Sabbath 30/9/27/120 and New Moon 1/10/27/120
Dear Friends,
I would like to discuss the matter of David Hicks and the US Military Commission set up to deal with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We have mentioned Hicks and the unlawful procedures concerning his detention and handling previously.
Our concern is for the procedures involved in this matter of his detention and trial, not in Hicks per se. So also we might be concerned for M. Habib and the many others in detention. Habib was tortured in Egypt prior to his on-forwarding to Cuba. To use the term “Cuba” is a bit of a misnomer as Cuba does not control the US facility there and the US military is claiming that it is not subject to US jurisdiction there. Habib and Hicks are Australian citizens and so we are able to discuss both these people with a degree of informed opinion regarding the background under which they are held.
Hicks was due to be tried by the commission in January but it appears that the trial may be set back into the middle of the year due to legal action underway now in the US courts. Counsel for Hicks is US Major Michael Mori, a US Marine lawyer. Major Mori has drawn attention to the serious issue of the allowing of testimony taken under torture to be used to try a suspect, in this case, of the “War on Terror.”
Earlier last week a report of the International Committee of the Red Cross was “leaked.” It claimed that the US Military had used psychological and physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on detainees (aap 2004 per Ninemsn news Friday Dec 3 2004).
The Military Commission was a system last used in 1945 at the end of WWII. Under its rules, evidence gained through torture could be used. This system was resurrected to deal with terror suspects. Hicks was captured in 2001 in Afghanistan with Taliban forces and since then had been detained for three years in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Now he is an Australian citizen and as such he should have been returned to Australian hands and tried in Australia under Australian law but, as it was admitted, they had nothing to try him for and he would have been acquitted. Thus he was allowed to be detained along with Habib and both were tortured and that evidence is being used to now try them and other suspects. Indeed, it appears that Egypt may well have tried to request the repatriation of an Habib, among four others, back to Egypt from Cuba. If it was this Habib, which appears to be the case, it was Egypt that tortured him at the behest of the coalition forces in the first place and he would not be safe there at all and has no wish to go there. Australia is doing too little too late.
Major Mori is reportedly prohibited from commenting on whether Hicks has been tortured but confirms that he has been physically assaulted in US custody. With the best will in the world, how can a US Marine Corps lawyer do justice to the defence of a person when his ability to comment on the torture of his client is restricted by his own superiors? Natural justice demands that all people under our system have a tribunal free of bias and they have the right to be heard.
So, why are we writing about this matter and what is the problem? Are not terrorists still killing innocent people now all over the world and should not we try to stop them? I have even seen so-called Christians of the Churches of God writing lengthy dissertations saying that these Muslims worship the God Allah and that “God” is not the God of the Bible. These uninformed assertions show the real nature of the problem we face and how this religious bigotry is the root cause of the problem. The western political system has ceased to argue cases on merit but rather now it is argued on a cult of the personality. Individuals are demonised and the stage is being set for a religious war and religious persecution.
Why are we interested? Because it has all been done to us before. The Reformation saw our own people turn against us when they became the established Protestant system under Luther. For the last 800 years we have been persecuted and the signs are now appearing of the return to the insane religious bigotry of by-gone times.
We stopped allowing torture as the basis of confessions in our judicial system some three centuries ago. It was realised by intelligent men that you could make anyone say anything under torture. It is not and never can be the basis of justice, which is the hallmark of a Christian system. If the Iraqi terrorists use terror and killing as the basis of their system, does that mean we should do likewise?
What reason is there then for our system to survive, as it is no better than the terrorists we condemn? The US elections saw the polarisation of the US people and the mobilisation of a religious movement that is based on bigotry and unscriptural thinking. The religious systems in the US say they are based on the Laws of God but in fact, follow nothing of what the Bible says. They keep few of the Ten Commandments, keep none of the holy days and feasts of the sacred calendar, and follow pagan days of human sacrifice even in their civil let alone religious festivals. The political system is now becoming enmeshed with the religious system and the bigots of the uninformed religious hate-mongers will now continue to press their new-found political advantage.
The frightening prospect is that torture will become an accepted means of obtaining evidence and it will see the end of our judicial system, as we know it.
There is a glimmer of light. A recent US court decision has thrown into doubt the legality of military trials of terrorism. Unless the US legal system stands up to this form of abuse and the international community under the Red Cross exposes and stands up to this type of activity, then our system is bound for the scrap heap and we will regress to the barbarism of the Roman Catholic and Protestant judicial system of centuries ago.
Michael Servitus was burned at the stake under the orders of John Calvin himself. Calvin said: “Confess that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God,” and Servitus said, “I confess that Jesus Christ is the son of the Eternal God,” and Calvin roared, “Light the fire.” This distinction has been taken into the Churches of God by the Armstrongite ministry and they would burn us at the stake themselves over this issue. They argue that there were two separate Gods from the beginning and that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God, and they are thus Calvinists in the basis of their theology. So, in that sense, they are correct when they say Allah is not the same God they worship. Theirs is a Ditheist God (or Binitarian depending upon who explains it to you), contrary to the Bible. Ezra chapters 4 to 7 are written in the Chaldean and Elahh is the name of the God of the Temple at Jerusalem and this God is singular and admits of no plurality whatsoever. It is the basis of the Eastern Aramaic from where the Arabic name Allah’ came. Allah’ and Elahh are the same being, the God of the Temple at Jerusalem and the God of Jesus Christ. Our people were burned at the stake or beheaded for using goose fat and not pork fat in cooking. We were not allowed to even know the identity of our accusers, let alone cross-examine them. The types of implements used against us are all on display in the areas of the Albigensian crusades at Carcassone and Foix and Albi. In Albi the sign there says freely that the cathedral was built with the funds “reclaimed” from the “heretics.” The Inquisition was funded by the biblically devout and fuelled by the greed and avarice of the priests and bigots of the Trinitarian religious system. It could happen today and is in fact happening today. Do not think that you will survive by saying nothing because you will not avoid this issue by silence. The insanity of the Mullahs is matched only by the bigotry and humbug of the telly-evangelists and Pentecostals. God is alleged to be on both their sides. We often ask: “Who is on God’s side?”
Remember, the Nazi Holocaust was a Trinitarian religious persecution of all opposed to them. The Jews were simply a major element of the victims.
We should all take time to look at the web site “Holocaust Revealed” at www.holocaust-revealed.org. Study the papers The General Distribution of the Sabbath-keeping Churches (No. 122) and The Role of the Fourth Commandment in the Historical Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 170).
“Justice” is the same word in Hebrew as “Righteousness”. You cannot be righteous without being just. That is why the Talmud also is non-biblical and will be destroyed by Messiah for the Millennial system. There is no basis in the faith for bigotry and all must be based on the Laws of God.
The orthodox Jews have reportedly just organised a credit card that will not work on the Sabbath and it may be that it will not work in ATMs that work on the Sabbath. What is the next step? Sundays for the Pentecostal bigots and we are back to the Inquisitions in no time.
Love goes hand in hand with enlightenment and education and social justice. That is why we love God and then our neighbour as ourselves because we cannot love one without the other. In the end we will all be one family under one God Eloah and as elohim. It is written: “I said ye are Gods and Scripture cannot be broken.”
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
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