Australian voters kicked Prime Minister John Howard out of office yesterday. Howard was even more of a groveler to Bush than Tony Blair.Â
One step Bush took to try to help Howard win reelection was to release Australian David Hicks from Guantanamo earlier this year.  As part of the deal for his release, Hicks had to promise to keep his mouth shut about how he was tortured until after the Australian election – and to sign a statement swearing he was not abused while at Gitmo. The release deal stunk to high heaven, but it was typical of the candor & ethics of the Global War on Terror.
Here’s the segment on Hicks’s case from a story I wrote in July for the American Conservative:
The torture of David Hicks, an Australian seized in Afghanistan and sent to Gitmo in early 2002, became an international cause célèbre. Hicks, who joined the Kosovo Liberation Army, a terrorist organization supported by the U.S. government, before fighting alongside the Taliban, was sexually assaulted, beaten with a rifle butt, kept in isolation in the dark for 244 days, prohibited from sleeping for long periods, threatened with firearms during interrogations, and psychologically tormented.
He was one of the first people tried by the Gitmo military tribunals. Though former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once called him one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, after Hicks agreed to plead guilty to material support of terrorism, he was sentenced to nine months confinement—a typical sentence for a misdemeanor in most states. As part of his plea agreement, Hicks was obliged to declare that he “had never been illegally treated by any person or persons while in the custody and control of the United States†and to swear that his guilty plea was made voluntarily, despite all the beatings he had received.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
What happens if now that howard and his warmongers are gone, Hicks decides to speak out? Will the CIA kidnap him and drag him to GITMO?
AH, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!
As an Australian living in America, I am glad to see the back of the Howard government – I hope he enjoys his retirement.
Klyde – I think the CIA would be ill-advised to conduct a kidnapping in Australia with the new government in charge.
Now if only the German government would carry through the arrest warrants for a busload of CIA agents and accomplices for the kidnapping of the German citizen in Macedonia in 2003….
And the Italians will follow through with the “Spy’s that came in from the hot-tub”
Pull OUT all TROOPS NOW
You’ve got that right. And stop the torture, America.
they always replace one lackey for another
another enemy of America gets his due.
“Democracy”, eh, Mr. Howard? How do you like THEM APPLES?
John Howard was a terrific Prime Minister of Australia and he was the second longest to serve. By the way, he came into office long before President Bush arrived on the scene and his victory was more about people wanting generational change and “new blood” than anything about Bush.
And by the way, the trend is just the opposite. Look at Chirac in France? He oppossed Bush and got booted out and now we have a really great man and great friend in President Sarkozy. Also, the German people elected a conservative in Merkel. So don’t get too carried away by Howard’s defeat.
to tim
Chirac got booted out mor for his domestic policies rather then being anti bush, its in the French pschye to be a bit distant from American influence, cultural or otherwise.
Exactly. Chirac is a nice speaker but typically upper-crust corrupt. Also someone so accustomed to sweet-talking, dealing and wheeling that France basically didn’t budge for 10 years and social and economic ills are starting to get out of hand (not yet sure if Sarko will fix anything but Ségo certainly would not have done so).
He was NOT booted out because he opposed Bush. Actually, Sarkos efforts at make shocking obedience (borrowing an expression from Lovecraft) to the Bush elicits a lot of deeply furrowed brows in the Café.
And Koushner should get his head examined pronto.
Of course Tim would be enthralled with a Mossad asset running France.
The comment about Chirac and Sarkozy shows deep lack of understanding (very typical in the US).
1) Chirac was not booted out, he had served 2 terms, was an old man with health issues, and there was never any serious considerations for him to be a candidate again. He was NOT a candidate.
2) Sarkozy is from the same party as Chirac, and while there are subtle differences in their policies and indeed personal rivalries, they have been working together for almost 20 years.
3) Sarkozy is merely using a slightly different set of tactics with the US. Make no mistake, he is not an idiot and he knows full well that Bush is a dimwit, and he is certainly 100% in agreement with the views Chirac had while he was President (which he himself supported during all those years). He has however determined that taking a visibly contrarian attitude (as was the case with Chirac) is too costly economically and politically and that it is easier to placate the fools with some tactically chosen shows of support… up until some limit. He is no idiot or bootlicker and he is just taking advantage of the overly simplist american mantra “you are with us or against us” and of the uneducated, uninformed, manichean and superficial Americans (like you seem to be, Tim, I am sorry).
4) Neither Sarkozy nor Merkel are conservatives, or at least their policies would be considered left of liberal (borderline socialistic) by any objective standards in the US. Take tax regimes, take property rights, take state involvement in the economy, or in health care, or in retirement plan (Sarkozy is spending a good chunk of his time discussing retirement plans with unions of specific state owned companies right now, where some of those unions are communist – how is that?). Calling Merkel or Sarkozy conservative is similar to calling Mrs. Clinton a communist… sounds fun but meaningless.
Altogether, you should stop looking at world politics through the prism of local American politics… that would definitely foster your understanding.
Finally the politically uninformed (The basis of a real democracy is an informed society) Australian public voted out the right wing puppet of Bush to hell for all the wrong reasons-high interest rates etc,however for what its worth at least Australian may well regain the respect of the world, which Howard threw away away for over 11 years.
