard!" and "WMDs" is so tattered that the injustice of David's situation has seen a groundswell of public sympathy for a fellow Australian.
Guilty or not, David Hicks has been treated unfairly and the PM has allowed it to happen.
Enough is enough. Bring David home.
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