Don’t you understand, John?

8 Apr, 2007 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Corruption, Democracy, Legal, OzPol Values, Terrorism, USPol, Values, War

It wasn’t about David Hicks:

How Howard fucked himself whether Hicks came home or not.

 

Hicks might go away out of the political limelight but the way Howard has treated him will be the reason Howard loses the next election. If he does, Howard has shown what he is really like and how he really works. We will never trust him on any issue, not security, certainly, and not even the economy, because he has outed himself as just one more sleazy politician, which he is (and always was), although less ethical and more unscrupulous than most.

The government can’t use the fact of Hicks’s conviction for electoral advantage or to support its anti-terrorist credentials.

They can’t say he got what was coming to him. They can’t admit they had a hand in his release. They can’t say they approve or disapprove of the sentence, (which is a big blow for Billy Bunter, Minister for Fishnets, who said before the “trial”:

   Material support for terrorism is an immensely difficu… an immensely serious charge”

– such a serious charge that Hicks was sentenced to an “immensely serious” 9 months. It would probably seem an eternity, however, if Hicks was forced to listen to 9 months of Billy Bunter prattling on and on in his nauseating way.)

The LATimes reports Hicks’s prosecution saying that

  Today in this courtroom we are on the front line of the war on terrorism, face to face with the enemy,”

[…]

“If Hicks was such a menace to Western security, as the U.S. government has alleged since his arrest in December 2001, asked staff attorney Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union, “why was he given a sentence more appropriate for a drunk-driving offense?”

No-one really believed that Hicks was a real threat or even a real terrorist. But it was politically expedient for Howard and his echo-chamber to paint him so.

Robert Richter, QC, one of Australia’s most experienced criminal lawyers, said in a commentary for The Sunday Age that the trial was a sham that had wholly discredited the Pentagon’s war-crimes process.

   The charade that took place at Guantánamo Bay would have done Stalin’s show trials proud. First there was indefinite detention without charge. Then there was the torture, however the Bush lawyers, including his attorney-general, might choose to describe it. Then there was the extorted confession of guilt.”

All that is left is the nauseating and immoral way the Government utterly abandoned a fellow Australian, the way they “threw him overboard”, and that knowledge has sunk deep into the Australian political memory alongside the other blatantly cynical lie of “children overboard”; the way the Government railroaded him and sacrificed him to its own (hoped-for) electoral advantage and as a convenient platform for mealy-mouthed political posturing.

What Australians know is that it could have been them, or someone in their own family, that became a pawn caught in Howard’s cadaverous political claw. They know that Howard would not have helped them, either, unless he saw an electoral advantage, or until he saw electoral disadvantage in inaction.

And we have watched the apologists, the far-right echo-chamber of Ackermann, Bolt, Devine, Milne, Henderson et al characterise a process which has shredded and trashed all our concepts of decency, fairness, legality and justice, which is at best unlawful and at worst treasonous, as righteous. We have watched them spin the entire process and the outcome as proper and “justified”.

If the law and the values Australians have fought for could be so easily discarded for the sake of political gain, career advancement and a false sense of security in a world made increasingly afraid by our “saviours”, then the law and our values would be worthless. But they are not. And Australians know it.

Australians like their values and they reject the chatterers’ claims that what was done was justified.

Australians will not forget what Howard did to a fellow Australian to feed his own prideful pomposity.

Australians know that Howard is infatuated with the egregious vandalising of historical notions of justice which is the hallmark of the Bush administration and of the way in which Bush (and Rove and Cheney) have systematically politicised the American bureaucracy.

Australians have known all along that the entire Guantánamo Bay exercise was a legal stinkbomb. They now know for certain that the entire exercise was a political and not a legal process because they have seen the clear evidence that Hicks’s release was politically motivated and politically engineered – engineered to help a friend, John Howard, with his own political struggle.

Australians in their wisdom recognise the jaw-dropping cynicism of Howard and Bush in their machinations about the Hicks matter and Guantánamo. Howard supported Guantánamo, acquiesced in it and promoted it while the rest of the world, including the British, had long rejected Guantánamo as an abomination,

In September 2006, in Sydney, Britain’s last Lord Chancellor, now rebadged as its first Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer, denounced Guantánamo as a “shocking affront to the principles of democracy”, accusing the United States of “deliberately seeking to put detainees beyond the rule of law…”

   It is a part of the acceptance of the rule of law that the courts will be able to exercise jurisdiction over the executive.

