Soviet Revisited

Australian ‘terror suspect’ David Hicks has been held at Guantanamo Bay for over four years, under the medieval US ‘rules of war. Now he is facing a secret trial in which, if convicted, that time will count for nothing.
We really don’t know very much about his charges, his defense or any other circumstance of his incarceration.
The sycophantic The Australian government, and PM John Howard, has simply acquiesced to this outrageous behaviour by the US government.
What is really frightening is that this is the behaviour of the former Soviet regimes: foreign nationals, along with their own people were simply disappeared into prisons.
Torture is cleverly ‘contracted out’ to countries that seem to excel at this kind of thing. Although we note that the US jailers, Guantanamo, are not too far behind in more subtle tortures.
Trials were a secretive farce then too, showing no regard for rule of law. The only difference is that we do know these people are their. Albeit, as shadows, beyond our reach in every way.
While the USA, Australia and Briton tout themselves as free societies they are behaving very much in the manner of that old, evil empire of the Soviet Union.
Anti terror laws, enacted and proposed to not increase the security of ordinary citizens. Again, they are getting close to old Soviet measures used to control wayward citizens, rather than to protect them.
All this is being led by an increasingly discredited regime in Washington, a regime whose lies and manipulations are the stuff of racy political fiction.
All too ready to follow, sadly, are compliant (no sycophantic) client states such as Australia and the UK.
We, the people, are being duped in the name of security. Just say NO to the excesses of authoritarian governments and fight like crazy to protect what freedom we still have left.