In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: "The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit."

This week, former US Ambassador for War Crimes Issues, David Scheffer, said:

‘The so-called “compromise” legislation between the Bush Administration and key Republican members of Congress concerning the enforcement of common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions significantly weakens existing law, censors the federal judiciary in its deliberative and drafting responsibilities, and invites dangerous reciprocal and retaliatory measures by foreign governments to the detriment of U.S. personnel engaged in or responsible for interrogations of foreign detainees and any US personnel who may be captured.’

Scheffer finds loopholes big enough to allow summary execution with one pistol shot to the head & mutilations, such as cutting off fingers.

We also know who this could be legally done to. Follow the slippery slope of the administration's wording and you'll arrive at one unavoidably possible victim: you.

Meanwhile, the proud member of Amnesty & Australian Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, said this week that he had been assured by his US counterpart, Alberto Gonzales, that the bill would ensure a fair trial for the only Australian held at Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks.

Ruddock is allegedly a lawyer. Indeed, he is supposedly Australia’s first Law Officer.

So, instead of relying on the bland assurances of a proven legal schonk like Gonzales, why can’t Ruddock, with all the resources at his disposal, make his own assessment as to the likelihood of David Hicks receiving a “fair trial” at the hands of George Bush’s proposed Military Commission?

Or is it that he already knows the answer & like his ministerial colleagues involved in the AWB scandal, he would prefer to be able to say: “no-one told me”?

If Ruddock is genuinely worried about wasting precious government resources on securing & protecting the legal & human rights of an Australian citizen, there are numerous legal interpretations of the issues available in the public domain, with literally hundreds of opinions, many written by jurists of far greater eminence than Ruddock or Gonzales will ever attain, that should convince him that his faith in the perverted parallel judicial system constructed by the war criminal, George Bush, is entirely naïve & unjustified.

Of course, any half decent Minister in a half decent government would want to make sure that their citizens' legal & human rights were always secured & protected. Unless, of course, through their own infallible judgement, they had already reached a verdict as to the guilt of that citizen & remained concerned only with how to best capitalize on that citizen's misfortune?   

Of course, Ruddock & his government mates have been profoundly stupid in the way they’ve abrogated their responsibilities in the Hicks affair. By abandoning Hicks & trusting George Bush, they find themselves caught in a situation where a lone Australian, illegally held in solitary confinement & tortured over most of the past 5 years, is scheduled to be one of the first victims of the new Military Commission charade: a process so corrupt & devoid of accepted legal standards for achieving just outcomes, that Hicks will inevitably become a martyr.

I wonder if Pontius Pilate was a lawyer?