WHAT WAS HE DOING IN AFGHANISTAN??? HAVING A PICNIC??? Whingeing David Hicks has a lot to say sorry for Miranda Devine Saturday, December 13, 2014 (11:03pm) CONVICTED terrorist David Hicks, aka Mohammed Daw-ood, the one-time al-Qaeda golden boy, is at it again, playing the victim, and being applauded by leftist stooges like Sarah Hanson-Young. It’s bad enough that Hicks was invited to a Human Rights Commission event in Sydney on Thursday. But the fact he was praised for heckling Attorney-General George Brandis shows the threat of Islamist terrorism still hasn’t sunk in with a lot of foolish people. “Hey, my name is David Hicks!” he shouted. “I was tortured for five-and-a-half years in Guantanamo Bay in the full knowledge of your party. What do you have to say?” Well there’s a lot to say to Hicks; like how about he apologise for hotfooting it to Afghanistan to take up arms against the US and its ally Australia, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. How about recanting his praise for Osama bin Laden, whom he admits to meeting. He could thank the Howard government for its successful lobbying to have him released early from Guantanamo Bay with a lenient sentence after he pleaded guilty to “providing material support to a terrorist organisation”. And how about some gratitude for the forbearance of this nation, whose enemies he fought alongside in Afghanistan, even as our soldiers were being killed by his comrades? Most people would treasure the second chance Hicks has received of a peaceful life back home, a gift which isn’t available to the victims of the Bali bombings or all the other Islamist atrocities perpetrated by his one-time fellow jihadists. But not Saint Dawood of Guantanamo. He is full of aggrieved self-pity, egged on by his lawyers and the likes of the Sydney Writers’ Festival luvvies who gave him a standing ovation three years ago. His latest outburst was prompted by the release last week of the United States Senate Democrats’ one-sided “CIA torture report”. Confronting though the cherrypicked catalogue of brutality is — and the more extreme examples of “enhanced interrogation” of suspected terrorists are indefensible — the fact is that the CIA saved thousands of lives. It helped avert terrorist strikes, including fresh outrages potentially from Hambali, the perpetrator of the 2002 Bali bombing, which killed 88 Australians. That is not to excuse excesses, but mistakes are made in war and lessons are only learned if context is taken into account. In a detailed rebuttal of the torture report last week, seven former CIA directors and deputy directors, including George J. Tenet, offered proof that the CIA saved lives. Two examples: Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda operative, and Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, aka KSM, the 9/11 mastermind. “Information provided by Zubaydah through the interrogation program led to the capture in 2002 of KSM associate and post-9/11 plotter Ramzi Bin al-Shibh. Information from both Zubaydah and al-Shibh led us to KSM. “KSM then led us to Riduan Isamuddin, aka Hambali, East Asia’s chief al-Qaeda ally and the perpetrator of the 2002 Bali bombing in Indonesia, in which more than 200 people perished. “The removal of these senior al-Qaeda operatives saved thousands of lives because it ended their plotting. KSM, alone, was working on multiple plots when he was captured.” Today we find ourselves in a parallel universe in which terrorists like David Hicks are the victims. Hicks has complained for years that he was “tortured” at Guantanamo, and in his biography claims he was beaten, blindfolded, forced to wear unwashed clothes and sleep under bright lights. No doubt he was treated roughly when he was captured by US troops in Afghanistan in December, 2001. He was an “enemy combatant” in a war zone, who had been extensively trained in al-Qaeda camps. He posed a danger every bit as lethal as the homegrown Islamic State recruits of today. As Colonel Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for the US Office of Military Commissions, which convicted Hicks, told me: “One of the things that made Hicks a real concern, of real value to the other side was he looks like he could walk through any Australian or British or American crowd. He didn’t stand out. “His support for (the Islamist) cause could potentially be a bigger asset … because he was assimilated into western culture, one of those hapless dupes who got sent out on missions.” The hapless dupes who strap on suicide belts. Hicks has never shown any remorse, and now he has seized another opportunity for self-justification, and potential enrichment. The immediate consequence of the CIA torture report is a call for compensation for all detainees at Guantanamo. The longer-term consequence is an even more dangerous world in which we lack the resolve to defend ourselves. You only have to look at the fate of the poor people of Syria and the persecuted Christians and Yazidis of Iraq to see where that leads.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 07:04:51 +0000
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