leaving people behind

A double-barrelled post today, running and some thoughts of David Hicks.

Running
The main feature of the weekend passed was a jaunt along the Koonung trail from Springvale to Bulleen road and back. According to Em’s footpod/GPS/magic-whiz-bang thing it was 24.5k, which sounds allright to me.

The first half was quite relaxed and chatty; the return leg less so. That was mainly because the boys let Em drop off the back of the pack and pushed the pace up fair bit for a substantial negative split.

Others left behind - David Hicks
I’m not sure whether the weekend’s news on David Hicks qualifies as good news or not. I’m inclined to think it’s good news for everyone concerned. Not pleasant, but good. It’s like being in a dentist’s waiting room for 3 days, listening to the sound of drills and muffled screaming and then finally having your name called. It’s not good, but at least it’s closer to being over.

So David Hicks has been charged, finally. At least we know what we’re looking at now. Basically, one charge of aiding Al Qaeda. One count of attempted murder. Hmmm, I’ll come back to that in a minute.

A lot of people from my side of the political spectrum make the mistake of trying to defend Hicks himself. However much of a decent bloke his Dad is, David Hicks himself seems to have been an unpleasant, violent, deluisional, anti-semitic, brain-washed little prick. What’s more, he clearly spent a lot of time intentionally following around a bunch of lunatic mass-murdering fanatics.

As far as I’m concerned, if you can prove he’s committed a crime - murder, conspiracy, whatever - try him, convict him and lock him up. I have no problem with that. That’s justice.

The problem is, the US have never had much interest in justice in this case. They’re much happier to lock him up and throw away the key. And that’s an abuse of power.

Even now, I don’t think the charges are that impressive. In a normal court, with normal rules of evidence, would either of these charges stick?

Helping Al qaeda wasn’t a crime at the time. Can he really be convicted of something that wasn’t illegal? Attempted murder is iffy too. If he believed he was fighting for the government of Afghanistan (the Taliban) against another force, that’s war. It’s not murder. The US might want to define everything in the world as part of the “war on terror”, but I don’t think that would really wash.

Hicks’ lawyer, who’s no pushover, will probably appeal and drag the whole process out for a couple of years, until absolutely no-one wins.

The best thing to do is what they should have done from the start - try him in a proper court, or let him go.

The moral of the story is - even rabid monsters deserve justice.