“Otherwise the conduct of the executive is not defined and restrained by law.

“It is because of that principle, that the USA, deliberately seeking to put the detainees beyond the reach of the law in Guantánamo Bay, is so shocking an affront to the principles of democracy.

“Without independent judicial control, we cannot give effect to the essential values of our society.”

Appropriately enough, Lord Falconer made his comments in his Magna Carta Lecture. Magna Carta established constraints on the monarchy (or, now, the executive government). The concept of habeas corpus, a fundamental of British legal heritage, preceded even the Magna Carta. Habeas corpus enshrines the right of a person detained by the authorities to be brought before a court of law so that the legality of the detention may be examined. Habeas corpus was trashed in the US last year by Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, with the assistance of the Republican Party and probably under the guidance of John Yoo.

John Howard, by acquiescing in the inhuman abuse that is Guantánamo Bay, and by laws passed in Australia last year, is complicit in this fundamental assault on British-heritage legal systems.

Howard openly declared that Hicks had broken no Australian laws and therefore he was pleased to be able to have him punished by another country under their illegal system.

He was willing to, and did – as did both Ruddock and Downer – declare him guilty without his having ever been charged with any offence or any evidence tested. This is in contrast to long-standing Australian values: the right to a fair and speedy trial and the presumption of innocence.

Even Texans have tried to explain the traditional American system to other Americans:

  In Texas, we have a fair trial and then the hanging,”

said Texas Republican, John Cornyn, ‘one of the White House’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill’. He was defending Gonzalez’s right to be heard before being “sentenced” to political death over the US Attorneys affair.

And conservative(-ish), Andrew Sullivan, in The Atlantic Online, says

   So Cheney goes to Australia and meets with John Howard who tells him that the Hicks case is killing him in Australia, and he may lose the next election because of it. Hicks’s case is then railroaded to the front of the Gitmo kangaro court line, and put through a “legal” process almost ludicrously inept, with two of Hicks’ three lawyers thrown out on one day, then an abrupt plea-bargain, with a transparently insincere confession. Hicks is then given a mere nine months in jail in Australia, before being set free. Who negotiated the plea-bargain? Hicks’ lawyer. Who did he negotiate with? Not the prosecutors, as would be normal, but Susan J. Crawford, the top military commission official. Who is Susan J. Crawford? She served as Dick Cheney’s Inspector General while he was Defense Secretary.

My, what a surprise to see the ghastly hand of Dick Cheney over all of this!

Howard may wish that the argument was over and Hicks would cease being an issue. But the treatment of Hicks is already the main issue and the chain around Howard’s ankle attached to a block of concrete. It doesn’t matter if no-one ever mentions it again, because Howard has lost his credibility and his image as an Honest John, as someone dedicated to protect Australians, as someone who stands up for Australians. The Howard reputation is shot and nothing he can do now can change that.

Howard has shown himself to be a latter-day Pontius Pilate.

He washed his hands of Hicks and everyone knows it.

He did the same with Nguyen Tuong Van and left him to hang out to die in Singapore.

He showed similar compassion for Robert Jovocic.

He meekly acquiesced when AFP Commissioner, Michael Joseph Keelty, APM, delivered the Bali 9 – Australians who could have been dealt with in an Australian court – to the Indonesians on a deadly platter, potentially to face a firing squad.

On the other hand he showed actual concern and support for his “mates” in AWB through his and his Ministers’ timely amnesia.

Let’s be clear. Hicks is a dickhead. Probably. He is not a popular hero. He is no Ned Kelly.

It has never been about him. It has been about the rule of law. It has been about decency and propriety, about the treatment of him by this government and the political use of him by this Prime Minister.

John Howard can no longer pretend to be Australia’s political father figure. He’s shown himself to be just another politician who can’t be trusted.

We have seen what Howard did to one of the “sons” of his own country. We have seen, by contrast, what a real father does: he fights unconditionally for a son he loves, even when he disagrees with what he did.

