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Were YOU aware of the US privileged position on war crimes? Our Foreign Minister - a South Australian federal representative - Mr Downer MUST have known, since Australia voted in favour of the UN proposal. Think about the implications for Guantanamo Bay and in Abu Ghraib.
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"Washington negotiated special dispensation when the International Criminal Court came into being two years ago, arguing that as the world's only superpower, it might be subject to spurious or malicious prosecutions.
The US secured the UN's agreement by threatening to veto all its peacekeeping operations.
The exemption - which gives US soldiers immunity from international prosecution when serving on UN-backed missions - was passed in 2002 on an annual-renewal basis.
Last year, the vote passed 12-0, with France, Germany and Syria abstaining."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3736683.stm
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"The UN Security Council has granted US peacekeepers another year of immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) by 12 votes to none.
[...]
It [the US] is currently drawing up agreements with individual governments that bar them from surrendering American nationals to the court, and has signed nearly 40 such agreements so far.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2986086.stm
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Let's not forget that David Hicks is a South Australian, and that the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, is also South Australian. You would think that if anyone could count on assistance from the Foreign Affairs Department, it would be David Hicks - but not a bit of it!
07:56 AEST Thu Jul 1 2004
Hicks military lawyer Major Michae Mori, says of the US military commission:
"The US doesn't see it as a fair system to try their citizens, there is only one country that has come out publicly acknowledging the military commission process is fair for their citizens and that's Australia."
NOTE THE LAST PART OF THAT STATEMENT !
Full article:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=6483
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Remember, all Hicks is really accused of is foolishly involving himself with al Qaeda - he hasn't actually DONE anything other than that, at least so far as we know.
In case anyone thinks it isn't possible to obtain the release of people like the Australian detainees David Hicks and Mundo Habib, have a look at this UK example.
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=541373§ion=news
Mon 5 July, 2004 01:45
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. officials reluctantly agreed to return five terrorism suspects to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year as part of a deal involving Britain, according to The New York Times.
Citing senior American and British officials, all who spoke on condition of anonymity, the newspaper reported on Sunday the arrangement called for Saudi officials to release five Britons and two others convicted of guerrilla attacks in Saudi Arabia.
The Britons' Saudi lawyer told Reuters he had suggested an exchange of prisoners. "I presented this proposal but until now I was under the impression that my proposal was not accepted," lawyer Salah al-Hejailan said. "I said some of the Saudi detainees (in Guantanamo) could be released."
[...]
Officials would not identify the five or describe in detail the evidence on which they had been held at Guantanamo. One U.S. official said two of the detainees had attended al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
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"The September 11 commission investigating the terrorist attacks in 2001 found no credible evidence that Iraq had aided the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda to mount the attacks on New York and Washington.
Defence Minister Robert Hill said Australia had joined the war on Iraq because of the inability of the United Nations to act over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
[...]
No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=national&category=general%20news&story_id=314759&y=2004&m=6
Yet another example of a federal government minister representing South Australia proving himself incompetent. Our Nation has gone to war on the basis of inexcusable lies promulgated by a supposed ally and all we have done is comply. On this basis, Mr Hill is not the sort of person I want representing me in federal parliament.
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Although we believe the reason for going to war in Iraq to highly flawed and a gross misjudgment of ours as well as US intelligence sources, we are fully behind our service personnel currently serving there and wish them all a safe return to their homes and families.
OK, so why is our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq relevant to South Australia?
Of course, some of the armed services personnel are South Australian, and David Hicks is South Australian, too.
More importantly, the effect of the diversion of so much of our country's resources into the supporting of overseas wars is inevitably that less is available for important projects at home, such as the refurbishment of the River Murray. Additionally, our presence in Iraq in particular, necessarily inflames to passions of extremist Moslems (and they have a point) making us more vulnerable to terrorist behaviour than would otherwise be the case. Not only that, but there is an adverse effect on the peaceful multiculturism we all cherish
Let's be clear. We should never have gone "All the way with GBJ" and become involved with the "Bush Adventure".