Australian released from Gitmo stabbed

[The Fool]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16361609-29277,00.html

Mamdouh Habib, the Australian released from Gitmo without charge has been stabbed.....No evidence yet that his attack was targeted or he was a victim of random crime. Injuries appear relatively minor.

more to follow as the story evolves but he has just been all over the papers because he ran in the Sydney "city to surf" run and the papers claimed he is recieving a "disability pension"...(not true). This fired up the talkback radio jocks who spun up a nice frenzy of vile rants....I heard some of them, including one guy who said he would love to see habib get a disability pension as long as he was allowed to give him the disability....I hope this attack is not a reaction to this hate spinning as its not my prefered image of what Australians are like...

 

[Manny]

the papers claimed he is recieving a "disability pension"...(not true).

Not true in the sense that he wasn't receiving any money, or not true in the sense that it wasn't for disability, or what?

 

[The Fool]

Re: Re: Australian released from Gitmo stabbed

Not true in the sense that he wasn't receiving any money, or not true in the sense that it wasn't for disability, or what?

Don't know...all I can go on is that the government department responsible for paying disability pension came out and denied he is recieving one....so the papers have changed to claiming he has "demanded" a pension. His Lawyers said he has applied in the same manner anyone can apply on the basis of claims he is suffering depression (clinical, not just feeling sad). I'm not sure how this is "demanding" payment. You must remember that Australia has a long history of social security support for the sick, injured and unemployed...I would love to know how many of the outraged radio ranters were also on support payments..

I doubt if anyone would be interested in employing him as he is followed by asio and everyone he talks to is photographed. A national news reporter I just watched on TV reported that he was photographed while he was interviewing Habib about the attack....anyway, he will probably make a handy income out of speaking tours until his 15minutes of fame passes. He was on Australias 60 minutes program and I doubt if they paid him in meat pies.

 

[Manny]

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. Not being connected to Australian talk radio, all I had heard was that he had applied for one while still doing non-disabled kinds of things and that there was some sort of controversy about prior payments he had received. Wasn't aware that the talkies had alleged he was back on the dole, though I guess it doesn't surprise me.

To really cash in he should apply for the JREF prize. Meeting with Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in New York right before the first WTC bombing and on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in al Qaeda country right before the second one without actually being a terrorist himself surely makes him some kind of precognitive.

 

[Kiless]

I despise our talkback radio shows. I would have thought the assorted scandals over the years would have killed them off.

 

[Bjorn]

What has this Mamdouh Habib been convicted of?

 

[The Fool]

What has this Mamdouh Habib been convicted of?

Nothing....not charged with anything either.

 

[The Fool]

To really cash in he should apply for the JREF prize. Meeting with Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in New York right before the first WTC bombing and on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in al Qaeda country right before the second one without actually being a terrorist himself surely makes him some kind of precognitive.

Meeting with Rahman? Thats an old chestnut that has been pretty badly bashed around. He was in New York and went to visit Rahman, I doubt if Rahman remembered him...lots of nutball muslims used to visit him... he probably did meet him but there is no evidence anyone can produce of anything resembling a meeting. Habib also has a sister there and he visited her too...he says that was the purpose of his trip. I imagine a lot of Catholics, if in rome, may take the time to try to "meet the pope" if it were available...I doubt if your average nutjob muslim shopowner from australia who contributed $500 to rahman's medical funds got much more than a hello for his $500. Rahman used to meet lots of visitors . As for the pakistan thing...he says he was thinking of moving there and was looking for a fundie school for his son...tens of thousands of muslims do that too....but if you add both together they may form some sort of case. Thats probably why the US released him without charge...the case was so strong.

 

[Manny]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Ever since ASIO's funding hit infinity back in '88 they've been following around pretty much every Australian of non-anglo or aborigine descent who visits New York.

So where do you think he'll visit first now that Australia has replaced his passport?

 

[Skeptic]

Clearly, we need to look at the ROOT CAUSES of the stabbing and UNDERSTAND THE MOTIVES of the person who stabbed him. We need to know, in great detail, what made him hate this guy. Surely, the ROOT CAUSE will be found in what people of the stabbed person's religion (or his nation, or his ethnic group)--has done wrong to people of the same religion as the stabber. Of course, this is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than merely finding a convenient excuse for justifying the stabbing and explaining it away as being the stabbed person's fault; and if you can't see that, you're just not sophisticated enough of a thinker.

Right?

Oh wait, that only works when a Islamic guy stabs somebody else. It doesn't work in reverse for some reason.

