Sunday 24th of November 2024
Home » Blogs » John Richardson's blog

poison pen .....

The Editor,
Sydney Morning Herald.                                                                                         August 6, 2006.

Miranda Divine’s latest poisonous piece on David Hicks is not only deliberately misleading but it ignores & seeks to justify the fundamental injustice being perpetrated against him, whilst mounting a cowardly attack on his family ('United 93 highlights dangers of Hicks cult's flight from reality', Herald, August 6).
 

The sick spin is evident straight from the headline where, in the laziest “have you stopped beating your wife yet” fashion that so often characterises her attempts at “journalism”, Miranda seeks to demonise those who might champion Hicks’ cause, by likening them to members of a cult. 

It’s all down hill from there.

As a panting apologist for John Howard, Alexander Downer, Philip Ruddock & the Bush administration, Miranda, like them, sets out to publicly try & convict David Hicks, based on hearsay & unproven accusations, whilst being completely comfortable with the fact that he is denied the same justice she would demand for herself, including the right to confront his accusers in a properly constituted court of law.

Miranda twists & distorts the truth at every turn, ignoring the fact that David Hicks was a member of the Taliban militia, a legal & recognised military force under International Law. And if being trained in the arts of war by al-Qaeda is a “crime”, where does that leave the CIA, who helped to fund, arm & train the very same terrorist group in its activities against the Russians?

As for her allegation that Hicks was “attacking us” (Australians), the truth is that Hicks was already a prisoner in the hands of anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan before coalition ground forces, including Australians arrived. And to imply that Hicks & the Taliban are responsible for the death of “more than 100 Australians” is not only fanciful but a grotesque lie.

There seems to be no place In Miranda’s twisted insight into historical events for truth. The Taliban were the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, not the Taliban government, are accused of mounting the 911 attacks against the US. Further, the Taliban offered to hand-over to the US the alleged mastermind of that attack, Usama bin Laden, but that offer was spurned not only by the Bush administration but by Clinton as well.

And then we have the classic “with us or agin’ us” accusation that Miranda & her ilk inevitably try to use to justify the illegal, aberrant & failed foreign policy ambitions of the US & its “coalition” lapdogs, sweetened with the emotional horror of the 911 attacks.

Even in full flight, Miranda can only copy the transparent jingoism used by John Howard to justify his decision to involve Australia in foreign military adventures, by echoing his insulting use of the proud ANZAC epithet – Lest We Forget – whilst continuing to peddle the lie that the “enemy is on a fanatical mission to take away our lives and liberty”.

The dumbest of school children is capable of recognising whose forces are the occupying aggressors in the middle east; which countries have been destroyed by the grandiose “coalition of the willing”; whose civilian populations have been butchered in the name of “keeping us safe” & which multi-national corporations have most benefited along the way.

But Miranda’s most cowardly act is to use her column to mount a scurrilous & vindictive personal attack against David Hicks’ father, Terry, implying that he is somehow accountable for his son’s alleged misdeeds. To accept Miranda’s warped & offensive logic is to accept that every parent has a lifetime responsibility for the behaviour of their children. We can only wonder how Miranda’s own family would feel in the face of such logic.

Of course, in mounting her dishonest & deceitful attack on the Hicks family, Miranda conveniently forgets to mention the fact that our government has abandoned one of its citizens to indefinite detention & torture for more than 4 years, whilst conspiring with his captors to deny him his human & legal rights.

These are the very same rights that people like Miranda take for granted for themselves, whilst happily denying them to others: the very same rights that the members of her alleged Hicks “cult” would fight to preserve in order to protect her life & liberty - which is a great deal more than she is willing to do for David Hicks.

Under the circumstances, it would seems that Australia has more to fear from the pen of Miranda Devine than it ever had to fear from the actions of David Hicks.

Thank you Philip...

Well said, John... Magic letter.

But...
...but reading between the words falling from the cornered lips of our Attorney Mineral (he looks more and more like a piece of stone these days) suddenly I had a hint of enlightenment... What if what Philip Ruddock said about Terry Hicks was altruistically unselfish and generously motivated, as an unfathomable gift to promote Terry's nomination... without betraying his own little-care, brown nosed government?

