Long time readers will know I can't stand David Hicks. It's the one sticking point that makes me part ways with my fellow progressives. The illegitimacy of the wars and the charges and the torture at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, are all things I agree that are terrible things. But every time Mary Kostakidis or some other progressive talking head gets on the TV and starts championing David Hicks' cause and claiming that what happened to him was unjust, I get cold feet and beset with the desire to run the other way with those cold feet.
The wave of sanctimonious gobbledegook that flowed in defence of the man was intolerable, at the time and even to this day. The only person who was in Hicks' corner that I could get behind was Major Mori who was the counsel assigned to defend David Hicks at the military tribunal. For him, I have an undying respect. David Hicks himself just leaves me cold. Now that his conviction has been overturned, there is talk of a government apology. Yet, much as I reviled the Howard government in its day and dislike this Abbott government even more, I can't help but agree with them when they say there won't be an apology coming from their government.
Have a quick look at this section of the article:
In a tense exchange with reporters at the end of the press conference, Mr Hicks hit out at his critics.
"I think they're supporters of torture," Mr Hicks said.
"The only thing that matters is what the US government has said."
Asked what he was doing when he was picked up in Afghanistan, Mr Hicks replied:
"Having a holiday."
He said he wanted "to live a normal life and be a normal person".Good Grief.
I don't support torture, I'm against it. The "only thing that matters" to me is most definitely not what the US Government said or says. What he was doing in Afghanistan when he was picked up in the early days is contentious to this day. However we do know one thing. When the events of 9/11 were unfolding, we all went to work that day. We all went to school that day. We discharged our duties to society as was expected of us. Hicks chose to go fight with his mates in Afghanistan. That's how you get picked up by the US Marines. That's how you end up in Gitmo getting the iron sausage. I do think it was a travesty that kept him there, I think the military tribunal set up to try him was equally a travesty and I feel sorry for him he had to endure torture and the attendant legal circus.
But I just can't think of a way to couch what happened to him other than he had it coming. It's exactly as John Lennon quipped, "nobody ever gets what they deserve, they only get what's coming to them". He walked right into it - it was his choice - and landed in hell. And now he wants an apology for his trouble? Please count me out, and please, not in my name.
David Hicks should grow the fuck up and accept that what happened to him has to do with his own actions. Somebody was going to pay for 9/11. The fact that he put himself into that picture is his own stupid bloody fault, and it was no bloody accident.
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