John Howard: Strong or Weak?

9 Feb, 2007 | Australian Values, Corruption, Democracy, Legal, OzPol Values, Terrorism, USPol, Values, War

Choose Your Favourite War Criminal

 

What extraordinary influence our Groveller General enjoys with US President Bush. 
Mr Howard said he will raise the Hicks issue when he meets the US President George W Bush on Tuesday…Mr Howard says he will urge the US Government to hear the case as soon as possible.

That was as recently as 2005 – 16 July – only a year and a half ago!

Mr Howard has been “relaxed and comfortable” that the Military Commissions process is appropriate, legal and being handled justly and sensitively. Because the Americans have assured him so.

“George, I am concerned.”
“Wha, don’t be concerned, little buddy.”
“George, do you torture people?”
“John, Ah am shocked! How could you aks such a thang?”
“Do you?”
“Little Johnnie buddy, I assure you we do not.”
“Then George, (mmm, I like it there, yes just there…) you will have a perfectly acceptable explanation for these photographs taken at Abu Ghraib?”
“John (would you mind just reaching around there for a moment? Aaaah! That is goood!) These were bad apples who should never have obeyed ma orders or revealed our secret and systematic interrogation techniques which we do not and never have used or sent people to secret prisons in Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Poland and such, to render them speechful.”
“Really?”
“I promise! Would I tell a lie? Oh! Oh! Oh my God!”
“Oh! Oh! Oh George! Oh! I love you George!”
“Have you got a cigarette, darling?”

Guantánamo chief, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, has told the ABC’s PM program that Hicks poses a real security threat and there are no innocent detainees.

Greens leader Bob Brown says he is “outraged” that the head of the Guantánamo Bay detention centre has described David Hicks as a dangerous terrorist, prejudging him guilty without any legal process and

“the rights of Hicks have been removed, he’s had no legal rights – he’s been judged guilty by Admiral Harris himself.”

He should not be outraged. This is old news. Brown is so behind the times.

Said Hicks’s lawyer, David McLeod,

“This suggestion, that because detainees are there, that that is in itself evidence of terrorism, or their being a terrorist, simply puts the lie to any attempt to deal with them in a fair and open manner.

“To suggest that a prisoner in the Australian criminal courts is guilty would in itself amount to a mistrial or an inability to proceed appropriately and fairly before a court.”

They should not be outraged. It has all been said before. Charles Stimson, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence in charge of detainee policy at Guantánamo Bay said as much in an interview in January:

Jane Norris: Is there a possibility that there are some folks on Guantanamo that don’t belong there?
Stimson: Not now.

He claimed in the interview that the roughly 400 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay are

“the very terrorists who hit [American corporations’] bottom line back in 2001”.

This came as quite shock. The Australian Government had not realised that there were an additional 400 evil dudes plotting 9/11 and that the US had rounded up every last one of them and these ones are the very ones who slammed the planes into the buildings. But they said nothing at the time. Americans are so modest!

(Stimson says in this interview that

“something like 340 others have previously been released to their home countries”.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Britain. But John Howard has stood strong and insisted that a citizen of his own country should be made an example of to the recalcitrant …um…Saudis and Pakistanis…?)

In a previous interview, June 2006, Stimson said Guantánamo prisoners are

“not entitled to anything more than determining whether they’re enemy combatants or not, which we’ve done”.

See, what Brown doesn’t seem to get is that guilt or innocence has already been determined. There was no need for a trial. Hicks is guilty and that’s that. And we’ve known it for years. We decided it years ago. Even John Howard has been saying so for years.

Oddly enough, elsewhere the US is reported to be having trouble releasing detainees because of “the refusal of other nations to accept Guantanamo prisoners“. Strange that John could claim to be finding it so hard to have Hicks return home to Australia to be dealt with.

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:

Sir Roger Gets Ogd

  es. It’s true! After everything he has said, Sir Roger’s scepticism has been swept away by his discovery of a new, an alien, religion. And who would not want to be part of such powerful theatre, such wondrous ceremony, gorgeous ritual and...

Hypocrite, Sociopath or Fool?

Almost Human? n her column explaining 'the key to understanding the Prime Minister,' Anne Summers offers an explanation for the Groveller General’s attitude towards Iraq, terrorisim and Barack Obama. But it is just not good enough, says our...

A Moron in a Hurry – Part 4

Mollified? Stupefied? Unutterably Bored?   en and Whitlam of Australia, not to forget the moron in a hurry, it’s time to bid farewell to old plinth-bound, red-taped Goth the Whittler, his soul, his vision and his legacy chained and frozen in...

Oh Pastor Ted, What a Jock You Are!

There’s a Lotta Love in This Place   S House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s little girl, Alexandra Pelosi, has made a doco, Friends of God, starring Crystal Methodist, Pastor Ted Haggard, about evangelical christians. And quite an eye-opener it is....

New Australian Anthems

Vote for your favourite   Sensitive New-Age Cowpersons?   Or Advance Jimmy Barnes?

Wikileaks Cablegate and Hunter S. Thompson

  unter S. Thompson said it, and he wasn’t a traitor: America…just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to...

You Can’t Handle the Truth!

  ... This was a lie and we could not let them publish it ...   e keep thinking of Jack Nicholson's character's justification for the secrecy that governments and their institutions maintain over their citizens – that is to say, their...