 

[rikzilla]

Meeting with Rahman? Thats an old chestnut that has been pretty badly bashed around. He was in New York and went to visit Rahman, I doubt if Rahman remembered him...lots of nutball muslims used to visit him... he probably did meet him but there is no evidence anyone can produce of anything resembling a meeting. Habib also has a sister there and he visited her too...he says that was the purpose of his trip. I imagine a lot of Catholics, if in rome, may take the time to try to "meet the pope" if it were available...I doubt if your average nutjob muslim shopowner from australia who contributed $500 to rahman's medical funds got much more than a hello for his $500. Rahman used to meet lots of visitors . As for the pakistan thing...he says he was thinking of moving there and was looking for a fundie school for his son...tens of thousands of muslims do that too....but if you add both together they may form some sort of case. Thats probably why the US released him without charge...the case was so strong.

Pretty bad analogy Fool. AFAIK the Pope usually refrains from asking his followers to blow up buildings with people in them.

-z

 

[UserGoogol]

That's because terrorism is a bigger deal than one guy being stabbed, and going to the root cause is the only way to really solve a problem.

You're "right" that we should take into account the root causes, but there's not really enough information to go on. All we know is that some guy stabbed an ex-Guantanamo-detainee. In order to investigate root causes, we'd need to have a vague idea of the stabber's motivation. Did he think Habib was set free wrongly, or was he just in a stabby mood?

 

[Skeptic]

Pretty bad analogy Fool. AFAIK the Pope usually refrains from asking his followers to blow up buildings with people in them.

-z

But, Rickzilla, the late Pope CAUSED MILLIONS OF DEATHS by refusing to allow Catholics to use condoms! Oh wait--he also, at the same time, demanded that they stay faithful and only have sex in marriage.

So he caused the death of those millions, who, on the one hand, told the Pope to go take a hike on this "faithfulness" thing and went around having sex with possibly AIDS-infected hookers and strangers anyway, but who refused to wear a condom when doing so because he would disapprove of it.

Hmmm. What's wrong with that picture? Somehow, "I won't wear a rubber, bitch, the Pope doesn't like it!" doesn't sound to me like the most convincing excuse in the world.

 

[Skeptic]

That's because terrorism is a bigger deal than one guy being stabbed, and going to the root cause is the only way to really solve a problem.

This is extremely dangerous moral thinking. It means that if I stab ONE guy, it's clearly MY fault, but if I killed thousands (or millions), that's not really my fault--it's the "root causes" that made me do it, we need to solve the "problem" as opposed to looking at it in that outmoded good-vs.-evil way, etc., etc.

The moral is: the more people you kill, the less responsible for their deaths you are, and the more legitimate your grievances become.

 

[Bjorn]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Ever since ASIO's funding hit infinity back in '88 they've been following around pretty much every Australian of non-anglo or aborigine descent who visits New York.

Two months ago you posted:

For example, I agree (and did before, of course) that some people have been sent there [to Guantanamo] in error.

And

Even after their arrival at Guantanamo the reviews continue. Over 100 of the detainees have subsequently been released.

You seem so sure that Mamdouh Habib is a terrorist, even if he has been reviewed, screened and released with no charges against him.

What evidence do you have for this? Just curious.

 

[LordoftheLeftHand]

The release of "detainees" from Gitmo (without charges) after a few years of "detention" bothers me.


Regardless of how you feel about these "detainees", the following questions should bother you:

If these people are dangerous criminals why are they being released?

If they are not dangerous criminals why are they being held (basically incommunicado) for years?

I don't understand.

LLH

 

[Ian Osborne]

The moral is: the more people you kill, the less responsible for their deaths you are, and the more legitimate your grievances become.

Works for the IDF...

 

[TragicMonkey]

That's because terrorism is a bigger deal than one guy being stabbed, and going to the root cause is the only way to really solve a problem.

This is extremely dangerous moral thinking. It means that if I stab ONE guy, it's clearly MY fault, but if I killed thousands (or millions), that's not really my fault--it's the "root causes" that made me do it, we need to solve the "problem" as opposed to looking at it in that outmoded good-vs.-evil way, etc., etc.

The moral is: the more people you kill, the less responsible for their deaths you are, and the more legitimate your grievances become.

There is a difference between understanding something, and excusing something. Understanding someone's crime doesn't mean you absolve them of responsibility for it.

 

[Grammatron]

Why is everyone avoiding the real issue here?

If there was more knife control none of this would have happened.

 

[haggisman]

But, Rickzilla, the late Pope CAUSED MILLIONS OF DEATHS by refusing to allow Catholics to use condoms! Oh wait--he also, at the same time, demanded that they stay faithful and only have sex in marriage.

So he caused the death of those millions, who, on the one hand, told the Pope to go take a hike on this "faithfulness" thing and went around having sex with possibly AIDS-infected hookers and strangers anyway, but who refused to wear a condom when doing so because he would disapprove of it.

Hmmm. What's wrong with that picture? Somehow, "I won't wear a rubber, bitch, the Pope doesn't like it!" doesn't sound to me like the most convincing excuse in the world.

Maybe it had something to do with the lies(bbc) that the catholic church were spreading about said contraception?