When Australians compare John Howard with Terry Hicks they know whom they admire. And whom they despise. They know who is showing them how to be a real human being and a real Australian.

They now see all Howard’s fatuous gravitas for what it has always been – insincere, inauthentic, greedy, compassionless, political posturing. Howard, Australia now knows, is a small man of stunted character, an unethical man, a pretender, pretending that he is not the dork he has been all along.

Meanwhile, the ANU confers on the arrogant, racist despot of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, an honorary Doctorate so as to ingratiate itself with the Singapore government (which means Lee’s nepotistically installed son, effectively Van Nguyen’s executioner) for financial advantage (or, as they put it, “to further the university’s relationship with Singapore”). When such an award can be contemplated, much less approved, by an institution of higher learning and academic independence, Howard’s castration of Australia is almost complete.

Thank you for reading this far!  You might think producing a post like this takes a bit of work. 
It does! If you’ve appreciated it you might consider encouraging me. ( We all like validation! )   

Buy Me A Coffee

All posts

Categories

You might also like:

Big Bang Time Free Willy

Watch Time Disappear  When Sir Roger was a young man (yes), his university offered a soft course for the scientifically inquisitive but mathematically challenged called The History and Philosophy of Science. Naturally this was universally and derogatorily referred to...

Keelty

  Gone at long last   ow much time should one spend on this slug? We don’t even feel like woo-hoo. Just “at last” and “good riddance” and “what took you so long”. One of the things we really dislike about (not exclusively-) Australian...

Malcolm Turnbull: Next Prime Minister?

  Backing into the limelight ir Roger believes Malcolm Turnbull could easily be the next Prime Minister of Australia.What do you think? Here’s why: 1) The coalition and the right wing media will bring too much pressure on Julia Gillard about...

Afghanistan Photos

Bad Apples? or Bad Apple Tree?   hen will they get it? Or do they get it and try to hide the truth about the Afghanistan photos before anyone notices they’ve got it? First the disclaimer: To gloatingly photograph yourself with a slain enemy...

Hi …

Hi!     i Hi!    (gulp) Hi hi ho! (gulp) Hip! Hip! Hooray! The national result, the result in Bennelong and the role the Greens played in getting Labor over the line are a clear enough repudiation of Howard’s political ideology....

Guantánamo Career Suicide

 Guantánamo Policy Chief Pulls Plug on Career: Spills Government Beans in Radio Interview     eputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Guantánamo Policy, Charles “Cully” Stimson, resigned following uproar over a 12 January interview on...

Assange – Wanted: Dead or Dead

  "Why wasn’t Assange garroted years ago?"   ir Roger had thought that there was a limited number of people who had urged or advocated the murder/assassination/execution of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. Two people had stood out particularly...

The Front Fell Off

ll the sage analysts and opinionators, as well as the “'King Makers'” – as News Ltd “'journalist's” like to refer to themselves – seem to be agreed that there is a mood for change in the electorate. They agree that it’s not really about John Howard...

Not 2007 – But the Excitement Lingers

  Like a Well-Fermented Fart   Preamble to  "A Moron in a Hurry" —  Sir Roger v Gough's Gouls trangely enough this title could be, but isn’t, about the next election. It’s about Labor Icon Gruff Wiblam and his pale irritation Steel Rod....

Happy Birthday

Today was a dual anniversary – the 221st anniversary of the birth of (European) Australia and the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robbie Burns. The two are related. Burns was a fierce advocate of Enlightenment principles and the fight for the rights of citizens...

UK’s ‘Morale Muscular’ Withdrawal

' “…under no circumstances should we allow ourselves to lose morale muscular and to step back from this…"  [Brendan Nelson]   alues Australia, in partnership with the Ministry of Mateship, notes the recent declaration by the British Government...

Coronavirus? Pandemic?

What the Actual Fuck?Has this been the worst ever social and economic disaster in our lifetimes? Or has it been the squealing brakes we needed, to curb our pre-pandemic headlong, tunnel-vision rush towards . . . well, where? . . . We were too busy to think about that....

Malcolm Turnbull: Next Prime Minister?