‘My Culture the Bastard Child’

his angry, loving, passionate, poetic piece from John White was a comment on the previous post but we love it so much we do not want it lost in the wastes of commentdom. It deserves to be shared with you. So here it is:  Australian Values,...

Swallowing Bullshit Whole

Buying the War - Bill Moyers How did the mainstream press get it so wrong about Iraq?   his may be the most “important” video you will see this year. It’s a special program from Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Buying the War is a careful,...

A Moron in a Hurry – Part 2

It's Me! It's Tim!   A s you know Sir Roger has been stood over by the rozzers of the Whitlam Industry, accused of the most nefarious crimes in the most aggressive tones. Almost as terrifying as the big boys threatening him for his lunch money. To help the dear...

Now LOOK ….

   Not this bloody time   W e have held it in for a very long time but today was the last straw. For seeming ages journalists have been describing people who defend themselves against legal allegations, or who mount arguments against legal charges, as...

Ike’s Insight

t seems so strange to realise that Dwight Eisenhower, a 5-star General and highly-respected Republican President in his day, would nowadays be regarded by most ordinary Republicans as a pussy, a commie and a traitor to “traditional” American...

What Science Knows (& Business Ignores)

Tell the boss! Tell the world! Revolution!!!!   wo excellent talks that will give you good feelings and even hope! From the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce The truth about financial incentives: How our human super power can...

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...

Oliver Sacks and “Soul Murder”

 After:  Oliver Sacks  by Luigi Novi  9.13.09 . . . the arms that long for love   ir Roger was listening to the ABC Science Show today. It was Robyn Williams’ homage to Oliver Sacks (Awakenings, The Man Who Thought His Wife Was a Hat, Seeing...

Let Them Eat Yellowcake

Carlo Bonini           STATE OF THE UNION 2003: " Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of Uranium from Africa." Or not ...   Well, as Bill Moyers reminds us, it wasn’t true. It was all a forgery, perpetrated in Rome. And Carlo Bonini, the Italian...

Just Checking our MASSIVE STUFF-UP

A note about the Haneef debacle/fallout...   he police and the government — notably Howard, Andrews, Downer and Ruddock (all of whom would have purple dye on their hands if they stole a briefcase instead of hijacking the brief on Haneef )...

For the Record

Eating Air   ir Roger wrote to several Labor pollies recently complaining about Labor’s (really Rudd’s) lack of stance on the Haneef matter. The first response, to his credit, was from on behalf of Kevin Rudd. Dear [….you...

Haneef “Not Uninnocent”

  The materials available to me While there are inferences that are available from the material I have, I am of the view that they are not sufficiently strong to exclude reasonable hypotheses consistent with innocence.” – Damien Bugg, DPP Did...

You can be charged for what you did today…

  So here’s what Haneef was formally charged with on 14 July 2007, as revealed by Tony Jones on Lateline on Tuesday night: “...intentionally providing resources to a terrorist organisation consisting of persons including Sabeel Ahmed and Kafeel Ahmed, his...

The Old Tart Vanishes

  Levers and pulleys of a flimsy fantasy machine   t’s all about perception, as they say, and in politics perception is truth. But, as MacDonalds say, for a limited time only. We were struck over the last few days by the sudden...

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...

Trust Me…I’m From the Feds…

  Wha..!? I woun’t not of never of dun nuffink so bad like wot you say!   ederal agent Bruce Pegg, who interviewed Mr Ul-Haque in prison, told NSW Supreme Court judge Michael Adams he had done nothing improper by questioning Mr Ul-Haque...

How Australian Values Are Changing

Are Australian Values moving left or right?   The answer is YES - both. And, more worryingly, also a trajectory outside the known political universe towards the delusional realms of a poltical and social Fantasia. And even more upsettingly, otherwise...

We Are Humbled…

…and yet proud…  o have some of our work considered worthy of inclusion amongst the writings of the doyens of the ozblogosphere in the Top 40 collection at OnlineOpinion. The piece the judges have chosen is “The Nation That Hangs Together”. We have...

You Can’t Handle the Truth!

  ... This was a lie and we could not let them publish it ...   e keep thinking of Jack Nicholson's character's justification for the secrecy that governments and their institutions maintain over their citizens – that is to say, their...

The Real Anarchist

"I'm a Leninist" *   Trump has branded democrats and protestors as terrorists and also as anarchists. And because he likes the wacko Q narrative  - or likes to use it to manipulate his stupid base -  he sees the dark agents of doom in every corner. But...

Passionate Indifference

Indonesian war crime     SW Deputy Coroner, Dorelle Pinch, this week found that the newsmen known as the Balibo Five were deliberately killed by Indonesian forces 32 years ago to cover up the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.   She has...

‘Compassionate’ Costello Reach-around

  Costello reaches out to the downtrodden ... [Drawing by Tony King, 1969]   ... The electorate merely retches. r Costello said that in the election campaign he would talk about what Australia needs for its future, in particular drawing the...

A Man’s a Man

Robert Burns statue in Writers Museum EdinburghWithin the first five seconds we were hooked   e were on the way to work, tuned in to Radio National’s Book Show, a replay of the opening address by Andrew O’Hagan from last year’s Sydney Writers’...

0 Comments