I was watching Lateline last night. The program went to air a couple of hours before David Hicks was to face a military hearing for his alleged terrorist acts.
Some background: A young middle class man from Adelaide was picked up in Afghanistan under dubious circumstances. He has been held in uncle sam’s custody at Guantanamo Bay where he has been subjected to treatment that is in contrvention of the Geneva convention. America has decided the the rules of the Geneva convention which assure POWs a minimum level fair and humane treatment don’t apply in its “war on Terror”. Some of the things that he and other prisoners have been subjected to include sleep deprivation, forced feeding, deliberately controlled extremes of heat and cold, humiliation and sexual abuse. All of this(and worse) has been tabled in American government documents and deemed acceptable methods of extracating “intelligence” from “unlawful combatants”.
Below are some select quotes copied dirctly from the transcript of an interview between the ABC’s Tony Jone and Col. Moe Davis who is the chief prosecutor at Gauntanamo Bay Prison. They illustrate just how rigged the “trial” process is and how well and truly decided the outcome already is. Interestingly, Britain extradited all its citizens who were previously held at the prison years ago.
TONY JONES: Are you aware of any political pressure coming directly or indirectly from the Australian Government to have this situation resolved quickly and for David Hicks to come home quickly?
MOE DAVIS: All that I know about that is what I’ve read in the news media. I can tell you with absolute confidence there’s been no pressure on me whatsoever from the Australian Government or the American Government.
(John Howard has been bleeting on and on about how much pressure he’s been putting on the yanks to see Hicks tried quickly and treated justly…)
TONY JONES: I’d like to ask you this, why is David Hicks shackled to the floor when he meets his lawyers?
MOE DAVIS: That’s standard procedure for any interview. You’ve got to recognise that these are Al Qaeda folks that we’re holding here. You’ve seen around the world the atrocities they’ve committed from Beslan to New York City to Bali. So you’ve got to keep in mind we’re at war. I know folks tend to lose sight of that fact but we’re at war and the enemy, Osama bin Laden, issued a fatwah declaring war, saying everyone is a fair target, men, women, children, civilian, military. So those are the folks that we’re dealing with here.
(Remember he was captured unarmed in Afghanistan by a member of the Northern Alliance who was paid USD1000 for handing him over the americans).
TONY JONES: Let me ask you this. Way back in April of 2003, and Dr Miles just referred to this, the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld directed that, “Interrogations must always be planned deliberate actions to take into account the detainees’ physical strengths and weaknesses”. Then he went onto say, “Interrogation approaches are designed to manipulate the detainee’s emotions and weakness, to gain his willing cooperation”. Now, was that sort of thing done during David Hicks’ interrogations?
MOE DAVIS: I would certainly hope so. I mean, that’s the purpose of an interrogation is to obtain intelligence information to prevent the next 9/11 or the next Bali bombing. There’s nothing wrong with playing on those factors… (Emphasis mine).
So yep, the guy running the kangaroo court at Gauntanamo Bay is proud of the fact that he’s using techniques in his prson and “trials” that are considered unjust and plain illeagal in all other civilised countries.
Fair enough at the end of the day, Hicks may well have been training with al qaeda, that however doesn’t justify cruel and inhumane treatment while imprisoned by the country that claims to be leading the world in a war to bring freedom and justice to the world.
“Here ends the lesson”
