David Hicks cannot sell his story

Way back in 2002, Australia's far-right government, apparently with little fanfare, stitched up some legislation, to stop David Hicks from earning what is his natural right. His tale of illegal incarceration and brutal treatment by the USA in Guantanamo Bay could have netted him $3.3 million, according to Australia's best-known celebrity manager, Harry M Miller.

The remarkable thing is that the government passed legislation "that prevents lawbreakers from selling their stories if they have committed offenses that can be tried by a U.S. military commission, established by President Bush's order in 2001".

One would have thought that the real criminal is the El Supremo who can dispense with justice in the Land of the Free Ride -- who by fiat can set up military commissions to replace courts of law. But we can be pretty sure that after Shrub leaves office he'll be making godzillions out of books and lectures in Australia.

While on the subject, it's nice to see the Sydney Morning Herald, which I like to slander for being a scungeous rag (even if they did publish an essay of mine in January), writing: "The 'coalition of the willing's' lack of moral authority has been all too obvious. The David Hicks case was simply the most recent in a line of travesties that now sees Iran's laws of war pretty much in tune with our own."
Iran takes a leaf out of Bush's legal handbook

David Hicks: When a Confession Is Not a Confession

Tribunals of the absurd is a must read.

Categories: bush, usa, david+hicks, torture, law, legal, crime, guantanamo, dubya, bush