Free Republic

THE Australian Democrats today took the extraordinary step of saying they would welcome convicted terrorist David Hicks running for the party as a candidate. Sandra Kanck, the Democrats' leader in South Australia which is Hicks' home state, said she would be happy for him to seek a political career as a Democrat. "I certainly wouldn't rule him out (as a candidate)," she said. Her comments follow her ongoing criticism of the South Australian Government over the confessed supporter of terrorism. She said Hicks should be released on home detention when he recovered from his ordeal at Guantanamo Bay. That prompted...

THE soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines — the “Devil Dogs” — were stunned. After 25 days of intense urban warfare, hundreds of casualties and repeated declarations of America’s determination to crush the enemy, they and the three other US Marine battalions in Fallujah were abruptly ordered yesterday to pull out. “It’s kinda bad when you’ve had friends who’ve sacrificed everything, then you’ve had to hand it over to someone else,” Corporal Travis Box, staring at the ground in his forward base, said. “We weren’t doing it for tangible things. We were doing it for intangible things like pride...