“NEWS SPECIAL

David Hicks Background stories, analysis, etc ..”, we, like many others, were attracted by the following ‘SPECIAL’ report:

Five years in captivity

By National Security correspondent Leigh Sales

David Hicks was picked up in Afghanistan in December 2001, the first Australian captured in the 'war on terror'. He was captured by the Northern Alliance and handed over to the US military. He was in the first batch of prisoners transferred to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002.

Hicks has spent the past five-and-a-half years in the controversial US military prison in Cuba, significant blocks of that time in solitary confinement.

He has admitted from the beginning to training with al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the Taliban, including in an interview with the Australian Federal Police in May 2002.

Hicks was first allowed to see a lawyer in December 2003, and US authorities did not charge him until mid-2004, more than two years after he was first detained.

He faced a military commission at Guantanamo Bay in August 2004 on three terrorism-related charges. But a US Supreme Court decision, ruling the military commissions unconstitutional, threw out those original proceedings.

The US Congress then passed new legislation and Hicks faced a second military commission in March of this year, this time on only one charge of providing material support to terrorism.

He pleaded guilty in exchange for nine months to serve in an Australian prison.

In the past, Hicks has alleged he was abused by US forces, but he withdrew those accusations as part of his plea bargain.



The above and the additional material (link provided) is touted as a “background” to the Hicks saga/case, however, glaring by its absence is the actual background to the whole series of events. The actual background is directly related to PNAC, America’s failed plan for world (especially Middle East) domination; Zionism and the disproportionate influence of Washington Zionists in American politics – Washington Zionists seek to ensure Israel’s security (removal of Saddam) at ANY cost; international conservatism as expressed in fundamentalist religious movements such as Wahhabist Islam and Christian Evangelicalism and Australian political conservatism which is characterised by leaders who slavishly seek assurance from foreign colonial powers to compensate for their despicable cowardice and lack of a national identity – Robert Menzies and John Howard are the two principal conservative cringers in this regard. No sense can be made of the Hicks case without reference to the above factors, especially the slavish, cringing, attitude of the Howard conservative government.

Emphasis needs to be placed on the illegal aspects of the detention ‘facility’ itself. Guantanamo Bay is a blight on civilisation, its very existence breaches numerous international laws and conventions (instituted post WWII, Nuremberg trials) notwithstanding its many violations of modern international law in relation to torture, human rights, crimes against humanity, etc. It should not be forgotten that the use of modern torture techniques was sanctioned by (now disgraced) former Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld; techniques to which Hicks was subjected over the period of his five year illegal incarceration. The ‘trial’ and coercion of Hicks’ confession is a travesty and makes a mockery of every legal institution and Law faculty in the civilised world.

The complicity of Howard and his ministers, Downer and Ruddock in the illegalities (including war crimes in some cases) is irrefutable. At the very least Ms. Sales’ treatment of the Hicks case is shoddy, therefore the account in her book, “Detainee 002 ..” may have more in common with popular doco-fiction than fact or UNBIASED reporting.

Omitting crucial background and other information and presenting biased material as documentary fact is unforgivable for any aspiring author. However, Ms. Sales may have other ambitions and her work may be her credentials in that regard!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureitems/s1926933.htm

Source:

http://cleaves.zapto.org/clv/newswire.php?story_id=510