Dear Bootribbers,

The Australian Howard Government is a key supporter of the Bush regime. By sycophantically mirroring and advocating for Bush foreign policy in the international arena, Australia’s credibility has added considerable weight to Bush’s many illegal and immoral actions.

This has been particularly the case when it comes to Guantanamo Bay. Australia has been the only western nation to willingly leave its citizens in Gitmo, and most critically, to agree that Australian citizens can be treated and tried by any means the Bush regime sees fit.

Here is your chance to take action to pull the plug out of Australia’s support for Gitmo, thus denying Bush a key international ally. It’s also your chance to help bring justice to a man comprehensibly denied it for nearly 5 years. In doing so, you can also honour an American Hero
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Australian citizen David Hicks has now been imprisoned in Gitmo for nearly 5 years. David Hicks has been left to rot by his government in order to aid and abet the Bush administration’s policy. During his time, he has been repeatedly beaten, regularly deprived of sleep, regularly kept in solitary confinement, once for a period without any exercise or access to sunlight lasting 8 months. He is currently being kept in solitary confinement and has been since January, and if he’s lucky, gets one hour of exercise, spending 23 hours a day in his cell.

He has been denied any form of basic legal due process. David was not allowed to speak to a lawyer until 2 years after his capture. Like all detainees he has been denied access to the evidence against him.  He has been able to contact his family less than half a dozen times in 5 years. Letters he receives from home are censored to remove any reference to love. He is slowly going mad.

It has taken time, but just like in the USA, Australian support for the Iraqi war and our close alliance with the Bush administration has significantly soured, and with it, there has been a huge increase in anger and protest at the treatment of David Hicks. Over 100,000 Australians (population 20 million) have signed petitions demanding that the Howard Government bring David home. But our Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has refused to even meet and accept the latest petition with over 50,000 signatures. When the Attorney Generals of all the States and Territories recently met to discuss David Hicks, the Federal Attorney General, Phillip Ruddock, walked out.

So what can you do? Getup.org.au, a non-party affiliated, progressive political organisation is funding massive billboards demanding Hicks be brought home along the commuter routes for Prime Minister John Howard, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, and Attorney General Phillip Ruddock. Help fund them!

The momentum is gathering behind this campaign – see the billboard and make a donation here. (I have checked and Getup can legally take overseas donations, don’t bother filling in the postal details, just a name & email will suffice – the dollar amounts shown are Australian dollars, which means it costs you even less! -go to www.xe.com to see exchange rates)

As well, or if you’ve got no cash to spare, send a letter to John Howard via Amnesty.

Why should you help?
– To honour Major Michael Mori, an American hero, who has fought with courage, compassion and integrity for justice.

– To help rescue a man, who no matter what he has done, deserves a fair trial and not to be tortured.

– To help defeat one of the most critical and consistently underestimated enemies of a progressive America, a progressive Australia, and a progressive world  -the Howard Government of Australia.

– Because nearly 70,000 American expats living in Australia have donated significantly to rescuing the USA from the GOP via Moveon.org, and it would be wonderful to get a reciprocal arrangement going between progressives around the world.

John Howard’s Australia is the silent partner in the Coalition of the Willing. Howard has aided and abetted the illegal invasion of Iraq and the legitimisation of Guantanamo. Howard has offered critical support to Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption and the War on Terror, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the brinkmanship with Iran, and Bush’s refusal to ratify Kyoto.

Howard has legislated to strip Australians of basic human rights in a mirror the Patriot Act, is similarly homophobic, racist and focussed on pandering to wealthy corporations. Howard is the last credible bastion of neo-conservative thought in the Western world. Howard is colluding with Bush to sell uranium & uranium enrichment technology to India, and is directly undermining American security by selling uranium to China without any real safeguards to ensure it is not used for military purposes, or that is not sold on to North Korea. He is your enemy, and mine.

For Bush’s appalling vision for the world to fail, the Howard Government must also be brought down. Here’s a place to start.

Help us. Thanks.

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