On David Hicks, and the reliability of confessions.

Once upon a time, people confessed to fucking Satan personally, spreading plague, killing cattle with a thought, and of murdering babies who turned out not to have existed.

David Hicks has confessed to knowing some guys, who really were a Bad Crowd.

He has not confessed to killing anyone. He has not confessed to planning or being involved in any terrorist acts. He has not made Pesach Matza from the blood of children. Some might think that five years of indefinitely extended detention, with no rights, with next to no contact with anyone, in solitary for most of the time, where his status was roughly similar to that of a rock-spider in more civilised jails, where he was physically and mentally tortured (fuck calling it 'coercion', they tortured him, through beatings, through inappropriate medical treatment -- read: digital rape -- through never letting him be in a dark room) might be considered inhumane treatment, conducive to extracting a confession to just about whatever, provided that the reward was for that treatment to stop.

Obviously, if Hicks had been beaten as often as some other famous inmates, they could have solved the Lindberg Kidnappings as well.