Pragmatism trumps principle

Given that the Federal Government are now publicly making comments that Hicks should be tried before a regular court or tribunal, you can be pretty confident that this has nothing to do with a new found deep sense of sympathy for Hicks’ plight. More likely, the Government has had high level diplomatic representations from the US that the US has no more use for Hicks. They’ve punished him enough: lesson taught, he can go home now.

This means that when Hicks gets his day in court or is simply released the Federal Government can gloat about the size of its sympathy gland and influence with the US. In truth, it will have nothing to do with the persuasion of the Australian Government.

That’s not to be critical of the Federal Government. It was right not to strain our relationship with the US because of Hicks. It is regrettable that Hicks has been treated so poorly by the US and denied a right to a fair and expeditious trial.

But as usual, pragmatics wins the day. War is a terrible thing, especially because it always causes high levels of collateral damage. The war on terror has resulted in more than 30,000 Iraqi civilians alone being killed. This has caused unthinkable levels of pain and devastation.

Another form of collateral damage that often happens in wars is that suspected enemy combatants do more than their fair share of hard time. Yet, in the big scheme of things, the harm sustained by Hicks is piffle compared to the tens of thousands that have lost their lives.

So all those commentators that have been howling for the release of Hicks, it is time for a perspective check. Your sympathy gland is, at least relatively speaking, over-bloated and it’s time for a history lesson - in times of war, pragmatism always trumps principle.

It is no response to suggest that we should show more compassion to the plight of Hicks than the other victims of the war of terror. That would be downright racism - which is part of the reason we are in the mess that is Iraq II in the first place. Aussie lives are no more important than those of Iraqis.

Moreover, unlike Hicks who was deranged enough to voluntarily leave our opulent country to train with terrorists, the only contribution Iraqi citizens who have been killed in the war made to their demise is that they happened to be born in a strife torn land.

So yes, Hicks deserves a bit of your sympathy, but relatively speaking it is a negligible amount - certainly not enough to merit the near saturation media coverage that he has been receiving.