Suspicion Of Cheney Intervention Surrounds Guantanamo Plea Bargain
Suspicion Of Cheney Intervention Surrounds Guantanamo Plea Bargain
In February, Vice President Cheney traveled to Australia to visit with his close ally Prime Minister John Howard. At the top of Howard’s agenda was a plea to release Australian Gitmo detainee David Hicks. Last Friday, Hicks became the first person to be sentenced by a military commission convened under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, accepting nine months of imprisonment and a gag order that will not allow him to discuss the case for 12 months.
Howard lobbied Cheney during the February visit for the trial to “be brought on as soon as humanly possible and with no further delay.” The plea bargain itself was brokered by Susan Crawford, the top military commission official and a former Department of Defense inspector general under then-Secretary of Defense Cheney, without the knowledge or input of the lawyers prosecuting Hicks. The lead prosecutor expressed shock over the light sentence.
Given the nature of the deal, suspicions are being raised that the plea agreement may have been an orchestrated gesture by Cheney to benefit Howard in his re-election fight. Howard, who is lagging behind Labor Party rival Kevin Rudd in the polls, faces a tough election contest in less than nine months. Now, legal experts on both continents are sounding alarms. Some examples:
– Terry Hicks, David’s father, said in a statement that “it is clearly a political fix arranged between Mr. Howard and the Bush administration to shut up Hicks until after the election in November.”
– Bob Brown of Australia’s Green party described the deal as a political “fix” meant to benefit Howard, saying that “the message has gone very clearly from Canberra to Washington to Guantanamo Bay: don’t allow Hicks to be released until after the elections and certainly don’t allow him to speak.”
– Lex Lasry, an Australian who observed the trial, remarked, “What an amazing coincidence that, with an election in Australia by the end of the year, he gets nine months and he is gagged for 12 months from talking about it.”
– Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, said: “I’m not naive. I know that they probably worked out - I’m quite sure they worked out - a plea bargain, that would allow the United States to appear to have effected a reasonably fair proceeding, would allow David Hicks to return to Australia, and satisfy Prime Minister Howard’s needs.”
Andrew Sullivan emphatically states, “If you think this was in any way a legitimate court process, you’re smoking something even George Michael would pay a lot of money for. It was a political deal, revealing the circus that the alleged Gitmo court system really is.”
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63 Responses to “Suspicion Of Cheney Intervention Surrounds Guantanamo Plea Bargain”
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oh, gosh and golly… why are we NOT surprised… and particularly NOT surprised at the fact that it was brokered “without the knowledge or input of the lawyers prosecuting Hicks…” how in character for darth… i’m disgusted, a chronic condition for me these days…
And, yes, I DO take it personally
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:58 pmAnd so the reputation of the United States falls even lower in the international community. In 2002, I was thinking that these guys would overreach and go down in flames. Every day they reach a little more, and despite it all they find new depths to sink to and a continuing complacency among the MSM, which leads to complancency among the public.
Hey, trolls, you see this? They are giving a convicted “terrorist” a break for political gains. He probably isn’t a terrorist, but if were, bushco just violated all of their own standards, low those they may be.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:00 pmIf America was invaded by Mexico would I be wrong In coming to America from Scotland to help it against occupying forces - I think not then why is David Hicks guilty
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:01 pmThis is just so blatant and in your face. Amazing.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 pmPrisoners and gag orders for votes: Democracy a la Dickles…then again, when hasn’t this been the case?
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:05 pmSorry for being off topic but Bush lost in Sp. Court on greenhouse gases. Check link @ http://news.yahoo.com/ s/ ap/ 20070402/ ap_on_go_su_co/ scotus_greenhouse_gases
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:08 pmSo? Clinton traveled to Australia too.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:08 pmDavid Hicks was never guilty in the first place. All the evidence and testimony wasn’t allowed. Look the Bush policy doesn’t give a person any rights. Hicks was tortured overseas by order of the US. He’s another form of misinformation but who cares. Hicks was tortured also in Gitmo as he said be the deal was don’t tell anybody and you can go home. David Hicks is an example of what Bush has changed the United States to be. We are now no better then those Axis of Evil Bush always talks about. David Hicks will get a hero’s welcome and as for the deal Cheney made let’s say it’s off once David puts his feet in Australia. Howard will lose and lose big with his so call deal with Cheney. But Cheney could care less.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:08 pmWhen the trolls bring up Clinton in their very first post, they’re really on the ropes. They got nothin.