See, when I watched Philip Ruddock — leaning, as usual like an undertaker who impatiently waits for the last funeral of the afternoon to be over so he can go home and stop playing sorrow, to enjoy a welcoming ale — he appeared insincere in his own conviction... Yes, on second watch of the news item, one can see he can't stop himself from smirking, but smirking at his own words!!!... He knows he is saying something stupidly controversial that is in ball-line with the government policy of keeping things like that in the dark, but what does he do? He spruiks!!! By spruiking his carefully crafted words, he knows that they will attract attention to the fact that Terry Hicks has been nominated for "Father of the Year" and the subtext is "may the best Hicks win the contest"... Yes, yes... You may fool little Johnnee — who these days is more interested in making our life a misery for another four years instead of honouring his non-core commitments to Peter — but you cannot fool us, Philip... What a clever subterfuge... you secretly favour Terry's to win the grand prize and your way to let us know is to stir the possum a bit... Without your covert help, you know that Terry would not have a bleedin' chance.
Thank you.

just a weak, dishonest hypocrite .....

Thanks Gus.

But indeed ....

Assuming for a moment that Ruddock is a 5th columnist within the rodent's ranks & that he was motivated as you suggest, I still have no time for anyone who lacks the personal courage & conviction to speak the truth .... even more loudly when they occupy a position of public influence & trust, such as he does.

I believe in the doctrine of "collective responsibility / accountabilty" & no amount of flim-flam voiced by the likes of Ruddock & the rest of the dishonest politicians making-up the current bunch - on all sides - can be excused if they are not willing to speak out on issues of principle, particularly when it involves the illegal imprisonment & torture of another human being.

I actually don't credit Ruddock with the level of cunning that think he might be capable of, nor the motive. I think he is a weak & dishonest coward who, as I've already posited, is a disgrace to his office & an embarrassment to this country. 

Just

was just taking the piss out of him...

good one ....

Good one Gus ...

You succeeded in taking the piss out of both of us!!! 

the spoon

 

 And Gus wins the spoon! Oi Oi Oi!

 

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation. ~~ Marian Wright Edelman

lessons from dreyfus .....

‘David Hicks' case is a reminder of the Dreyfus case in France.

David Hicks has been in prison on the United States military detention centre at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, for nearly five years, and he hasn't been convicted of anything. As things stand, unless the Australian government intervenes on his behalf, he has no chance of being released in anything like the near future.

Prejudice had a lot to do with the Dreyfus case, and although of a different kind, it is playing a part in David Hicks' case also. Applying the Ockham's Razor test, that in solving problems and gaining understanding, no more should be presumed to exist than is absolutely necessary. A judicious use of the Razor reveals that while the legal and ethical issues are complex, there is much more involved in Hicks' case than an injustice and wrong being done to Hicks.

It raises the question whether his detention is legally justified at all. And whether the acts he is alleged to have done were crimes when he did them, and even if they were crimes, whether they had anything to do with why he is being detained.

It raises the question of how international criminal law is made or is being made, and in Hicks' case, a consideration of the little understood and seldom thought about law of war, and how it is being made. Any law that justifies the taking away of a person's liberty should always be as certain as possible, and that has not been so in Hicks' case.’

The Dreyfus Affair

loose ends .....

‘While mentioning Ruddock and terrorism, there are two issues relating to David Hicks - that other Australian "terrorist" - that need clearing up.

On Monday Ruddock trotted out the usual stuff about how concerned he was about the length of time it has taken not to get Hicks to a trial. He said cases could take a very long time when people sought to test the limits of jurisdiction and were keen on appealing. How true that is. The only thing is that for some time it has been the US Government doing the appealing.

Following Hicks's 2004 victory on the right to counsel and the right to habeas evidentiary hearings, the US Justice Department has been appealing and stonewalling. It is still appealing a January 2005 decision of the US District Court which said that the habeas hearings provided by the Government were inadequate.

