Free David Hicks

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Micah Foehammer: I said this before: - You can't demand justice if you aren't willing to dispense it fairly and EQUALLY. If you want to argue for someone right's then you damn well better be willing to grant those rights to EVERYONE regardless of what you think of them and whether you think they are guilty or not!

o.k. I'll bite:

As soon as I've kept the entire USA a prisoner without trial and subjected you all to torture then you may have a point. Until then, why be comparing a national government holding and torturing a human indefinitely without trial, to a person crying foul on the internet??

You're a crazy person Micah.

"The USA tortures enemy combatants."

That is a factual statement based on evidence and convictions from Abu Ghraib, and based on the signed affadavits of at least 3 Australians from Guantanamo Bay, and countless others.

And if the US has NOT tortured Guantanamo Bay prisonoers, why would they be fighting so hard to have evidence gained through torture deemed "admissable" in court.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/02/gu...ees/index.html Would seem to be really obvious. No use fighting for something you're not doing.

You do the math Micah.
1.Prisoners and officials say there has been torture
2.Military wants evidence from torture admissable.

Americans need to have a long hard look at their souls concerning the use of torture during this war.

Robert: regardless of what abuses occur in USA, that's no excuse for abuses period, let alone abuses to international citizens. In fact it actually makes your nation MORE likely to be guilty. If that's what your government does to mere criminals, of course it would escalate with suspected "enemy combatants".

You're creating a Straw Man, saying "well if these guys are doing it it's ok." trouble is, it's still not ok and it's still YOU GUYS committing both abuses!

Oh and btw Hicks applied for DUAL citizenship. That means he's still Aussie, as well as being British.

The British got their boys home. The Australian government are complicit in this by acquiescing with US wishes.

[Micah Foehammer]

I *CAN* be bought. I'm not cheap though .....

Yum. Good Cookies! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[robertthebard]

Yorick, my point with the "abuses" is that even if the guards are forced to use force to detain an inmate, the inmate will scream about abuse, despite the fact that the inmate threw the piss. If I took every affadavit an inmate ever filled out about abuse, I'd be feeling really gullible, knowing what I know about life on the inside. Until you've been there, you've really got no idea.
About the 4th year I was in, there was a riot in the institution I was in, over working conditions at the medium security facility. The problem? Inmates housed at the medium were expected to work. However, to hear them tell it, it was the worst kind of torture. Pardon my skepticism about taking an inmate's word from any prison. I've never said if these guys are doing it, it's ok. What I said was that we bothered to actually take prisoners, and whatever the truth may be, it's not going to be on an officially released video, showing how we treat prisoners, unlike what's done over there.

[shamrock_uk]

Not going to get involved hugely in the debate because brick wall is a good way to describe it. Either you trust the US government to be conducting itself honestly and in good faith, or you've read enough accounts of guantanemo inhabitants passed to the US from dodgy third parties who had never been near coalition forces /seen enough evidence of torture to take these stories at face value. We're unlikely to convince each other at this point.

But, while scanning the list of charges, I did have a chuckle at this one in the middle:

Originally posted by Micah Foehammer: [QB] Here are the charges against him: In the voided indictment of Hicks, the United States government had alleged: *snip* (but this was a completely separate charge) that in September 2001 Hicks travelled to Pakistan and was there at the time of the September 11 attacks on the United States, which he saw on television.

That filthy rascal, how dare he travel to Pakistan and watch the September 11th attacks on TV... I'm sure we all turned away from the screen...oh, wait...

Also, even by the US' own account:

that he returned to Afghanistan in anticipation of the attack by the United States and its allies on the Taliban regime, which was sheltering Osama bin Laden. that on returning to Kabul, Hicks was assigned by Mohammed Atef to the defence of Kandahar, and that he joined a group of mixed al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters at Kandahar airport, and that at the end of October, however, Hicks and his party travelled north to join in the fighting against the forces of the U.S. and its allies. that after arriving in Konduz on 9 November 2001, he joined a group which included John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban"). This group was engaged in combat against Coalition forces, and during this fighting he was captured by Coalition forces.

It's not as if he's suicide bombing civilian marketplaces here, he's a soldier fighting soldiers. And I love the way that we take every opportunity in the charges against him to name-drop.

Why do they need to tell us that Osama was being sheltered by the Taleban, or that the 'American Taliban' may have served in the same group when presenting a list of charges against a particular person? Pure surplus information designed to arouse that good old patriotic rage...

[ 11-28-2006, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[robertthebard]

Of all that mumbo jumbo in the charges, the only thing that matters to me is that he was caught on a battlefield with other soldiers. In and of itself, that is justification to hold him, w/out a trial, until the end of the conflict. That according to the Geneva Conventions. If, however, somebody wants to stand by the argument that it's not an organized army, but more of a guerilla force, then the Hague Convention gives the US the right to simply put a bullet in his head, legally. His physical condition must not be that bad, or his attorney would be all over the MSM with it. Until this thread, and one similar elsewhere, I hadn't heard of this at all.

[Havock]

Originally posted by Yorick: "The USA tortures enemy combatants." That is a factual statement based on evidence and convictions from Abu Ghraib, and based on the signed affadavits of at least 3 Australians from Guantanamo Bay, and countless others.

You say this like it is a bad thing. If tortureing prisoners will save the lives of civilians or active soldiers for that matter , I say the black wire on the car battery is negative and the red one positive. Would you condem tortureing prisoners if you knew it could have prevented 9/11/01? Results are what realy matter in the end. The ends don't need to justify the means. If it saves even one life then the ends realy don't need any justification. The enemy should never be given any comfort or succor when there is a war going on. If they weren't on the battlefield in the first place they wouldn't have been captured. It isn't like the Coalition troops went to Mr. Hicks house and kidnapped him in front of his wife and kids.