Hicks is going to get a book deal and it will go to print in 12 months.
Howard better worry, it will leak out before the election. When Ozzies hear one of theirs was tortured and Howard didn’t lift a finger, he is toast.
Howard is Chimpy’s bitch. What a fat ho.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:12 pmDavid Hicks might even be Australia next PM after the next election and in another 4 years
yesterdays terrorists are todays politician
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:14 pmOMG, we let a terrorist go in a political deal to benefit someone. Isn’t that aiding and abetting the enemy. How can we do that, allow a terrorist to go free like that. What kind of a message is that sending to Al Queda and our other enemies?
The message is that if you don’t have pull with Vice President Chaney you can rot in Guantanamo.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:17 pmHowards was really really popular at one point , Guess the moral of his story is choose your friends more carefully.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:18 pmTom3, I think that’s a fake Jake. His Republiskunk masters may have fired him for being an idiot. Or at least we can hope so.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:18 pmI swear, these BushCo people are all alchemists. Everything they touch turns to sh%t.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:20 pmHoward is going down. Just like all the other world leaders who sided with Chimpy. Berlusconi and Blair and the Canadian guy whatshisface.
Being on Chimpy’s side is going to be the death knell for politicians now.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 pmKate Henry,
While Hicks is now a convicted terrorist, I think that designation is doubtful, since he was tortured while in Gitmo, and his conviction turns out to have been manipulated by Cheney.
At this point, we may never know if Hicks was ever actually a terrorist.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 pma “gesture by Cheney to benefit Howard in his re-election fight”…
really… hard to imagine how this would actually help howard…
surely cheney is as reviled there as he is here…
surely…
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:23 pmI swear, these BushCo people are all alchemists. Everything they touch turns to sh%t.
Comment by Rebel in CA — April 2, 2007 @ 7:20 pm
Well, it starts at the top, doesn’t it? Everything else that Bush himself ever did turned to shite. If he were still involved with the Texas Rangers team, they’d be playing A-ball by now!
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:24 pmDamn it people! When will liberals stop getting all hot and bothered when that lying Andrew Sullivan criticizes Bush and his policies? He’s a philosophical weather vane and as such is completely unreliable. I see a time in the not so distant future where the American Conservative movement rehabilitates itself just enough for Sully to start lobbing verbal firebombs back at us like he used to.
AF
Malkin and her ilk have grown both fat and crafty suckling at the teat of Rove.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:24 pmwe now have a kangaroo court at gitmo.
and cheney can fix a verdict with a phone call.
no habeus. no appeal.
evidence gained under torture admissible.
What the hell happened to America?
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:26 pmboo hoo
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:29 pmWe are shredding the Contitution here, so no one gets any ideas there.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:31 pmCheney is the “Master of Darkness & Evil” and his demeanor suggests that of the corruption and decay from within. Let’s see how his heart holds us….my guess is that he doesn’t have long before a major heart attack or a stroke which will debilitate or knock him out of commission totally. He has the appearance of a very sick human being.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:38 pmHow can Chimpy export democracy to the rest of the world, if he is killing it here at home?
Troll must be crying because his beloved Chimp is an idiot.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:45 pmFrom all accounts, Mr. Hicks was a second or third string misfit who couldn’t make a go of life no matter what he put his energies towards.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:47 pmHe has just spent 5 years being detained, abused in the least if not tortured, and he should be allowed to go home to Australia and be left alone.
