The 15 British naval personnel kidnapped by Iran in disputed Gulf waters and released after two weeks (and the usual parlour games that constitute diplomacy in the current U.S.-dominated atmosphere of pre-emptive anything-goes), claim they were subjected to intense "psychological pressure" and threatened with years of imprisonment, and that’s why they made their on-air admissions of trespass, fault and guilt
What a surprise! And so readily and so soon!
Meanwhile, for more than 5 years, Australian dill David Hicks – sold to U.S. forces by anti-Taliban Afghan guerrillas for bounty - has suffered torture, beatings and somewhat more “psychological” abuse than the compromised Brits – not to mention actual rather than threatened imprisonment - in the phoney Bushevik “war-on-terror” before finally agreeing to a plea bargain admission of “guilty” in a rigged show trial worthy of North Korea.
The 2007 Hollywood Academy Awards night is long over but Australia’s Prime Minister Germ W Howart continues making an early run for next years’ Best Actor Award with an astonishing attempt at salvaging his tattered thespian career.
Clearly not a method actor, for some months the wooden Monstralian PM had expressed his growing “impatience” and then his “anger” (what, no sputum?) with the rogue Bush Regime over what he called “delays” after 5 years of consistent gushing and fondling GWB’s nether regions as state-sanctioned torture became a matter of symantics not ethics, ignorance became bliss, and the Iraqi blood-and-bone machine set up by the Busheviks went into overdrive.
Now, of course, justice has been served – like tuna in a sushi bar.
So David Hicks is guilty of something or other for being in Afghanistan during the US attack on the Taliban. Just say the magic word TERRORISM and the flakey dictatorial possibilities are endless. Ah, and no Senate enquiry downunder!
Yet again Germ Howard PM flaunts his utter contempt for Democratic principles of accountability, independent scrutiny and transparency and treats Australians like witless bovines with no memory of the past or any interest in the future.
And going by the past 10 years of national coma, his assessment is probably correcto.
Now we’re supposed to accept the orchestrated outcome of the Guantanamo kangaroo court and call it justice.
We’re also supposed to believe that Hicks – “worst of the worst” and a “threat” – having suddenly admitted his cold-blooded terrorist affiliations, can be safely released into the community in 9 months time. As long as he doesn’t actually say anything about his capture, sale, imprisonment, abuse and torture (… Freedom of speech, anybody?).
After 5 years of appalling criminal negligence by the Australian government and criminal assault by the US government, political expedience wins the day.
Hmm, but what of the elephantine turd in the kiddy pool on this one?
For 5 years both Bush and Howard have tarred and feathered Hicks in no uncertain terms, bellowing his inherently evil nature from the rooftops:
Hicks was out to suck the blood from your baby, would root your grandmother for the sheer hell of it, and would – given half a chance – speak very, very harshly to your pet budgie.
They used language that, in any real legal system, would have resulted in charges of contempt of court.
But of course, the rinky-dink, cobbled-together Guantanamo three-ring-circus has nothing to do with legality or justice or even “terrorism”.
It’s the ideological agenda, stoopid! And the next federal election.
Yet the Lying Rodent – he of the mean and tricky sack of faux patriotism – would have none of that! He furrowed his trimmed eyebrows in cartoon gravitas, puffed himself up like an indignant Toad of Toad Hall (look it up, people!), and poo-pooed the obvious fact that after five sickening years the oh-so-suddenly-convenient Guantanamo result was scripted, acted and as phoney as GWB’s military service and scholastic record.
But you don’t need to be a Spielberg to figure out when the co-writing of the final draft of the Guantanamo script was concluded. During Veep Cheney’s recent shutdown of the Sydney CBD, resulting in gridlock and jawlock as the PM went down on the Halliburton frontman with barely a moment to draw breath, the phoney dénouement was thrashed out:
“Dick, please, I’m having a tough enough time convincing the proles of the benefits of my Workplace castration laws… I need this Hicks thing off the media radar asap or it’s another nail in my coffin come the poll!”
“No problem, bitch, just suck a little harder!”
Ah, yes, it’s not easy being the two-bit, two-faced sheriff of Oceania in the Amerikkkan lake (aka the Pacific), but our PM is a plucky little bugger and no doubt gave Dick a night to remember downunder. And Hicks’ fate was sucked, sealed and delivered at last.
And if the Iraq catastrofuck is the greatest US foreign policy disaster in history, then the Guantanamo show trials are the greatest threat to justice and due process.
Desperate to get out of that US army house of horror, Hicks did what the 15 Brits did: whatever it took to get out of a distressing predicament.
And if the mendacious midget of Oz reckons Hicks’ plea bargain of guilty is, in fact, an admission of the unproven “crime” he most recently has been accused of by his lawless captors, then so too are the Pommy sailors’ televised statements.
Coercion? Nah, just an offer too good to refuse!
Fortunately, the Amerikkkan miltary tribunals in Guantanamo are so obviously rigged, the whole crooked sytem is sure to collapse under the mounting weight of its own bullshit.
And speaking of illegal imprisonment… almost two years after squeezing a synthetic apology from the Lying Rodent, a certain Cornelia Rau is seeking compensation for being wrongly “detained” by the Howart government in Australia’s very own version of the old Soviet Gulags – our so-called “immigration detention” system where we incarcerate unwanted newcomers; innocent men, women and children.
Chances are Rau might be awarded up to a cool million.
Just imagine what Hicks is worth!
Happy bloody Easter and pass the nails.
This was Max Gross for Xenox News, cracking eggs, taking meds and drinking dregs.
