David Hicks supported the Taliban, which is stupid in all sorts of ways.
What he did not do is "fight" for them. No member of the American government
has even alleged this. And he did not plead guilty to this. Your use of the
term "fought" is a piece of cheap rhetoric without a basis in fact. David
Hicks is a single & singularly ineffective misfit of no great intelligence.
The only way the Bush administration could "convict" him of anything was to
create an extra-legal kangaroo court (appropriate, I suppose, since I hear
in the news that David Hicks is "a former kangaroo skinner") that even then
had to exclude two of Hicks' lawyers at the last minute in order to assure
that it pre-ordained verdict was not contradicted in the public record.
That's what this administration calls due process, apparently. To the
American government under George Bush, Hicks was a useful cipher. That
government brings the whole apparatus of the modern intelligence-state,
however, to bear on both its own citizens & on people around the world. To
say nothing of the unspeakable horror of the Iraq war. This is a government
that declared the Geneva Conventions "quaint." So, Mr. King, take your
lecture about the sins of Mr. Hicks . . . well, take them in put them into
some perspective that is not utterly perverse.
jd
On 3/27/07, Christopher Walker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> <snip>
> I find it telling that my comment generated only rhetoric and not a
> single answer of "Yes I support the right of any free person to join the
> Taliban" or "No, joining an evil government like that is akin to
> joining the German government in 1939". Just rhetoric. [Darren King]
> <snip>
>
> It is a characteristic of free expression that you cannot constrain the
> answers you receive, though clearly you would wish to.
>
> Answers, you received several, referring to the importance of due process
> are neither trivial nor rhetorical. You do not address them.
>
> I referred to Agamben. Agamben (famously) makes a connection between
> Guantanamo and the death camps. His argument, with which it is possible to
> disagree, is far from trivial. He has also written movingly on Auschwitz.
>
> CW
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> "To write and eat at the same table' is harder than it sounds.
> (J H Prynne)
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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