Convicted Australian terrorist David Hicks returned to Australia this week to finish out his prison sentence given to him for his support of Al Qaida in Afghanistan.  The liberal left in Australia has treated Hicks arrival to that of rock star and some as the equivalent of Nelson Mandela:

You’d think this was the second coming of Christ, rather than the return of a man who trained for months with a terrorist group linked to the killings of more than 100 Australians, and thousands of other civilians.

Listen to Louise Adler, the far-Left head of Melbourne University Press.

She’s angry the Howard Government won’t let Hicks make money by selling (to her?) the story of his criminal career.  It’s not as if he actually killed someone, she protested this week, accepting Hicks’ word on that matter.

Besides, Hicks puts her in mind of another political prisoner with a great story to tell: "Nelson Mandela wrote his memoirs while in prison and profited by them."

Hicks, Mandela - now there’s a link? Hey, why not extend the analogy and make Hicks our first president, as Mandela was made first president of post-apartheid South Africa?

You think this is far fetched?  Just think the leader of the South Australia Democrats would not rule him out as a party candidate.  The Hicks apologists even get better, read this from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Eight years after he left his Adelaide home for the adventure of a lifetime in Pakistan, Hicks returned to Australia this morning a 31-year-old former Muslim with a bad back and receding hairline.

Yes an "adventure of a lifetime" in that adventure tourisism Mecca of Pakistan!  Watch out New Zealand you have some real competition now as the global adventure tourism capitol from the jihadis of Pakistan.  You gotta love it, only leftists would describe jihad as an "adventure of a lifetime".  In reality, which the Sydney Morning Herald is far removed from, Hicks has admitted to supporting the Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist group in Pakistan and firing at Indian soldiers in 2000.  This disclosure has caused the Indian government to want to get their hands on Hicks themselves. 

To further show how far from reality the Sydney Morning Herald is read this:

Hicks, convicted of providing material support to a terrorist organisation, has spent more than five years at Guantanamo, one of the world’s most oppressive prisons.

I think Jules Crittenden responds to this the best:

So horrible there! Though I hear China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, a few other places have some real beauts, in strong contention for “most oppressive.”  Anyway, I’d guess being fattened up at Gitmo beats getting your head sawed off on al-Jazeera. 

So how is Hicks going to be treated in Australia since being released from "one of the world’s most oppressive prisons"?:

Remember how he was supposed to be cooped in a cell in Guantanamo so small that it was driving him mad? An alleged replica of his cage was even set up in the streets of Sydney, and Hicks sympathisers were filmed emerging from it weeping tears of pity.

How big was Hicks’ real cell? As ABC television reported from inside Guantanamo in February: "This is a cell the US says is identical to the one in which Hicks is kept. It measures four metres by two metres."

That small, huh? Damn those cruel Americans!

In fact, as Hicks’ fans cheered his return to Adelaide to serve out his last months of prison time, an AAP reporter rejoiced that after Guantanamo, Adelaide’s "Yatala jail may seem like luxury".

Or not, as it turns out from the same report: "Prison guards will constantly supervise the 31-year-old Muslim convert, who is expected to remain locked inside his two-metre by four-metre cell for 23 hours a day."

That’s right. Our cell for Hicks — and other prisoners at Yatala — is the same size as the one we plucked him from in Guantanamo. It has the same sized bed, same urinal and same concrete.

Actually, there is one difference. In Guantanamo, Hicks was let out of his cell for two hours a day — so little, complained his lawyers, that he was pale from lack of sun.

How outraged journalists were then. Even Britain’s Guardian protested: "Mr Hicks, who is allowed out of his small cell for just two hours a day, has shown signs of depression."

But as our excited AAP reporter says, at Yatala, Hicks will get the luxury

of just one hour a day,

like all maximum-security prisoners.

That, of course, makes us worse jailers than those bestial, torturing Americans.

Yes folks to be consistent I expect all the human rights groups and media to now condemn Australia for being a "gulag" and the home of "one of the world’s most oppressive prisons". 

So what is our misguided, overweight, adventure tourist plan on doing once he is released from his stay in another "world’s most oppressive prison"?:

"He accepts that he was misguided in that area. He was in his early 20s when he set out on his adventure."

McLeod said Hicks intended to study ecology and zoology when freed. He is eligible for release in 223 days, on December 29.

Ecology and zoology is anyone surprised?  Maybe he can become Australia’s Al Gore and save the nation from global warming. 

Highly recommend everyone read:
Tim Blair
Jules Crittenden
Andrew Bolt