Err, Classic, do you want to add a ;) or a :p or something to that last post, or is that serious?

Yeh, I should have - too late now. Thats what I get for posting way past bedtime. Oh well. here it is now. ;)

Ahh, good, moderately right-wing I can get along with ... mass murder is a little more troubling.

Yeh, I'm not into the murder thing.

Judge orders release of 5 terror suspects at Gitmo
 

Put all six of them on the next plane out.

That answers my question from earlier regarding a rough figure of how many are still there.

The control order on David Hicks (the Australian who was held at X-ray) is soon lapsing. He is allowed to speak to the media, and soon will no longer have to report to police three times per week etc.

A man that dangerous ... even his tongue can massacre Americans.

Meanwhile, last I read, the conditions in Guantanamo did such bad things to David Hicks that rumored suggest he cannot conduct a coherent conversation. We should be so proud that we destroyed another dangerous man.

Sucks to be them, eh?

I think he was never terribly bright, but was able to read a statement for a youtube release competently. He was at the very most a very small pawn on the board.

You have no evidence that Hicks was damaged in such a manner by being at Gitmo. I guess he should have thought better of his conscious decision to go and fight the US.

Conscious decision to go and fight the US?????????

He was in Afghanistan on a "self-discovery" thing, and as a Muslim was living with a Muslim organisation, when September 11 happened and the US invaded.
I know of no evidence that he ever made a conscious decision to "go fight the US". Maybe you do, though. Wanna share it?

But...but...surely he'd never have been put in Gitmo if there was no reason, right?

Oh yeah, they were all innocent Muslim tourists discovering Islam... they just happened to all choose the shittiest possible freezing cold ugly remote location, where there were lots of weapons, rocks and caves, and not so many elite mosques or troubling electricity or even roads to get where they were.

Lashkar-e-Toiba
On 11 November 1999, Hicks travelled to Pakistan to study Islam[13][19] and began training with Lashkar-e-Toiba in early 2000[20][21]

In the U.S. military commission charges presented in 2004, the U.S. accused Hicks of training at the Mosqua Aqsa camp in Pakistan, after which he "travelled to a border region between Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and Indian-controlled Kashmir, where he engaged in hostile action against Indian forces".[22]

In a March 2000 letter to his family, Hicks wrote:

don't ask what's happened, I can't be bothered explaining the outcome of these strange events has put me in Pakistan-Kashmir in a training camp. Three months training. After which it is my decision whether to cross the line of control into Indian occupied Kashmir.

In another letter on 10 August 2000, Hicks wrote from Kashmir claiming to have been a guest of Pakistan's army for two weeks at the front in the "controlled war" with India:

I got to fire hundreds of bullets. Most Muslim countries impose hanging for civilians arming themselves for conflict. There are not many countries in the world where a tourist, according to his visa, can go to stay with the army and shoot across the border at its enemy, legally.[23]

During this period, Hicks kept a notebook to document his training in weapon use, explosives and military tactics, in which he wrote that guerilla warfare involved "sacrifice for Allah". He took extensive notes on, and made sketches of, various weaponry mechanisms and attack strategies (including the Heckler & Koch submachine gun, the M16 assault rifle, RPG-7 grenade launcher, anti-tank rockets and VIP security infiltration).[24]

Letters to his family detailed his training:

I learnt about weapons such as ballistic missiles, surface to surface and shoulder fired missiles, anti aircraft and anti-tank rockets, rapid fire heavy and light machine guns, pistols, AK47s, mines and explosives. After three months everybody leaves capable and war-ready being able to use all of these weapons capably and responsibly. I am now very well trained for jihad in weapons some serious like anti-aircraft missiles.[25]

In January 2001, Hicks was provided with funding and an introduction letter from Lashkar-e-Toiba. He then travelled to Afghanistan to attend training at Al-Qaeda camps.[22]


[edit] Afghanistan
Upon arrival in Afghanistan, Hicks went to an al-Qaeda guest house where he met Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a high ranking al Qaeda member. He turned over his passport and indicated to them that he would use the alias "Muhammad Dawood".[22] Hicks allegedly "attended a number of al-Qaeda training courses at various camps around Afghanistan, learning guerilla warfare, weapons training, including landmines, kidnapping techniques and assassination methods.[21] He also allegedly participated in an advanced course on surveillance, in which he conducted surveillance of the U.S. and British embassies in Kabul, Afghanistan." On one occasion when al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden visited an Afghan camp, Hicks questioned bin Laden about the lack of English in training material and subsequently "began to translate the training camp materials from Arabic to English".[21] Hicks wrote home that he'd met Osama bin Laden 20 times but later told investigators he had exaggerated, that he had seen bin Laden about eight times and spoken to him only once.