Only time will tell. To be honest its a no brainier to blindly follow a faded, hated, arrogant, irrelevant power like the USA. It reminds me of Sancho Panza and Don Quijote and we all know Mr Quihote was mad but so was his man friday Aka: Howard, Blair, Azner,Uribe Garcia,and of course Sancho.
Bravo Neutrality and self Determination that is one hopes the future of Australia.
I hope Australia manages to escape the impending implosion of the U.S. economy. When that happens, you won’t want to have anything to do with Uncle Georgie.
he still has Brown/Sarkozy and Merkel on the leash though.
Any German leader will be ” on the leash ” for one reason: as part of Israel’s ” Samson strategy ” if that corrupt, hypocritical, lieing, sadistic regime is ever about to be brought down it will use it’s nukes to take down several countries along with it…the Germans fear that they would be one of those countries..the death of millions of innocents..Surprised? That contempt of gentile life comes straight from the Talmud…That’s why I always refer to the Zionists as lieing, thieving, HYPOCRITES…
Bill Federkiel:
In my judgment you are a bigot, a Jew hater, a fierce anti-semite. To suggest Israel would nuke Germany or other countries is preposterous and needs no more discussion. As to the Talmud, yes, there are some terrible things in there, however, I as a Jew totally repudiate them and I think the majority of Jews, including reform, conservative and even some of the more modern orthodox repudiate any form of racist statements in the Talmud. And by the way, there are also some very sublime statements in the Talmud you might wish to focus on. For instance, Rebbe Akiva in the Ethics of the Fathers says, "Beloved is man for he was created in the image of God." Notice he says man, all mankind, not just Jews.
And it is also funny how you focus on the Talmud but make no mention of the Quran. Where is your condemnation of Muslims for not speaking out against the vile, racist, sexist, and homophobic passages of the Quran? Where in the Talmud does it say to go an cut peoples body parts off for stealing? Well, it says such things in the Quran but you let the Muslims off the hook while you focus on your hatred of Jews.
No political discussion is complete without invoking the Qu’ran, is it? Funny how you present the reprehensible passages in the Talmud as aberrations of an otherwise laudable doctrine, yet take the words of Islamic radicals, and not verses from the Qu’ran, as representative of Islam as a whole. Note, too, that condemning the racism implicit in Zionism does not necessarily equate to attacking the Jewry as a whole, though this fellow does appear to have overtones of both. Confronted with the logical end result of the very methods you use to demonize Islam, you retreat behind a smokescreen of allegations of racial and religious hatred and special pleading. Curiously, despite your disavowal of these select Talmudic passages, you don’t seem to entertain the notion that Muslims might do the same with distasteful Qu’ranic verses (examples of which you have yet to produce). The historical-critical method isn’t confined to Christianity or Judaism.
Tim R – “is preposterous and needs no more discussion”
The Samson option truly is preposterous Timmy, but needs much more discussion so that the public of the Western world understands what their elites unleashed by supporting this festering little sore of a “state” and its murderous agenda.
And please, stop using the semitic reference when discussing Israel. The Ashkenazis are not a semitic people. They are white Europeans.
Correction:
The Ashkenazis are not “white Europeans”.
They are descended from the Khazarian tribes who established a regional empire between the Black and Caspian seas and, whose elite converted to Judaism in approximately 750AD to spite the Caliph of Bagdad (ie, civilisation) and Russia (ie barbary) both of which tried to force them into their respective spheres of influence.
The Khazarians are, of course, themselves descended from Turko-Mongolian stock. The Ashkenazis’ “white” appearance is only due to their intermixing with the Slavic peoples of Central Europe.
Good riddance Mr. Howard! Hopefully, the world can survive another year of Mr. Bush. Too bad America doesn’t have an opposition party to replace the Republicrats.
There were many reasons for Howards demise, I for one would like to see a Royal Commission into Howards part in the Invasion of Iraq. That enquiry should have wide powers of investigation and any recommendations for prosecution should be pursued without fear or favour.
Although I’m happy to see HoWARd lose, I’m even happier he even lost his seat of Bennelong. But, I doubt Labour’s Rudd will be any different. He said he wanted to get some troops out of Iraq (we’ll see if that actually happens), he wants even more for Afghanistan (he said it). I’m waiting for the war crimes tribunal against Bush, Blair and Howard. It’s futile, I know.
Yep,
Rudd is Howard lite I’m afraid. The ALP ceased to be social democrats under Hawke and Rudd’s presidential style will see a continued move to the right. His fawning toward the US/UK/Israeli axis will ensure that the erosion of our sovereignty will continue apace.
It really doesn’t matter if Howard goes or not. Howard and Blair (and Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle)were necessary in order to get the USA into Iraq.
Once there, it’s a fait accompli. So Howard and Blair can go. In fact, it’s better if they do go. It makes their countries actually look sovereign and prevents any mass protest from the Australian and British people. Some with the Poles. All these countries have a negligible presence in Iraq. And if they want to they can just hire any Australian, British or Polish soldiers who want to stay back as mercenaries.