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Down Under
"I'm a true blue Aussie," Guantanamo detainee tells Howard
2006-07-07
David Hicks: Jihadi pussy. And a groveling one at that...
SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian held at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years has written a pleading letter to Prime Minister John Howard, insisting he is a "true blue Aussie" and not an evil terrorist.
Somebody get David some extra bedsheets. And maybe another belt...
David Hicks, who was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 after allegedly fighting alongside the ousted Taliban regime, implores Howard to secure his release from the US military prison in Cuba. "I am determined to fit back into society and be a model citizen," Hicks, 31, writes in the letter, a copy of which was obtained Friday by AFP. "I am not an evil person or a risk to the Australian public and it saddens me that some may think so. On the contrary, I like to think of myself as a true blue Aussie. Australia is in my heart and forever will be."
I'm a victim of coicumstances, I tell ya!
His lawyer David McLeod said Friday that Howard had not responded, or even acknowledged the letter, written on January 21, 2005.
Dear David,
Eat shit and die.
Regards,
Office of the Prime Minister

Hicks' description of himself in the letter is at odds with the charges laid by the United States and the strong comments of the Australian government which insists it has no sympathy for the inmate. The former ranch-hand, or "jackeroo" in the Australian outback, was one of a handful of Guantanamo detainees scheduled to face a special military tribunal. The Muslim convert was charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the enemy after allegedly training in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Hicks' father Terry informed his son of the [Hamdan] Supreme Court ruling in a two-hour telephone conversation on Friday. He told AFP his son took little comfort in the ruling and was close to breaking point.
Is he closer to the breaking point then he was closer to the breaking point 2 years ago, Pops?
"He said if I have to go another 12 months I do not know if I will last," Hicks' father said.
Oh, I'll bet he will. Just so he can complain about being closer to the breaking point...
"He was agitated, he was angry. It was terrible to listen to him," added Hicks, who requested permission through Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs to phone his son several months ago. Hicks said his son was facing tougher conditions in the US military prison since the suicide of three inmates last month. "They have taken all his rights off him," he told AFP. "No books, no writing. He has nothing. On occasions they take his clothing and turn the air conditioning on cold, up as high as it can go," he added. "They are pushing him to the limits." He said David no longer wanted to see Australian consular officials and believed they were misrepresenting his circumstances and failing to pass on his list of grievances. Hicks last received a consular visit two weeks before the June 10 suicides, according to McLeod. Prime Minister John Howard last month described the report from that visit as "positive."

There was no immediate comment Friday from Australia's foreign affairs department. Political opponents and legal experts have rounded on Howard's government for doing nothing to help free Hicks. While Britain secured the release from Guantanamo of its nine nationals and argued the tribunals did not meet international legal standards, Howard supported the process. Since the Supreme Court ruling, he has urged Washington to find another means of trying Hicks.
John Howard's nobody's fool.
In the letter, the father of two wrote that his memories of Australia had kept him going. "I have walked her sandy beaches and rugged coastlines. Been a jackeroo in the northern bush and shorn sheep in the south. Its memories and character live on inside me," he wrote, and begged to be reunited with his "loving family."
Man, get out the big, GIANT violin...
Posted by:tu3031

#11  *happy sigh* I do love when Rantburg's poetry brigade gets up a head of steam!
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-07-07 20:51  

#10  A true blue aussie? Then he will accept a couple beers isn't it?
Posted by: JFM   2006-07-07 16:16  

#9  #5 With apologies to the traditional Australian ballad, Wild Colonial Boy:

There was an Aussie Jihadi
Dave Hicks it was his name
He fought 'long side the Taliban
An idea that was lame
He wound up with the Gitmo Guyz
This former jackeroo
Now he reads his Koran and gets a tan
With nothing else to do

I sit on me rug "True Blue"
With no barbi or lamb in view
I've complained to the chef
But he was with lst MEF
I bugger a ru for some stew!

....apologies as well.






Posted by: Besoeker   2006-07-07 15:06  

#8  Tim Blair directs our attention to poor beleaguered Hicks' other writings:

In his letters to his family, Hicks tells them his training in Pakistan and Afghanistan is designed to ensure "the Western-Jewish domination is finished, so we live under Muslim law again". He denounces the plots of the Jews to divide Muslims and make them think poorly of Osama bin Laden. After reading aloud a letter from his son warning him to ignore "the Jews' propaganda war machine", Terry Hicks smiles affectionately and says: "I think David's told me off in his way there."
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-07-07 14:51  

#7  A real, live nephew
Of me Uncle Bruce
Born on the 2-6 of Jan...
(with apologies to George M. Cohen)
Posted by: eLarson   2006-07-07 14:36  

#6  As my dear friend MSgt Han (ROK Marines) used to say, "They here, I find, they die". That eliminates all the kind of crap we're seeing now.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2006-07-07 13:39  

#5  With apologies to the traditional Australian ballad, Wild Colonial Boy:

There was an Aussie Jihadi
Dave Hicks it was his name
He fought 'long side the Taliban
An idea that was lame
He wound up with the Gitmo Guyz
This former jackeroo
Now he reads his Koran and gets a tan
With nothing else to do
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2006-07-07 13:35  

#4  Sorry sunshine, you converted to the RoP and that means we can't ever take anything you say again at face value. That taqqiya is a real bugger innit?
Posted by: Tony (UK)   2006-07-07 13:32  

#3  "I keep tryin' ta think, but nuttin' happens!"
Posted by: mojo   2006-07-07 13:28  

#2  I'm a victim of coicumstances, I tell ya!
Yeah,yeah, that's it. I wuz jus' on a walk about ... looking at da Buddha statues, da Blue Mosque, da poppy fields an' all of a sudden I'm here in Gitmo. I didn't do nuthing I tells ya...
Posted by: GK   2006-07-07 12:59  

#1  Been a jackeroo in the northern bush and shagged shorn sheep in the south.

There, fixed that one...
Posted by: Raj   2006-07-07 12:19  

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