A dangerous man

According to an AAP report in this morning’s Canberra Times,

CONFESSED terrorism supporter David Hicks is expected to arrive in Adelaide about nine o'clock (Adelaide time) this morning as the US military and the Australian Government maintain a veil of secrecy over his release from Guantanamo Bay.

Hicks is apparently so dangerous that he had to be flown to Adelaide in a privately chartered jet, at a cost to the Australian taxpayer of half a million dollars, according to Greens leader Bob Brown. He is so dangerous that that jet was not permitted into US airspace and had to fly over Mexico, refuelling in the French colony of Tahiti. As the French love terrorism anyway, there was no problem about that. Doubtless all these precautions are well justified. There’s no telling what damage a guy like Hicks could do to the innocent and unsuspecting US, bound and hooded from 38,000 feet after five years under constant scrutiny. He might have managed to secrete some toothpaste and sports drink about his person, and you know what that means. These confessed terrorism supporters are a wily mob.

The ABC, with its more measured ‘Convicted terrorism supporter’ line, reports

He will serve the remainder of his nine-month sentence for providing material support for terrorism alongside some of Australia's most notorious criminals including the infamous bodies in the barrel killers John Bunting and Robert Wagner.

An who could provide more appropriate company for a guy who has never harmed anybody?

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says he does not know if Hicks is dangerous or just deluded.

But there’s no doubt whatsoever about the abominable Ruddock. Thousands of refugees can attest that he is a truly dangerous man. And some have not lived to be able to testify that he wantonly returned them to countries where their fear of persecution was not only well founded, but in the end borne out by their disappearance at the hands of a stable and peaceful state.

Hicks may have confessed under duress, but Howard and Ruddock and Bush and Blair and their ilk freely – proudly – admit their crimes against humanity and fly through any airspace they like.