Greens (or quite a lot of them) irritate me (nearly) as much as they irritate people like Peter Walsh (former finance minister).  But that doesn't see me traipsing off into the arms of the Lavoisier Group or even to ignore the basic points that the environmental groups are making. 

Also I think you believe that it is wrong to 'personalise' the matter with Hicks.  I fully agree.  To some extent the defenders of Hicks are forced into personalising things - because the media simply won't run things unless they are dumbed down in that way.  And then no doubt plenty of them take to that kind of sentimental personalisation like a duck to water.  But that's no reason not to focus on the main points of principle.

I agree with the claim that Hicks’ incarceration is not a normal ‘civil liberties’ matter. I also agree with Harry that he’s lucky he wasn’t shot. So was Albert Speer, but it is to the allies great credit that he got due process.

The fact is that Hicks wasn’t shot, so he came under the jurisdiction of the Coalition and so what the Coalition does reflects on us as members of the Coalition and on what the war is supposed to be for.

I am not suggesting that all the detainees be given all the rights of a civil trial. But if this were to be done in a principled way the claims of the authorities would have been subjected to some scrutiny by an independent magistrate. That for me is the bottom line. And at least from what I know that principle has played virtually no role in the process which has been one of abuse of power from beginning to end.

Yes, the guy got a lawyer - a damn good one - one of those guys who believes in the great achievements of the American dream which are built on the rule of law.

The distinction between one’s rights under military and civilian justice is an important one. But simply saying that it’s millitary justice doesn’t absolve you from the demands of commonsense. However nasty the situation is, the US is simply not in the situation Lincoln found himself in in the 1860s. It is not in the situation that Churchill found himself when he locked up refugees in the UK - apologising at the time that ‘we will not be able to make the distinctions we would like to be made’ and subsequently of the event as a mistake.

And if it is such a desparate situation then why did the US release the detainees from countries that complained?

So for me the whole episode lacks moral seriousness. It is what it looks like, an abuse of power. A frivolous, rather than a seriously considered derogation from the rule of law.

For five years David Hicks was not subjected to the rule of law.  Call me old fashioned, but I think that's a very serious issue.  I'm a liberal and there aint nothing more important politically than the rule of law.