For the military to arrest, indefinitely lock up and possibly maltreat persons not involved in combat without timely legal process is not the ordinary citizen’s concept of justice, and Neil James knows it.
He may quote arcane and obscure laws adlib to defend the treatment of David Hicks, but if their primacy was so secure, why has the US has shown conspicuous reluctance to test that by refusing to bring any Guantanamo prisoners to US soil ?
At the risk of being once more possibly libelled as an “extremist crank” and having my patriotism questioned by the ever calm and rational Mr James, my view is that the trumping or evasion of civil law by military action is the first step to military rule.
David Roth, Canberra – Letter to the Editor, Canberra Times 28 Jul 09