David Hicks & The Stench of Hypocrisy
I came this close the other day of accusing Vice President Dick Cheney of engineering the plea bargain that will spring Al Qaeda supporter David Hicks from his five-year, all-expenses-paid stay at Guantánamo Bay, the flagship hotel of the Rumsfeld Gulag, to his native Australia. That is where he will serve a mere nine months in an Adelaide jail before being released on New Year’s Day.
Hicks, the first and only Gitmo detainee to even be brought to trial, was in line to receive a life sentence.
The veep’s hypocritical behavior is legendary, and sure enough Mr. Tough on Terrorism was so tapped into the Hicks plea bargain, negotiated after a trip Down Under where Australian Prime Minister John Howard asked Cheney to save his political ass, that Gitmo prosecutors weren’t even aware that a deal was being cut.
Instead, it was one Susan J. Crawford, a top military commission official who served as Cheney’s Inspector General while he was Defense Secretary, who cut the deal with Hicks’ lawyers.
Amazing. Just freaking amazing.
More here.
14 Responses to “David Hicks & The Stench of Hypocrisy”
I have no evidence of this, but I suspect part of the deal could be for Howard to continue to make unflattering comments about Democratic contenders for the WH. Call me cynical.
Kim: you’re cynical.
Shaun: typical, that you slam Cheney despite having no evidence that he did anything in this case (you surely can’t conclude Cheney was involved from the article you linked to). And just to check where you are on the hypocrisy scale, shall I presume from your post that you wanted Hicks to serve a longer sentence?
Yep, and there’s certainly no reason whatsoever for people to be cynical with this bunch right?
Stevesturm:
Come on, my man! Circumstantially, Cheney was involved. Read the WaPo story to which I linked at it is beyond obvious that there was a quid pro quo with his bloody hands all over it.
I know from previous posts that you are a Bush administration sycophant and support the degradation of American jurisprudence over the last six-plus years. You’re entitled to that. After all, America is still a free country. Kind of.
As to Hicks: We’ll never know what is really going on and whether the life sentence that he was threatened with was appropriate. Oh, wait! Under the plea bargain, he only has to keep his trap shut for a year.
For what it’s worth, my Aussie friends are not sympathetic toward Hicks, whom they note suffers from Little Man Complex, which got him in a sh*tload of trouble when he started hanging out with the wrong crowd.
But Aussies are fiercely patriotic and they didn’t like what the U.S. was doing to their countryman. This was a threat to the Howard-Conservative Party hegemony, which resulted in the back-door plea deal.
Maybe we can create a state for loyal Bushies to live where they never have to face propaganda from the left-leaning msm again, and where truthiness is the law of the land. They could make George their first monarch and do away with the constitution, and checks and balances altogether.
Kritter:
Excellent idea. They can call it the State of Denial.
Shaun: once again you confuse my disagreement/criticism of you with sycophancy towards Bush. That’s fair, it’s still a free country and as such, you’re free to make mistakes. But as much as you might not think it possible, someone can both very much dislike Bush and think you offer up very little to support your anti-Bush rantings (let’s, for the sake of argument, call that person a ‘moderate’). And, in this case, despite your claims to the contrary, you offer nothing – as does the article you cite – that proves Cheney took any action in response to Howard’s request. This isn’t to say that Cheney wasn’t involved, or that it’s not hypocrisy and a bad precedent for the Adminstration to let Hicks get away with such a short sentence, which it is, it’s simply – and yes, simply – that you’ve once again failed to back up your accusations. But don’t let this stop you, you have lots of loyal readers for whom your slams againt Bush and company are good enough. Again, it’s a free country and you’re free to play to the uninformed. Here’s an interesting thought: creationists have more evidence to back up their beliefs than you do about Bush.
Kim: yeah, all those who disagree with your side are corrupt, racist, power-hungry, sexist, selfish, homophobic and generally not nice people who wish to undo the Constitution. As such, the faster your side regains power so you can confiscate our property and send us all to re-education, the better it will be for the country.
Todays quote on my Quote of the Day page:
It’s here already… it’s calls itself RedState.
SteveK- If they don’t mind liberal trolls, they can also hang out at “Blogs for Bush”.
SteveS- It was a joke —-I’d never give up the state of Maryland- maybe Virginia would do in a pinch!
Kim: sorry, us Virginians aren’t real happy with Bush right now… not as unhappy as you Marylanders are, and for different reasons, but unhappy nonetheless. So where do we stick the few remaining Bush koolaid drinkers?
They can volunteer for the cause, Steve S. With all of the relaxed recruiting standards, many would be eagerly welcomed. Nothing like walking the walk!
C’mon Kim, you’re not going for the chickenhawk garbage, are you? Besides, given that drinking the koolaid is a sign of mental illness, do we really want them in the military?
Actually, at this point, I would like every single one of them to take their turn at spreading democracy. They can make W’s victory a reality. They should view it as an honor to serve such a global visionary, lol!