To: William Glaberson, NYT
Re: Australian to Serve 9 Months in Terrorism Case; March 31, 2007

Mr. Glaberson: Your coverage of the sentencing of David Hicks is thorough. Thank you for bringing this shameful matter to American attention. I wonder, though, whether your interpretation of the Australian government's involvement in the dealmaking isn't a bit credulous. The beleaguered and discredited Howard government is being assailed from all sides for its lockstep support of American brutality in its war, as in its treatment of detainees (including Mr. Hicks, whose agreement now to deny he was brutalized is surely just another instance of his brutalization). Is it not likely that, rather than pressing the Bush Administration, as it claims, it instead has been colluding to make the "resolution" of the Hicks scandal (whatever his real, and now indeterminable guilt) as favorable to its election chances as possible. You report that Howard & Co. have been in friction with the American torturers, but surely there has been far greater cooperation in dissembling and disinformation, than anything else?

Sincerely