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Last updated on July 24th, 2017 at 08:25 am
Brisbane Courier-Mail columnist Nicholas Gruen has an idea which he believes would “advantage [Kim Beazley] in a compelling way”:
Beazley should get a group of eminent and respected Australians together – Malcolm Fraser comes most readily to mind amongst others. They travel as far as they can towards Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay with a simple message to the first US official who stops them.
Here’s his simple message:
We’re from Australia – an ally of America in every major war and a few minor ones of the last century. You’re holding our fellow citizen David Hicks. We don’t want to make a hero of him or obtain his release. But like everyone else, he has the same right to due process and a proper trial before an independent magistrate that you accord your own citizens. We’re very upset about it and we’ll be back each month until we can secure his basic rights, the rights that every other Western country has secured for their own nationals.
Nick imagines such a message “would tap into a powerful part of the Australian psyche”. It sure would—the part that wants Malcolm Fraser put to sea off Cuba every four weeks. Please urge Beazley to adopt the splendid Gruen Plan.
UPDATE. Andjam reminds us that Camp X-Ray closed a few years ago. Malcolm and his crew aboard the SS Tilty would be sailing towards nothing, which is pretty much what they do anyway.
