Hicks is guilty: get over it and accept the truth

THE Left likes to take its information pre-digested, with pre-formed opinions offered by wannabe celebrities. Whether its Al Gore's hyperbolic disinformation on global warming or a curtain call of aspiring actresses bleating about maggot-free sheep, the fellow travellers prefer the easy intellectual road.

Listening to David Hicks' supporters attempt to justify his guilty plea is a reminder of the shallow nature of those locked into finding causes which serve to amplify their anti-American prejudices. Claiming to seek only justice, they aggressively denigrate those who are actually attempting to see justice applied to advocates of chaos and theocratic tyranny, like their self-confessed terrorist and hero Hicks. It is somewhat ironic that Guantanamo Bay, where Hicks has been held pending appeals and his day in court, probably came to the consciousness of most young Australians through the 1992 film A Few Good Men. Nominated for four Oscars, the movie starred Tom Cruise as Lt Daniel Kaffee, Jack Nicholson as Colonel Nathan R.Jessep and Demi Moore as Lt-Cdr Jo Anne Galloway. It's probably best remembered for Aaron Sorkin's fast-moving script and the following exchange between the tough Nicholson character: "You want answers?'' Cruise's character replies: "I think I'm entitled.'' Nicholson: "You want answers?'' Cruise: "I want the truth.'' Nicholson, contemptuously: "You can't handle the truth.'' And that's how it is with the Hicks' deniers, from his father, Terry (who admitted on December 12, 2001, that his son had called him on September 28 - just 17 days after al-Qaeda's attacks on the World Trade Centre Tower and the Pentagon, and told him he was fighting for the Taliban) to a slew of deluded ratings-chasers like Ray Martin, almost the entire cabal of the ABC's staff commentators, and their sob-sisters at SBS. They can't handle the truth. The current Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has to be added to that list too, though not his predecessor Kim Beazley, who was more prescient about national security matters. Rudd has repeatedly told the ABC's Lateline program that Hicks "should be put before a civilian court, either in America or here''. Bringing him here was never an option, as host Tony Jones pointed out, because it would have involved passing retrospective laws, the option championed by electronics millionaire and adventurer Dick Smith and a handful of other deluded individuals who relied on the deluded views of poisoned civil rights lawyers for guidance. Rudd, however, has pledged that, should he be elected, he would seek advice from the Attorney-General's Department about "an appropriate course of action'' which could result in Hicks being freed. Here's a tip for the ALP's new White Knight: if he or the A-G or anyone else altered the terms of the prisoner transfer agreement under which Hicks is returned to Australia, it would make meaningless every other international agreement on such transfers Australia is party to. Rudd, and other leading Labor figures, were notably absent from the line-up of politicians commenting on Hicks on Tuesday. Clearly, they can't handle the truth. Here's another fact that Hicks' supporters find hard to swallow - US military commissions aren't new. They go back to World War II. Further, the Guantanamo detainees were due to begin appearing before them in 2002 but for a string of appeals - which they were entitled to under Western law, not the Islamist sharia law supported by the Taliban Hicks says he was prepared to die for. The principal flaw was technical. The US Supreme Court found the tribunals had been established by the White House, not Congress, and they were dissolved. But only for a blink. Congress approved them with all haste. The Greens, the Democrats, the ALP and political fringe-dwellers like the former Family Court judge Alastair Nicholson have been talking about upholding the Geneva Convention, but the convention permits holding enemy combatants for the duration of a war. Under its terms, Hicks could languish in Yatala maximum security prison as long as fighting continued in Afghanistan. If there is no war, the convention doesn't apply. Which do they want? Justice Nicholson should just stick to his knitting. It has also been said that Americans wouldn't be subjected to the US military tribunals. That's absolutely true. They were set up to deal with foreign combatants. Most countries, including Australia, have special courts which deal with foreigners on particular matters, but it is worth noting that John Walker Lindh, the US Taliban, faced an American civil court and was rewarded with 20 years in jail. As for hearsay evidence, Australian courts accept hearsay in certain circumstances and there are few trials more demanding of the admission of hearsay than those into crimes conducted during battle. The Hicks' cheer squad won't acknowledge that his father Terry told the press in December 2001 that his son David was a terrorist, saying: "I think of a terrorist as someone with a bomb strapped to him, but he's a terrorist in our eyes as he's fighting against his own kind.'' If they still have trouble accepting reality, perhaps there is another Hollywood film that will help them understand which side David Hicks signed-up with: United 93. Hicks' al-Qaeda friends hijacked four planes on 9/11. Three reached their targets. This is the story of the fourth. On second thoughts, the Hicks lobby won't like this one either. It's too close to the truth they would rather ignore.