Just a reminder that the Australian Story program with David Hicks on it, is on tonight at 8:30 on ABC1.
Whatever you think, I guess this is a chance to see if you think there really was anything behind it, or not to bother.
great show, he spoke well and I recon litttle jonny and the other liberal
mungbean or two[ruddock and downer] took great satisfaction to screw him
foolish young buck, that has learnt a lesson as we all did,do
i reckon hicks was not entirely truthful about his motives for being where he was in the first place, but he didn't deserve to be treated the way he was. if he was any sort of terrorist mastermind the yanks would have tortured a confession out of him and charged him accordingly. all they got was an admission of being a foot soldier for the losing team.
WTF? 
Being retrospectively charged with a crime that we 'just made up'?
Thats like charging everyone one for speeding doing 110 when 5 years later they reduce the limit to 100? (Actually its more like charging the passengers in the car for speeding because the new law states that 'everyone travelling at a speed greater than the posted limit'
They guy was a tool but bullsh1t govt decisions like that do more for the Al Quieda propaganda machine than any smooth talking bearded man buried at sea could ever do.
I've seen 2 of the 4 remaining original magna carta documents... maybe the Yanks should go have a look too...
Young people make some serious mistakes. Sometimes they end up in serious excrement or even dead because of it.
At least he is still alive and from what I saw, a very much better person than I imagined him to be 10 years ago.
Why would I imagine he was worse 10 years ago?
By his own admission in the letters which he wrote home to his parents, he is tickled pink that he can go to another country and start shooting across the border at other PEOPLE who he had never knew about before and now admits he didn't bother to find out about.
He took the side of vipers who prey on young impressionable fools who are easily sucked in by their supposedly high ideals and religious claptrap to turn them into canon fodder or suicide bombers.
Almost all the suicide bombers could tell the same story.
Had the situation not developed the way it did I think he would have ended up totally brainwashed and probably be back in Australia planting bombs.
Either that or lying on some flee infested worthless piece of stony dirt in Afghanistan with a bullet in his head becuase the person he was firing at decided to fire back.
Had he actually shot anyone he would also deserve to be shot.
He says he didn't, that's fine, but that's what he went there to do, that's what he was training for, and that's what he found exciting about it.
The fact that he didn't shoot anybody is his good fortune not his good plannign or intentions as by his own admission, his planning and intent was to the contrary.
He should be grateful for the fact that he is still alive.
And we can be grateful that he seems to have changed his beliefs.
He certainly comes across as a decent person now and I am happy to accept that.
He needs to stop dragging his past back into the public eye and looking for sympathy and compensation. For the most part he wont get it and it will only drag him down into self pity and depression.
He was WRONG. He paid for it. Move on.
I only caught bits of it
Lucky for this: iview.abc.net.au
The bits I saw of Downer bleating on about no evidence of torture... WTF... There is not much evidence for ANYTHING! The lack of compassion from that guy makes me sick. Still blowin' Bush all these years later