Bush is the real enemy .If we could get Bush out of office everything would be better. Lawd helps us all
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:48 pmAs a few people here in Australia have pointed out, the main selling point for this plea bargain is the gag order and the fact that with a sentence that short, Hicks is hardly likely to bother contesting his imprisonment. As Tim Dunlop points out, the last thing Howard wants is a court challenge controversy about this in an election year.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:49 pm#27 I don’t know anything about Australian law but I am thinking Mr. Hicks could probably make a good run at getting the gag order dropped because it was agreed to under duress.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:57 pm‘L’il’ Dick Cheney:
Public Enenmy No. 1
…too bad more people don’t despise him enough to…
….make his position untenable…
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:05 pmOh god, I just realized Cheney looks like my dad in that picture. Ugh.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:10 pmI’m from Australia, so I can give the Americans some important explanatory background on this…
At first, Howard was all for Hicks staying in Gitmo and going through Bush’s court process. This was because the majority of Australians were for it too - it was part of the overreaction to 9/11. Howard rode that wave and it helped him appear to be “strong on terror” (in reality, of course, he was “cowardly”).
But then Hicks’ lawyer visited Australia and we heard of the mistreatment, and so Australians softened their stance a little. But the crucial thing was the 5-year anniversary of Hicks’ detention. I think most Australians thought 5 years without trial is too long, even if he is a terrorist. Suddenly 75% were against Gitmo etc.
This took Howard by surprise. The political weather had turned against him, finally. The pressure was also on because it’s an election year in Australia, and the opposition party was getting mileage out of the issue, and started streaking ahead in the polls.
So Howard - Bush’s most unquestioning supporter - asked for a favour from Cheney and got it. Howard has been in power for so long that he’s become blind to how blatantly corrupt this whole deal appears.
Unfortunately, the opposition party, Labor, mistakenly thought that bringing Hicks home closed off their political advantage. In reality, it’s a golden opportunity to kill off Howard as being corrupt. I hope they grab this opportunity and run with it.
This is a great post by Thinkprogress, and I hope they keep this issue cooking for the sake of Australia.
Martin Gifford.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:10 pmHere’s a Fox Snooze question.
“Do you think the Vice President influenced the plea bargain in the David Hicks trial by going to Australia and hearing the pleas of the lapdog Priminister John Howard.”?
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:19 pmCan we get these Aussies on board with a whole bunch of charges at The Hague? Against Botch and Dick(head)?? KKKRove?? etc.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:25 pmSo? Clinton traveled to Australia too. - Comment by Jake
———–
Jake is not an actual person. He is software that is programmed to combine a couple of keywords of a posting, randomly mix it with buzzwords like “Democrat” or “Clinton,” and spew out something that may be grammatically coherent, but is never logically consistent. He ought to write speeches for Bush.
As for Cheney, I heard that the Devil is building a brand-new circle of Hell just for him.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm‘L’il Dick Cheney has his own sauna…
…reserved for him in HELL…
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:33 pmSenator Leahy, meet Susan Crawford.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:33 pmMs. Crawford, meet Senator Leahy.
The thing that me gag! about this order is that I have never heard of a Gag Order for criminal cases. During the trail or before the trail That I have heard of, but not after a criminal trail.
Mondo Bizzaro.
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:42 pmWow! I love telling the TRUTH!
…and commanding silence…
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:02 pmNewt Gingrich, Rudy Guiliani, John McCain, and ALL of the hypocritical al Crackkker right wing scum…
…are all lying, MASS MURDERING, racist, Bushite who*es…
…and until Liberal Progressives (of the majority culture) ostracize and shun…
…their right wing TREASONOUS Bushite “Independent” and Repulsivescum…
…family members, neighbors, friends and co-workers…
…the country is headed for oblivion…
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:12 pmHoward is going down. Just like all the other world leaders who sided with Chimpy. Berlusconi and Blair and the Canadian guy whatshisface.
Being on Chimpy’s side is going to be the death knell for politicians now.
Comment by Tom3 — April 2, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
I respectfully take offense to this Tom3. Being Canadian I can tell you that yes, whathisface (Harper) is “friends” with Bush and that is not good and hopefully his time at the top will be short. BUT Canada, being ruled by the liberal party at the time, DID NOT BECOME A MEMBER OF THE COALITION OF THE RETARDED. We did go and have been, in Afghanistan for quite a while and we have, in fact, taken a leading role there.
