Towel-head
One of the funnier things I've heard on Radio National recently was the interview with Colonel Mike Bumgarner (interesting name: presumably a version of 'Baumgartner'), about the recent behaviour of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay. To retaliate for not being given an extra towel (the standard issue is one per prisoner), Hicks has gone on a laundry strike, refusing to change his clothes (Oh the humanity!). The RN interviewer then asked, in the kind of sepulchral tones that might normally be used by counsel for the accused in a capital crime: "Why did David Hicks ask for a second towel?"
Who gives a crap why Hicks wanted a second towel? Well, the Melbourne Age, for one. Their 'diplomatic editor' Mark Baker will probably need more than one towel to mop up the tears he has spilt for the wannabe jihadi. According to Baker, Hicks, who had travelled around the world to join the Taliban in Afghanistan, was a "wide eyed" innocent, who was "appalled" by the September 11 attacks. Yes, all Hicksy wanted was to lop off the odd hand, shoot an 'adulteress' in a soccer stadium every so often: who could have guessed such simple desires would all go so horribly wrong? Baker is worth a long quote:
"If the worst Hicks did was to hang out with the Taliban at the time they were in the thrall of Osama bin Laden, he is more deserving of pity than punishment. While the Taliban invited overthrow by their excesses of medieval zealotry and their culpability in giving sanctuary to bin Laden and his cohorts, at the time the wide-eyed Muslim convert David Hicks went to Afghanistan they were an internationally recognised government in control of a sovereign state."
Why do I think that Baker is one of those people who would only describe the Bush administration as an "internationally recognised government in control of a sovereign state" through gritted teeth, if he could bear to at all? Even the UN, at their most supine and craven, did not recognize the Taliban as a government. A grand total of three nations did so: the UAE, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And someone should tell Baker that 'hanging out' is what teenagers do down at the mall, not what Hicks was doing in Afghanistan. Maybe one of Hicks' duties with the Taliban was handing out second towels to prisoners.
One of the funnier things I've heard on Radio National recently was the interview with Colonel Mike Bumgarner (interesting name: presumably a version of 'Baumgartner'), about the recent behaviour of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay. To retaliate for not being given an extra towel (the standard issue is one per prisoner), Hicks has gone on a laundry strike, refusing to change his clothes (Oh the humanity!). The RN interviewer then asked, in the kind of sepulchral tones that might normally be used by counsel for the accused in a capital crime: "Why did David Hicks ask for a second towel?"
Who gives a crap why Hicks wanted a second towel? Well, the Melbourne Age, for one. Their 'diplomatic editor' Mark Baker will probably need more than one towel to mop up the tears he has spilt for the wannabe jihadi. According to Baker, Hicks, who had travelled around the world to join the Taliban in Afghanistan, was a "wide eyed" innocent, who was "appalled" by the September 11 attacks. Yes, all Hicksy wanted was to lop off the odd hand, shoot an 'adulteress' in a soccer stadium every so often: who could have guessed such simple desires would all go so horribly wrong? Baker is worth a long quote:
"If the worst Hicks did was to hang out with the Taliban at the time they were in the thrall of Osama bin Laden, he is more deserving of pity than punishment. While the Taliban invited overthrow by their excesses of medieval zealotry and their culpability in giving sanctuary to bin Laden and his cohorts, at the time the wide-eyed Muslim convert David Hicks went to Afghanistan they were an internationally recognised government in control of a sovereign state."
Why do I think that Baker is one of those people who would only describe the Bush administration as an "internationally recognised government in control of a sovereign state" through gritted teeth, if he could bear to at all? Even the UN, at their most supine and craven, did not recognize the Taliban as a government. A grand total of three nations did so: the UAE, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And someone should tell Baker that 'hanging out' is what teenagers do down at the mall, not what Hicks was doing in Afghanistan. Maybe one of Hicks' duties with the Taliban was handing out second towels to prisoners.
posted by cuckoo at
12:04 PM
2 Comments:
Hicks is no 'wide eyed innocent' the reproter just doesn't have the guts to say he was a simple minded, adventurer. With no idea of the reality of what he was getting into for his thrills. He 'served' in the former yugoslav republic on his travels and on return to Adelaide tried to tout his story. Then went off on his next adventure. This time he was on the losing side and got captured as well. Hicks is nothing but a little fish caught in a the net of big trawler.
By
geoff, at 4:32 PM
......hey....we've hashed all that stuff over and over....for something new and really important....visit me....read the link....the way of peace....share it....save the world....make me proud.
By
Oberon, at 9:35 AM
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