There are a lot of Muslims who want to meet Osama Bin Laden but after being a Muslim for 16 months I get to meet him.[25]

Prosecutors also allege Hicks was interviewed by Muhammad Atef, an al-Qaeda military commander, about his background and "the travel habits of Australians". In a memoir that was later repudiated by its author, Guantanamo detainee Feroz Abbasi claimed Hicks was "Al-Qaedah's 24 [carat] Golden Boy" and "obviously the favourite recruit" of their al-Qaeda trainers during exercises at the al-Farouq camp near Kandahar. The memoir made a number of claims, including that Hicks was teamed in the training camp with Filipino recruits from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and that during internment in Camp X-Ray. Hicks described his desire to "go back to Australia and rob and kill Jews... crash a plane into a building", and to "go out with that last big adrenalin rush"..[26]

On 9 September 2001, Hicks travelled from Afghanistan to Pakistan to visit a friend.[10] A US Department of Defense statement claimed that, "viewing TV news coverage in Pakistan of the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States" led Hicks to return to Afghanistan to "rejoin his al-Qaeda associates to fight against U.S., British, Canadian, Australian, Afghan, and other coalition forces".[21][13] Hicks arrived in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar where he reported to Saif al Adel, who was assigning individuals to locations, and "armed himself with an AK-47 automatic rifle, ammunition, and grenades to fight against coalition forces". Hicks was given a choice of three locations and chose to join a group of al-Qaeda fighters defending the Kandahar airport. After Coalition bombing commenced in October 2001, Hicks began guarding a Taliban tank position outside the airport. After guarding the tank for a week Hicks, with an LET acquaintance, traveled closer to the battle front in Kunduz where he joined others including John Walker Lindh.[22][21]

Colonel Morris Davis, chief prosecutor for the US office of Military Commissions said "He eventually left Afghanistan and it's my understanding was heading back to Australia when 9/11 happened. When he heard about 9/11, he said it was a good thing (and) he went back to the battlefield, back to Afghanistan, and reported in to the senior leadership of al-Qaeda and basically said, 'I'm David Hicks and I'm reporting for duty'". Davis also compared Hicks' alleged actions to that of those who carried out terrorist attacks such as Bali, the London and Madrid bombings and the Beslan school siege.[27]

Terry Hicks, however, claimed that his son seemed at first unaware, then skeptical, of the September 11 attacks when they spoke on a mobile phone in early November 2001. He also noted David Hicks commented about "going off to Kabul to defend it against the Northern Alliance".[28][12]

In October and November 2001 Hicks wrote multiple letters to his mother Sue King back in Australia. He asked that replies were to be directed to Abu Muslim Australia, a pseudonym he used to circumvent non-Muslim spies he believed intercepted correspondence. In these letters he detailed the validity of Jihad and his own prospect of "martyrdom".

As a Muslim young and fit my responsibility is to protect my brothers from aggressive non-believers and not let them destroy it. Islam will rule again but for now we must have patience we are asked to sacrifice our lives for Allahs cause why not? There are many privileges in heaven. It is not just war it is jihad. One reward I get in being martyred I get to take ten members of my family to heaven who were destined for hell, but first I also must be martyred. We are all going to die one day so why not be martyred?[25]

In November 2005, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program Four Corners broadcast for the first time a transcript of an interview with Hicks, conducted by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in 2002 and other material including a report that Hicks had signed a statement written by American military investigators stating that he had trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, learning guerrilla tactics and urban warfare.[13] The program also reported that Hicks had met Osama bin Laden. That he claimed to have disapproved of the September 11 attacks but to have been unable to leave Afghanistan. He denied engaging in any actual fighting against US or allied forces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hicks