I understand what you were saying and just want to be sure you know what Canadians have and have not done. Thanks, and no apology is necessary. Harper’s is best described as Neocon Lite.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:22 pm#30 Zooey…
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:59 pmI feel your pain, the picture of Groover Nosesniff on the previous thread looks like my Dad….
#31 Martin Gifford
Thanks for the background, Martin. I hope Aussie journalists are a little more curious than ours seem to be.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:24 pmGee…why am I not surprised?
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:26 pmSo some of these politicians looks like some people’s dads?
Sorry…
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:39 pmSith Lord Cheney always makes sinister backroom deals.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:53 pmthankyou so much for this post.
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:20 pmITS THE ONLY COMMENTARY ANYWHERE THAT EXPLAINS THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLES REACTION AND THE RELATIONSHIP TO THE UPCOMING ELECTION.IN THIS COUNTRY WITH ITS CONSTIPATED MEDIA A POST LIKE THIS IS UNOBTAINABLE .TRUTHOUT ,DISSIDENT VOICE.TOM PAINE ,STRIKE THE ROOT ,FISK ALL MY FAVOURITES PLEASE PICK THIS UP.
GAD….YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN(AND HEARD)THAT BLOWJOB FOUR-EYED BALDY Howard GAVE FRANKENCheney—LASTED FOUR HOURS AND Cheney LOST FOUR BUCKETS OF NUTS AND BOLTS THAT SPEWED OUT OF HIS OBSCENE CARCASE!!!!!
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:46 pmtomboy @ 36:
Senator Leahy, meet Susan Crawford.
Ms. Crawford, meet Senator Leahy.
Patrick, this is Susan Crawford. Ms Crawford, we’d also like you to have a chat with Mister Fitzgerald. A nice, long chat, with a stenographer present. About who might have influenced your sentencing decision. And please, don’t leave anything out.
(Anthony Innes @ 46 - try Blogocracy or Larvatus Prodeo for Australian blogging perspectives. :)
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:16 amThis is the new world. Global Economy, Global Trade, Global Relations, Global Election Manipulations. How nice.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:11 amFrom the Sully piece” Yes, we live in a banana republic. It certainly isn’t a country ruled by law. It is ruled by one man and his accomplice.
The question is, who’s Cheney’s accomplice? David Addington?
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:28 am#42 Chimpeach,
Unfortunately, the Australian mainstream media is similar to America’s - they just run with the bottom line popular issues using the cheapest/fastest source of content. So we get a lot of feeds from America. Australia is America’s newest state, but we don’t get a vote in America’s elections. Maybe it’s our convict background. ;)
The exception is the public broadcasting services, which dig deeper and ask harder questions. Funny about that.
Martin Gifford.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:47 amDavid Hicks - History
David converted to Islam after training with the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo in 1999. According to his father, Terry Hicks, after David returned to Australia he decided to go overseas again to further his Islamic studies and to learn ancient Arabic. He then travelled to Pakistan to study in an Islamic school.
Following the 9/11 attacks, David telephoned his father from Kandahar in Afghanistan, to tell him he was going to help the Taliban defend Kabul from the Northern Alliance. He was captured on 9 December 2001 near Kunduz in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance.
The Northern Alliance allegedly subjected David Hicks to ill-treatment before handing him to the US authorities. After he was interrogated by US and Australian officials onboard the USS Peleliu, he was transported to Guantánamo Bay in January 2002.
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:38 amGo back 12 months……April 2006
“David Hicks has been charged with three US Military Commission offences: conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent, and aiding the enemy. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Any notion of bringing David Hicks to Australia to prosecute him for an offence under Australian law assumes that an offence exists with which he can be charged and that there is sufficient evidence available to bring such a charge.
Relevant authorities have concluded, on the evidence available to them, that there is no Australian law under which Mr Hicks could be charged.”
Also read my previous post #52 - David Hicks - History
April 3rd, 2007 at 5:12 amHoward is Cheney’s clone.
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:00 amBecause rather than doing that he joined a death cult after they had an established campaign of mass-casualty attacks on civilians and travelled from war zone to war zone seeking out every opportunity he could to kill people.
I hope you are mentally challenged and/or completely ignorant rather than offerring such a defence for anyone who joins al Qaeda.
