Reporter defends Taliban fighter and sneers at US
David Revelman
Ali-bin Ramsey of the Saddam Times (The Sydney Morning Herald) has found a new cause to defend — David 'Taliban' Hicks. Ramsey sympathetically relates how an old of friend his, Derk Swieringa, complained in writing to the Government about Hick's detention in Guantanamo Bay military base (Rights missing in action and still labor can't stop the rot, 26/2).
Ramsey, being the America-hating journo he is, simply cannot tell it straight. Hicks was captured in a combat zone as a member of the Taliban. But Ramsey tries to discredit these facts by deliberately ignoring Hicks membership of the Taliban and putting captured and combat zone in inverted commas. Fortunately, most people are not stupid enough to fall for this kind of cheap rhetorical trick.
Calling the US description of the likes of Hicks as "unlawful combatants" "a wondrous piece of sophistry by any standard" he then proceeds to engage in some sophistry of his own. It is true that Hicks has not been convicted of anything. It is also true that he was a member of the Taliban, an organisation that allied itself with Al Qaeda and protected it. Hicks found his way to Afghanistan when he fought with the Kosovo Liberation Army (ethnic Albanians) against the Serbs, converting to Islam and taking the name Mohammed Dawood. That al Qaeda had operatives in Kosovo fuelled suspicions that Hicks links with this group of terrorists is closer than he had admitted. But these are facts, and facts are not what Ramsey is really about.
Ramsey complains that Hicks has been denied legal access. It would have been better if Ramsey had told readers that Hicks is not entitled to any. He was in another country fighting along side a terrorist organisation that had recently slaughtered 3,000 Americans. Under these conditions he is not entitled to any lawyer nor does he have the protection of Australian law, regardless of what the Bush-loathing Swieringa thinks.
The term "unlawful combatants" allows these thugs to enjoy the conditions of POWs without having their legal status. The advantage of this situation to the US and her allies is that these Islamo-fascists can be kept out of circulation and intensively interrogated. Something that Ramsey and his fellow America-hating friends object to. (I think it is impossible to convey to any reader the hatred that the leftwing Ramsey has for the US. It deforms everything he writes on the subject of terrorism).
The pompous Geoffrey Robertson has also had his penny's worth, arguing that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are POWs and should enjoy the protection of the Geneva Convention of 1949, which he thinks saved the lives of "of American soldiers and airmen who surrendered in Korea and Vietnam" (Australia must tell US David Hicks is a POW 16/2 ,2002)
Rubbish. Allied prisoners in Korea and US prisoners in Vietnam suffered appalling conditions and torture. I suggest Robertson read No Mercy, Leniency by Cyril Cunningham and Korea atrocity: Forgotten War Crimes 1950-1953 by Phillip D. Chinnery before he opens his mouth again.
In any case, Robertson is not morally qualified to give an opinion. The man who wanted Pinochet arrested but would not call for the mass murdering Castro's arrest is in no position to lecture to Rumsfeldt.
Considering the circumstance of Hicks capture, the organisation he fought for, and the threat that these fanatics and their terrorist brethren still pose, I think Hicks is getting off very lightly.
What I want to know is why Ramsey is so keen on getting Hicks out. A clue to Ramsey's thinking might be deduced from the fact that he frequently writes vicious anti-American articles without condemning terrorism. Perhaps he thinks America deserved 9/11, and getting Hicks released would be his way of giving the Yanks another well deserved slap in the face.
I made no mention of Mamdouh Habib because I am not acquainted with the circumstances of his arrest.
Melbourne: Australia
BrookesNews.Com
Thursday 27 Feb. 2003