[robertthebard]

I can't say that I would condone outright torture. I also can't say that had I been on the battlefield where Hicks was taken, that this topic would exist. In the long run, it's cheaper to take no prisoners.

[Sever]

Originally posted by robertthebard: I pointed out something along those lines earlier, from things I read on the Hicks site. It begs a question though; Why aren't military tribunals acceptable for military prisoners?

For the same reason as why the cops don't try the criminals. One sheriff towns don't function. Neither would a one sheriff world.

[Mellagar]

I've been exhausted by it, but I've read all that's been said here thus far. However, there is one point I've not seen, or perhaps missed, and that is this: Regardless of whether or not he fired a single round of ammunition or preached any rhetoric, he WAS in the surroundings of terrorists, he received training through terrorist or extremist groups. Even if he never killed anyone, just being associated with them is enough to draw unwanted heat. The fact that he was armed is enough to arrest him. He wears no symbol or recognizable uniform. Someone made comment that the army stands around with weapons, true, but they also wear a distinguishable uniform that shows who they are, and not civilian clothes like most terrorists so they may blend in the crowd easier and stand out less. If someone were to be standing in the street where you live and had an assault rifle tucked under their arm, even if they hadn't fired a single shot, would the police just drive by and say 'you be careful now, you hear?' The armed forces in the east are a 'policing' force, and if you stand with a rifle in your hands you will be arrested. Depending on your history, as was the case with Hicks, you can be detained. As for his treatment in the prison, well, all I can say is that if he'd decided not to intermingle with the people he did, he wouldn't be there. The USA does go into people's bedrooms and roust them out and take them into a room where they are forced to talk under whatever means available. The UK did it to the Irish who were suspected of being IRA. They were beaten, threatened, and found guilty though some were innocent. This isn't a US patented trick here, and if these beatings are happening, yes, it is not humanitarian, but then again its not responsible or fatherly to abandon a wife and children to take lives of others because of some belief you fell in love with. As for Bono's cries for release, why doesn't he try to make Northern Ireland free from British rule? Or resolve Tibetan prejudice? Or argue that Native Americans should be given back lands taken from them and be given opportunities lost for centuries? As for Hick's being Australian, I feel that has little bearing on the matter. A man is, and if not, should be, tried based on his actions, not his racial profile, or nationality. If he has committed no crime, free him, but judging from his past he is not free from any crime, because being affiliated with terrorist organizations IS a crime. Just like housing escaped prisoners, or aiding them IS a crime, in any country. I see the same points argued, and the same counterarguments made with the same uneven and endlessly unresolved conclusion. So it seems to me to be this, do you want him freed because he's Australian, he's not been charged with any offense, or because he's with wife and child who should have a father figure? That can be answered with a simple voting poll. So unless there is something new to offer, why beat a dead horse? In the morning he will still be in prison, the war on terror will still be burning away, and we will all still argue this point until it makes our eyes numb from the monitor's electric glow. Like Hick's case, should this topic not be put to rest?

[Micah Foehammer]

Originally posted by Yorick: quote: Originally posted by Micah Foehammer: I said this before: - You can't demand justice if you aren't willing to dispense it fairly and EQUALLY. If you want to argue for someone right's then you damn well better be willing to grant those rights to EVERYONE regardless of what you think of them and whether you think they are guilty or not!

o.k. I'll bite:

As soon as I've kept the entire USA a prisoner without trial and subjected you all to torture then you may have a point. Until then, why be comparing a national government holding and torturing a human indefinitely without trial, to a person crying foul on the internet??

You're a crazy person Micah.

"The USA tortures enemy combatants."

That is a factual statement based on evidence and convictions from Abu Ghraib, and based on the signed affadavits of at least 3 Australians from Guantanamo Bay, and countless others.

And if the US has NOT tortured Guantanamo Bay prisonoers, why would they be fighting so hard to have evidence gained through torture deemed "admissable" in court.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/02/gu...ees/index.html Would seem to be really obvious. No use fighting for something you're not doing.

You do the math Micah.
1.Prisoners and officials say there has been torture
2.Military wants evidence from torture admissable.

Americans need to have a long hard look at their souls concerning the use of torture during this war.

Robert: regardless of what abuses occur in USA, that's no excuse for abuses period, let alone abuses to international citizens. In fact it actually makes your nation MORE likely to be guilty. If that's what your government does to mere criminals, of course it would escalate with suspected "enemy combatants".

You're creating a Straw Man, saying "well if these guys are doing it it's ok." trouble is, it's still not ok and it's still YOU GUYS committing both abuses!

Oh and btw Hicks applied for DUAL citizenship. That means he's still Aussie, as well as being British.

The British got their boys home. The Australian government are complicit in this by acquiescing with US wishes. [/QUOTE]Let me try this ONE more time and maybe you will FINALLY get it through your thick skull. Three affadavits of alleged torture against members of the US armed forces at GITMO are NOT proof, yet you are willing to convict them out of hand simply based on crimes committed by other people at another time and another place. And you don't see the one-sidedness of that while calling for David Hicks release for what you see as lack of proof? And you call ME crazy?

Maybe the charges ARE true, but they still need to be PROVED. No matter HOW strong the circumstantial evidence is. That kind of sounds like the argument you are making on Mr Hicks behalf, doesn't it?

Aside to Shamrock - yeah that one thing struck me as out of place. I think it was included in the list for two reasons: one was simply to establish the time frame of his actions and secondly, to counter claims that Mr Hicks was unaware of certain events when he went back to Afghanistan.

[ 11-29-2006, 07:50 AM: Message edited by: Micah Foehammer ]