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Back on August 25, Australian, David Hicks, was brought before a military commission in Guantanamo, Cuba. This was after almost three years of torture and illegal abuse by the American military authorities. Attending the proceedings were, among Hick’s parents and legal team, an independent Australian legal observer. Lex Lasry, QC, was sent by the Law Council of Australia to observe the proceedings in order to file a report on the hearing. His report of the proceedings was made public on September 15. Scathing in his opinions of the military commissions’ regime, put in place by the Bush administration following the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York City, Mr. Lasry attacked the commission hearing the Hicks case, for its lack of independence; that the case was being heard by a panel that apparently has no appropriate legal training; all of whom admit to having grounds for being prejudiced against the defendant; and all of whom are in the employ of the United States Defense Department, and are subject to the authority of the President of the United States, George W. Bush, the convening authority. In his report, Mr. Lasry took aim at the use of the conspiracy charge in this case, as being too broad in its application, and which is designed to ensure a conviction on the basis of association rather than proper evidence; and that at present there are no formulated rules of evidence. Further, he also lambasted the process on the grounds of there being no independent appeals mechanism. Apparently expecting the release of the report, the Howard government’s attack-dog on legal affairs, the Attorney General, Mr. Phillip Ruddock, wasted no time in weighing into the report in a news conference held on the same day the report was released. Mr. Ruddock, whose reputation comes from being arguably the worst immigration minister since the official death of the White Australia policy, stated that the government will not protest to the Bush administration about the United States military commissions which are trying Hicks, and are set to try another Australian, picked up while travelling in Pakistan, Mamdouh Habib. In the case of Habib, the United States government transported him to Egypt for “Rendition”—the euphemism the United States government uses to describe the process of torturing suspects to elicit information, while at the same time lamely claiming that the United States Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, was not in breach of both the United States’ internal law against the use of torture, or international law. Mr. Ruddock said that: “The reason for a military commission process rather than a civilian court is because civilian courts require evidence to be adduced in open court in a way in which, if it is security-related, it cannot be protected.” This brings to the fore the circular reasoning of the Howard Liberal government. The decision of the Australian government to go to an illegal war, according to the Prime Minister, John Howard, was based on intelligence reports—the same sort of security-related reports that Mr. Ruddock now wishes to protect. However, it has been found that since the war in Iraq that just about all of the “intelligence” that the government relied upon were lies which came from individuals and organisations associated with the former head of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi, who was a protégé of John W. Rendon, was a close friend of Richard Pipes; and through Pipes, to the other American neo-conservatives surrounding, and including, the present Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Their help was vital to get the Iraqi Liberation Act through congress. The reason why intelligence cannot be accepted as evidence by courts of law is that the veracity of the provider is not testable in an open court—as is well known, all evidence in a properly constituted court is open to being tested—and there are often a variety motivations in play, by those who provide the information and those who accept it. None of it can be adequately traced back to the sources, and the sources cannot be charged and gaoled for contempt, for providing false evidence or information. While it is touching to see Mr. Ruddock having such a respect for this material, he would be the last person to be amendable to facing the kind of kangaroo courts that the Americans run in Guantanamo. |