Could it be tat Bush uis giving up on getting his revamped ‘military tribunal’ bill through congress before November?
The military lawyer for Australia’s Guantanamo Bay detainee, David Hicks, is a little reserved over reports that the Government might seek to repatriate Hicks if the United States does not move quickly enough to try him.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said that Hicks's trial "should happen as quickly as possible".
"Were that not to be the case, we would be seeking his return in the same way we did with Mamdouh Habib.”
Major Michael Mori said this "would be news to me. I'm glad the Australian Government is trying to make demands on the US to get David tried.
"Unfortunately, it's something that should have happened probably five years ago when David was first detained."
The Australian government has never show a glimmer of interest in the fate of Hicks, regardless of any pressure put on them from family and the media.
Coming out of the blue like this it looks Johnny Howard is jumping in to take just a bit of pressure of his old mate George W.
If it wasn’t for the fact that real lives are involved here it would be plain comical. Like so many aspects of the WoT, Guantanamo is legally unsustainable. Rushing a bill through to apply some kind of retrospective mechanism to deal with an illegal detention system is not only clownish and inept; it flies in the face of any principles of justice.
Still, putting aside rights and wrongs, we will probably see a very quiet emptying of the Bay with an attempt to sweep the whole mess under the rug. Another Bush success?
4 comments:
"Like so many aspects of the WoT, Guantanamo is legally unsustainable. Rushing a bill through to apply some kind of retrospective mechanism to deal with an illegal detention system is not only clownish and inept; it flies in the face of any principles of justice."
And yet, that is exactly what they're going to do. I think that's going to be part of the post-London terror plot legisaltion we're going to see in early september.
RBE, my radar is telling me that they are going to quietly sink that ship, if I can use a metaphor.
If the Howard government has floated the idea of repatriating Hicks then there is a very strong signal that Bush wants to back off the whole affair.
Howard has been totally immovable in the past, and George is the only reason he would move now.
Just remember, there is a whole world out there watching what the Admin is doing, not just the American people.
Yes, but the admin doesn't care about the whole world, let alone American people who aren't part of the base. Really, this is the first time since I suppose Nixon that you have an administration that actively disdains public opinion here at home and abroad. But at least Nixon dealt with some sort of reality (e.g., talks w/ Soviets, visit to China, etc.) The current administration thinks it makes its own reality and when things don't turn out the way they planned (a la Israeli/Hezbollah conflict, they deny reality and say they turned out the way they wanted anyway.)
I agree to much of that, but I guess at some level the admin must be feeling the increasing isolation.
I still can't see Howard caving in without the call from Bush.
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