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David Hicks - how to make millions by hating the West

By Bill Muehlenberg - posted Tuesday, 3 April 2007


It had to come to this. Indeed, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at how quickly it came. There is now talk of a big book and media deal with self-confessed terrorist David Hicks. According to a report in the Sunday Herald Sun, the marketers are already saying Hicks could make millions.

An RMIT marketing expert says Hicks could easily make $4 million on a multi-media tell-all deal about his experiences. Not bad pay for a terrorist. The two trapped Beaconsfield miners could only rake in a measly $2.6 million for their story. Of course they weren’t trying to kill fellow Aussies or Americans.

The truth is, the malignant Left has managed to turn David Hicks into an international cause célèbre. They have put the best possible spin on Mr Hicks, while doing their best to blame America and Australia, somehow seeking to convince us that we, in fact, are the bad guys here, not the terrorists.

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In an age of spin doctoring, the Left has become expert at turning the truth inside out. They have portrayed Hicks as just a good Aussie kid out on an adventure, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thus all of his self-incriminating words about turning to Islam and hating the West are simply overlooked.

But Hicks was caught doing what he fully wanted to do: combating the West, and siding with the likes of al-Qaida. As one senior intelligence expert put it, “There wasn’t a white man on the planet who was closer to Osama bin Laden than Hicks”.

When the enemies of everything we hold dear in the West are not resisted, but in fact embraced and coddled by radical Westerners, then things look very grim indeed for the fight against terror. Many Western intellectualoids have managed to convince themselves that gun-toting terrorists are not a bad bunch, while Western nations intent on resisting the terrorist onslaught are the real menace.

Triumphal Entry

It is now just a matter of time before Hicks makes his triumphal entry back into Australia. His five-years in detention may not have been a picnic, but it seems they will be more than offset by the good life he will be living from here on in.

The very West which Hicks has been warring against now seems ready to reward him for his actions. Indeed, parts of the West are stumbling over themselves in the attempt to turn Hicks into a national icon.

As such, six burning questions await answers. First, how soon before the Labor Party invites Hicks to be their next star recruit, their next celebrity candidate? Eventually the supply of unionists and ABCers will dry up, and the exciting new category of “freedom fighter” can be tapped into.

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Second, just who will portray Hicks in the hagiographic movie version of events sure to come out real soon? Plenty of lefty Hollyweird types come to mind: George Clooney? Sean Penn? Tim Robbins? And maybe Charlie Sheen to play his dad?

Third, how many days before his followers demand that Hicks be proclaimed a “national living treasure”, or that he receive the Order of Australia?

Fourth, just how many interviews with Hicks will the ABC manage to pull off during the first week of his arrival?

Fifth, at what point will the liberal/left churches in Australia begin the canonisation process for Hicks? When will they proclaim Saint Hicks day? And how many sermons will he be allowed to give to their dwindling congregations on how Jesus was a terrorist, and George Bush is in fact the anti-Christ as foretold in the book of Revelation?

Sixth, just how big of a multimillionaire will Hicks in fact become, with his tell-all book contracts, gossip mag stories, and TV interviews?

And most people thought that by earning an honest living they could manage to get by, pay off the mortgage, and so on. Silly them. It appears that if get-rich schemes are the way to go, then it pays to be a self-confessed terrorist.

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About the Author

Bill Muehlenberg is Secretary of the Family Council of Victoria, and lectures in ethics and philosophy at various Melbourne theological colleges.

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