  Backing into the limelight ir Roger believes Malcolm Turnbull could easily be the next Prime Minister of Australia.What do you think? Here’s why: 1) The coalition and the right wing media will bring too much pressure on Julia Gillard about...

Drugs are Bad

 M’Kay?   mean, some drugs are bad. Just bad. Some drugs are good, like medicine. Some drugs, well, they’re legal even if they kill you, like cigarettes, or, like alcohol, kill other people you run into. But drugs drugs are just B-A-D. Inherently....

Brave Role Models – Leading from Behind

Pressing Personal Reasons   hose who believe so strongly that Australia ought to be in Iraq and ought to stay there “until the job is done” (leaving aside the problem that no-one has ever explained exactly what “the job” is, or how we will be...

Even Worse Than Terrorism

“The supreme international crime”    efinitions of terrorism in western countries are remarkably similar. According to Chomsky, writing in 2006, official definitions include that terrorism is the calculated use of violence or...

Power

The Bit Biden Got Wrong (but not as wrong as @PsychoTrump) and the importance for Australian Values   J oe Biden said—on 14 December when the Electoral College anointed him President Elect—what everyone would think. Makes sense yeah?  "In America, politicians don't...

ANZAC Reflections

  We’re made of “Digger” stuff   M y father was in WWII. He went to Borneo, landed at Balikpapan. Like most of those who went, he didn’t tell us much about the War. But he did tell us one story. They landed on the beach and because he was a Major he had a jeep...

Not a Civil Society Just Yet

    e have a new hero at Values Australia (no, not Manning Clark). His name is Julian Burnside QC. Not that we didn’t respect him before and agree with him and all like that. But, well…see it’s like this: We got an mp3 player, for the train or...

Sir Roger: Archived in Perpetuity

  Fame of a Sort?   Can Lordship be far behind . . .    ir Roger has just received a request from Canberra saying that the National Library of Australia wished permission to include ValuesAustralia.com in the PANDORA Archive of...

Jefferson Says – Reboot

President Kennedy told a gathering of Nobel Prize winners at the White House, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas...

The Ascent of Man & Descent of the DLP

Draining the Swamp   This is by way of ridding ourselves of the bible-bashers,    he deluded believers in absolute truths and faiths built on fairy stories and long-disproven assertions about the universe and how it works, who have lately...

Bertrand Russell & The Life of Brian

    Bertrand Russell’s grandmother’s favourite Bible verse was this: Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” (Exodus 23:2) We can think of a lot of people we would like to see taking that to heart. The ones with special vests and...

The Devil Rides Again

  es, Dick ("Dick") Cheney has thrown off the coffin-lid; with a sulphurous emanation he has emerged from the flames of his hell; and he has spoken to a human – Martha Raddatz of American ABC News – about the War in Iraq and of his deathly dominion...

‘Sub-Prime’ Explained as Never Before

  "Too stupid to be real..."   f you only watch one online comedy sketch this year, (as we used to say (almost) at ABC Promos) this should be it. We promise. You will laugh…and perhaps cry at the same time, If you ever wondered what was...

Special Intel Ops

Night of the Big Dicks pecial Intel Ops, Sir Roger is required to inform his readers, may actually AT THIS VERY MOMENT be taking place, or may be in preparation, or may at the very least be in prospect. (Clutches pearls) It has come to Sir Roger’s...

Rights of Man

Magna Carta 15 June 1215 e know where we stand on a Bill of Rights and we could argue for it but we don’t think we need to any more. John Howard has argued against it and that’s just about enough for us. The little shit has been so wrong about...

Howard ‘Fundamentally Evil’~MP

  Throwing people into the abyss   “spat” occurred this week when the Groveller General broke with longstanding international convention to meddle in the domestic politics of another country, saying that if he ran Al Qaeda, he would “put...

How Long Would Jesus Keep Hicks in Guantánamo?

Love your enemies and be good to them” - Direct Orders From the Mouth of God: "Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you." hristianity is one of the “revealed”...

…But We Weren’t

Moe Keelty - yet again   et's not mince words about Indonesia. While most of its ordinary people, at least the ones we have met, are in the range from friendly to wonderful, it has seemed to us, looking at reasonably recent history, that for...

0 Comments