Also, at the last meeting of the standing committee of attorneys-general, Ruddock assured the state attorneys-general who raised the Hicks issue that all was well at Guantanamo and that no allegations of abuse have been put to Australian officials.

He must have forgotten the affidavit that Hicks swore for Major Michael Mori on August 5, 2004 detailing 22 instances of ill-treatment, abuse and torture.’

Wrong Target In Hue & Cry Over Terrorist Suspect

Basking in the sun at DFAT

From the [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1779999.htm|pitifully] glass-house-less ABC

Hicks refused visit for fear of punishment: lawyer

The Department of Foreign Affairs says it is not aware of allegations that Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks has refused to meet consular officials because he believes he has been punished after previous visits.
Officials from the department had earlier told a Senate hearing that Hicks did not give any reasons when he refused to meet the Australian Consul-General at Guantanamo Bay in September. The hearing has now been told that Hicks's US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says his client believes he has been punished after making complaints during previous consular visits.
The department's first assistant secretary, Rod Smith, has told the hearing Maj Mori has not raised those concerns with Australian officials.
"It would be a matter of very great concern to us if Australians in detention overseas were punished for simply drawing to the attention of consular officials concerns that [they] have about the conditions of their detention," Mr Smith said.
-----------------
Gus: When will the DFAT become aware of anything concerning Mr Hicks? In 2134? Do these comfy bureaucrats know they have to find out things "below" the Yanks who are yanking the wool over DFAT's eyes? Can't they see anything from their deckchairs?...

more poison pen from the devine...

Pull the other one, David Hicks

Miranda Devine (now at the daily terrorgraph)

DICK Smith lost credibility when he aligned himself with convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks and he’s at it again.

In a bid to publicise Hicks’ new autobiography, there was the boyish voice of Australia’s richest grey nomad on ABC radio Sunday morning, calling Macca’s Australia All Over program from outside Port Augusta.

He’d just saved a few bucks on Hicks’ book by buying it at Big W, he said. “It’s a great read.”

Man’s inhumanity to man and all that. I didn’t catch it all, exactly, as I was busy throwing up.

The Electronic Dick is Australia’s biggest apologist for Hicks, aka Mohammed Dawood, the 35-year-old one-time Muslim convert, the AK-47-toting, anti-semitic terrorist-trained traitor - the al-Qaeda “golden boy” whose reaction to the 9/11 attacks was to hotfoot it back to Afghanistan to take up arms to fight the US and its ally Australia.

Hicks and a group of fighters were “engaged in combat against coalition forces”, according to US prosecutors. That’s the official version, the one Hicks admitted to in 2007 when he pleaded guilty to the charge of providing material support to a terrorist organisation.

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/pull_the_other_one_david_hicks/

----------------------

You can run, but you can't hide, poison pen miranda... Devilish, you need to be reminded of several things.

First, David Hicks killed no-one. NOT A SINGLE SOUL. Bush, Blair and Howard set out the biggest hoax on their people (us) to invade Iraq and killed many people without any approval from the UN (and even if they did, it would not make their lies less ugly). Without counting the following mess that led to a massive number of killings, not even counting the appalling Fallujah incident, these three conspirators killed (using the might of their troops) around 70,000 people in the first step of their invasion, on a lie and a whim. THEY should be in prison.

Second, David Hicks was tortured. The "we-do-not-torture" mantra claimed by Bush was bullshit. On this alone, Bush should be charged with war crimes. His acolytes Blair and Howard should be charged with war crimes for accessory to torture.

Third, David Hicks was deliberately left to rot in jail by the Howard government. Howard acted like a devious cat engrossing itself with its owner (Bush) by bringing him (letting have) a kill, not for food but to get a pat on the head.

Fourth, David Hicks "admitted to crimes" in order to get out of Guantanamo, only under a pre-arranged trial that was just a farcical set up to this end. Bush, Blair and Howard LIES have now been exposed (and admitted to, to great extend) but they "would do it all again" if they could. They should be in prison..

More can be said. More will be said in due course.