There is a lot of bullshit claims in the GWOT but you needing to be a psychotic extremist committed to slaughtering innocent civilians in order to join al Qaeda isn’t one of them.
Wise the F up pal.
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:23 amThere’s no way Hicks is under any obligation to abide by an American “agreement” he made under coercion and torture once he’s back in Australia.
April 3rd, 2007 at 3:03 pmPOS David Hicks, AKA: Abu Muslim al-Austraili, is a lucky SOB. A social misfit who converted to Islam, this son has done much to embarrass his family. Perhaps his greatest impediment is his “terminal uniqueness”. His father should be thanking his lucky stars young Abu Muslim won’t be sentenced to life in prison.
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:57 pmThe question remains: who wanted the gag order?
The answer to such questions is in who benefits. Both Howard’s government and Bush’s government would benefit.
Howard is in an election year and doesn’t want people complaining about his lack of support for an Australian citizen.
Bush wants the military commissions to continue without questions of torture etc interferring. He can keep telling people to confess like Hicks or else they will stay in Gitmo forever.
So which is it? How would we ever find out? The judge should be the one to explain his reasoning for the sentence.
Martin Gifford.
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:48 pm[…] Cheney’s Fingerprints Seen on Guantanamo Plea Deal - Think Progress makes the case for Vice President Dick Cheney’s likely role in securing a nine-month term for Australian Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks, a disproportionately light punishment for a man convicted of “providing material support for terrorismâ€. Of course, the same deal imposes a 12-month gag order, essentially buying Hicks’ silence on the proceedings until he can no longer impact the re-election chances of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch Bush/Cheney ally. […]
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:02 pm“At this point, we may never know if Hicks was ever actually a terrorist.”
Comment by Zooey
Of course, you wouldn’t think David Hicks, AKA, Abu Muslim al Austraili, could be guilty of being a terrorist. Maybe if you flexed that muscle INSIDE your head and did a little research, you would find out that this kid, loser that he is, is also a compulsive liar. He exaggerated how many times he met bin Laden in the training camps and he exaggerated his role as being indispensible to knowing the travel practices of average Australians. (That little freak is probably the LAST person bin Laden would rely on for a semblance of what normal people might do.)
For a busy student such as yourself, Wikipedia has tons of references about this guilty traitor…..Just type “David Hicks” and scroll….
April 4th, 2007 at 12:41 amWow, Hicks gets a “Get out of Gaol” card; provided he:
(i) doesn’t speak to the media or anyone else
(ii) his legal team do not speak to the media or anyone else
(iii) his parents, family members, friends (if he has some) do not speak to the media or anyone else till AFTER the GENERAL ELECTIONS IN AUSTRALIA.
How our PM plays to remain in office.
First it was the Tampa Crisis”
April 4th, 2007 at 9:23 pmThen it was the “Children Overboard”
issue and the call to arms “We will decide who comes to Australia”
Next it was “I am here to protect your JOBS” - in Tasmania
This time, with Crisis engulfing crisis; this bloodied regime of Howard the menace has become accident prone. Now the Mafia of Government Policy initiatives will be rolled out (with a little bit of help from his best mate Chenny/Bush (The DUMB and DUMBER) of USA.
Can Howard also be preparing to marshal his troops to go into IRAN at the behest of the decider and the Master of Deceit Big Dick Lucifer???
Martin Giffirds posts are right on — I live 500m from Teflon Johns residence here in Sydney.
Question - Was George Washington a Terrorist?
The answer is yes, from a legal, technical viewpoint.
Morally most would argue that he was not — thats cool, but morals & ethics are grey areas as we all know.
Were the French Resistance in WWII Terrorists?
see above
Was Mandela a terrorist?
see above
Your ethos, ethics & morals are not right, they are just yours.
sangraal
April 4th, 2007 at 9:41 pmWho is the real criminal here?
April 5th, 2007 at 1:00 amWhile i think Hicks is probably a bit of an idiot- he is not responsible for any actual deaths so far as i am aware.
Can Mr Cheney say the same of his role regarding US military personnel and Iraqi civilians?
sick!