From the ether

 2. Howard on Hicks: the greatest spin since children overboard?
Peter Dowding SC, former WA premier and Convenor Justice for Hicks Campaign (WA), writes:

The following appears from the World Today transcript for Friday 9 March 2007:

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Before Congress considers legislation that provides for the continued funding for Guantanamo Bay ... [Influential Democrat congressman Jack] Murtha wants to hold a series of public hearings to highlight what's been going on at the detention camp.

Detainee lawyers and civil liberties groups are among the first witnesses expected to be called.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates says he understands the concerns but closing Guantanamo Bay isn't as straightforward as it sounds.

ROBERT GATES: The President has said he'd like to close the detainee facility there. I'd like to close the facility there, the problem is that we have a certain number of the detainees there who often by their own confession, are people who if released would come back to attack the United States.

There are others that we would like to turn back to their home countries, but their home countries don't want them.

So, we are trying to address the problem of how do we reduce the numbers at Guantanamo and then what do you do with the relatively limited number that you probably… that it would be irresponsible to release.

And I would tell you that we're wrestling with those questions right now.

If Gates is telling the truth then it is more than passing strange that the ONLY Guantanamo Bay inmate to be charged is David Hicks.

If the US wants to return the inmates then how come Howard hasn't asked for it?
If the issue is that Hicks will be free to leave to go overseas and "attack the US" why hasn't Australia suggested some terms for him to be required to remain in Australia?

Why has the US been effectively forced to "make up" a charge against Hicks just to pacify the Australian government demand for him to be charged when the Defence Secretary is acknowledging that the US want to get the detainees back to their home countries.

Someone is telling porky pies. Could it be the Ruddock-Howard claim -- that "we really have been pressuring the US to charge Hicks" is, like the children overboard affair, just a political spin campaign at the expense of vulnerable people?

Perhaps the time has come to demand that Howard formally request the return of Hicks or be exposed as a fraud on this issue.

‘The Pentagon's latest move to close status-review hearings of ''enemy combatants'' is in keeping with its make-it-up-as-you-go approach to handling detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Such callous maneuvers are flawed, and they have been so from the beginning.

The hearings that started Friday are supposed to determine if 14 high-profile terror suspects are ''enemy combatants.'' The Pentagon says that secrecy is necessary to protect classified information, and so it is reversing previous policy to allow some aspects of the hearings public. This is a mistake. Conducting the hearings entirely in secret undermines their credibility at a time when America's actions are viewed with suspicion and disbelief around the world.

How can a hearing be fair if the accused doesn't have a lawyer, isn't allowed to see the evidence against him and is being judged by his own jailers, the U.S. military? How reliable is evidence if it is obtained through torture or coercion? How transparent are procedures when there is no public scrutiny?

The manner in which the Guantánamo tribunals are being conducted would be unbelievable, if they weren't actually happening. Yet the stakes are too high and the cost too great to ignore the tribunals. Even so, the U.S. government disregards international laws and American values. Actions like these have alienated U.S. allies and eroded our moral standing. This is the way to lose the moral high ground in the war on terror.’

Losing The Moral High Ground In Terror War

From the ABC

Hicks's team seeks trial delay: Downer
By Conor Duffy

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says the legal team for Australia's Guantanamo Bay detainee, David Hicks, is again trying to delay his trial.

Hicks is due to face a military commission later this month after more than five years at the detention facility.

He faces one charge of providing material support to terrorism.

But Mr Downer says there may be yet another delay in the long-running case.

He says Hicks's US-based legal team have applied for a stay in the Washington District Court.

"It just makes it much more difficult to get Hicks back to Australia and out of Guantanamo Bay if there are going to be these manoeuvres," he said.

Mr Downer denies the Government wants Hicks home so that it will not be an issue at the upcoming federal election.

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Gus: Home? As we all know it's up to Rattus UnAustralianus to tell his Bushitus Americanus  friend to stop the comic routine and let Hicks come home... The trial is a farce of guilty before it starts... And this, five years after detention with no charges, until they invented one. Of course they do not want Hicks home BEFORE the elections... because it would be a hot potato to handle. But having Hicks convicted quick smart now and then locked up wherever (US or Australia), then the Rattus, with the highest righteous hypocrisy could try to fudge with gravitas that "Justice wuz done..."

Yes Gus, desperate darth, phoney fishnets & their master rattus have been feverishly working behind the scenes to "solve" their growing Hicks poll problem for some time, trying their hardest to secure an early conviction .....

from the Australian ….

‘Top Australian officials leaned on US authorities to modify the charges against David Hicks, amid concern they could not be supported and that new legal challenges would further prolong his incarceration.

A deputation was sent to vigorously lobby the US Justice and Defence departments earlier this year, as the US Office of the Chief Prosecutor prepared to proceed with charges against Hicks of conspiracy to commit attacks, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.

The Australian Government was particularly concerned about the conspiracy charge, after a US Supreme Court ruling last June that the offence of conspiracy did not exist under military law.

They were also exasperated at some of the evidence being cited against Hicks, such as the accusation that he had carried out surveillance and "collected intelligence" on the US embassy in Kabul.

They regarded this claim as laughable, as the derelict embassy building had been empty for years and was used routinely by Afghan commanders as a location for training exercises.’

Aussies Leaned On US To Alter Hicks Charges