Hicks trial will be overseen

The Advertiser: Hicks trial will be overseen:

"'What is surprising to me now is that after four years (of detention for Hicks) – and Hicks has been represented by American and Australian lawyers and consultants for much of that time – they are saying 'Look, we are not ready',' Mr Ruddock said."

Mr. Ruddock still doesn't seem to understand that the lawyers have not had four years to prepare. The goal posts have constantly been shifting and other western governments have negotiated the release of their detainees. Sending over observers will not ascertain whether it is fair or not because the Australian government has shown itself to be predjudicial by not acting as other governments have, by not ascertaining the facts, by ignoring the treatment of prisoners in Guatanamo Bay and leaving David Hicks in a no man's land so that he is now a persona non grata.

Was David Hicks rounded up in the same group as The case of the Taliban American


Because he has been tried and is serving twenty years jail near his home, is helping the American Government and, AT THE TIME, was fighting for different reasons than those attribuable now. World politics have changed considerably:

"The uprising was "all a mistake of a handful of people," Walker Lindh told CNN. "This is against what we had agreed upon, and this is against Islam. It is a major sin to break a contract, especially in military situations."

He said he intended to surrender but was drawn into battle when one of his comrades threw a grenade. After taking a bullet in his upper-right thigh, he fled to the basement bunker, where he and dozens of other Taliban remained for seven days. During that time, gasoline was poured into the basement and ignited, and grenades were exploded. "

The US has had difficulty identifying people captured in Afghanistan and what they were trying to do:
Captured "Taliban Commanders" Turn Out To Be Government Officials

and it seems, from reading back over events at the time , it was a lot more complicated than we read about in the newspapers and that a lot of people were captured for three reasons, as far as I can see:

The US was trying to shut down the Taliban training camps and trainees as fast as they could

They were trying to minimise the number of people who were going to help bring in arms from Pakistan

They were trying to put pressure on the Taliban to hand over Oussama bin Laden

It would appear that people like John Walker Lindh and David Hicks, who were in Afghanistan at the time of the US round up, were actually there, not for totally innocent reasons perhaps, but for something that was not what we think it is . They had no access to TV and news. We had programmes showing us that the Afghanis had no idea why the US were bombing them. We knew. We had tele.

It's also because of the net I know about John Walker Lindh and his reasons for being there. At no stage has our government done what the US government and media have done and explained to us what David Hicks was doing there. Under our laws he has done nothing wrong...all the stuff I said yesterday. Observers will not help. Investigations and clarifications will, but prejudicial government and officials will not help. You have to look at what he was doing at the time, what the laws were at the time and what a mess he is now after 4 years of being held in Guantanomo Bay when other governments got their people out. Sorry to harp on about it, but they did.