Justice done the American way

David Hicks, the Aussie held at Gitmo, was sentenced yesterday, following what may well have been a forced confession of guilt. After all, when facing the prospect of a kangaroo court finding you guilty without evidence and sentencing you to life in Guantanamo, wouldn't you opt for nine months imprisonment in Australia, your home country? Boy, I sure would, even though Australia isn't my home country. Here's the NY Times account:

The sentence came at the end of a long day in Guantánamo’s military commission courtroom and followed the deliberations of an eight-member panel of military officers. Having deliberated for two hours, the panel returned at 8 p.m. with a sentence of seven years, the maximum it was permitted to impose under the deal in which Mr. Hicks pleaded guilty on Monday.

But the deal also provided that he actually serve the lesser of nine months or whatever sentence the panel arrived at. The balance of the seven years that could have been imposed is considered suspended.

The agreement for just nine additional months of imprisonment was remarkable for a detainee who, before the plea negotiations, had faced a potential life term and had become an international symbol of many of the 385 detainees here.

Hmmm. Here's this "hardened criminal terrorist" who's had to be held incommunicado for five full years in the Gitmo hell hole because otherwise the U.S. might be destroyed. For all of that, nine months in jail in Australia, where he may actually be let go. But, what did we get in return? Ahhhhh.

...The deal included a statement by Mr. Hicks that he “has never been illegally treated” while a captive, despite claims of beatings he had made in the past. It also included a promise not to pursue suits over the treatment he received while in detention and “not to communicate in any way with the media” for a year.

Critics said those requirements were a continuation of what they say has been a pattern of illegal detention policies. “It is a modern cutting out of his tongue,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group, based in New York, that is coordinating the representation of detainees in many suits challenging Guantánamo detention.

Mr. Ratner and other critics said the provisions requiring Mr. Hicks’s silence and the recanting of his accusations of abuse raised questions of whether officials would use their extensive prosecutorial powers in the military commission process to muffle the public debate about detention policies.

An agreement not to sue us. Somehow, I doubt that would stand the laugh test in a real American court. ["Real American court" is defined here as any court in the United States of America before Bush contaminated the well.] Also, I wonder if the Aussies will hold him to his promise not to talk to the press.

Ah well, now that he's pleaded guilty and made these statements, the fanatic 28 percent that still love the scrub will believe him guilty no matter what the evidence shows after he's freed.