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Justice for Bilal

Jimbo of Blackfive weighs in at Pajamas with a little more on Bilal Hussein, why and to what extent he was on the U.S. military’s radar before they found him with an al-Qaeda leader at his breakfast table. Pulitzer Prize in Terrorism:   

Pajamas Media has seen an email from a military source involved with the operation, confirming that Bilal Hussein and several others in the Fallujah area during 2004 had come to the attention of US forces tasked with information operations.  

They noted ongoing reports coming out of Fallujah that did not match the reality they were aware of. Stories of children and civilians being killed would come out, but in areas where the Marines had not conducted operations. Many of these stories featured pictures and reporting from Hussein and quotes from the same two doctors at Fallujah Hospital. During this period of time Fallujah was controlled almost completely by al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents. Anyone doing anything was subject to their approval.

… 

This team was comprised of US Public Affairs and Intelligence personnel as well as a Special Ops unit to exploit any actionable intelligence gathered. It was an extraordinary measure and only the fact that Hussein and several others were acting as de facto terror press agents prompted it.

Here, meanwhile, is the latest from AP. Bilal has a day in court. 

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi investigating magistrate on Sunday convened the first criminal hearing in the case of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by the U.S. military without charges for nearly 20 months.

Hussein was present for most of the nearly seven-hour, closed-door proceeding in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq before magistrate Dhia al-Kinani. It was the first time Hussein or his lawyers have seen any of the materials gathered by the U.S. military against him since his arrest in Ramadi on April 12, 2006.

Al-Kinani, however, issued an order that the proceedings and details of the material presented remain secret.

…

“There is still no formal charge against Bilal, and The Associated Press continues to believe that Bilal Hussein was a photojournalist working in a war zone and that claims that he is involved with insurgent activities are false,” said AP spokesman Paul Colford in a statement.

“Because the judge ordered that the proceedings today be kept secret, we are restricted from saying anything further.”

The AP already has confirmed to its satisfaction that the stringer they picked up off the street in Falluja at the height of the insurgency there is no fauxtographer but a professional journalist of the highest standards.  I’d suggest that, setting aside the very serious circumstantial evidence of coordination with terrorists engaged in murder and other criminal activity, there remains the fact that the Pulitzer package includes photos of insurgents supposedly engaged in combat that look a lot like setups.  The most famous shot has everyone out in the open, on the sidewalk, launching indirect-fire mortar rounds with a belt-fed direct-fire machinegun shot from the hip. Give those guys American uniforms and you’ve got a Sgt. Rock comic book cover. Maybe more like Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.* 

The picture doesn’t appear to have been taken from cover, and no one seems to be overly concerned about return fire. But maybe it is just indirect fire from the mortar, the machinegun crew is only there for security. Otherwise, where’s the next frame that shows all these guys dead on the ground?

It’s not the only photo in Bilal’s body of work that has setup written all over it, or less charitably, Bilal hanging with insurgents looking to ambush American soldiers. But these shots look more like “Sure Bilal, for the camera we will show you how we fire the rocket in righteous jihad against the hated Crusaders.”

And if these are setups, they’re at best substandard, at worst propaganda, and in any case hardly Pulitzerworthy.  Bilal is no common local hire who can be cut  loose, however.  Bilal as an insurgent plant is a Pulitzer that would have to be returned. Hence the high-powered former federal prosecutor and protestations at the highest level.

Those interested in Bilal’s work may also like to view some freshly executed Iraqi vermin and a slain infidel hostage that Bilal was to shoot thanks to his remarkable access … rather than ending up like them for collaborating with the invaders.

*No offense intended to either Sgts. Rock or Fury, Easy Co. or the Howling Commandos.  I have only the highest respect for your service to this nation, gentlemen.

Topics: Iraq, media

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:20 am on Monday, December 10, 2007

14 Responses to “Justice for Bilal”

1. The Thunder Run Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 10:53 am

   Web Reconnaissance for 12/10/2007

   A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

2. RebeccaH Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 11:16 am

   Thank you, AP, you selfish scum.

   I hope they hang the fooker.

3. Grimmy Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 11:20 am

   Bilal’s handlers may be employed in the industry of journalism but they are nothing more and nothing less than active enemy intel agents managing a black propaganda campaign against the US war effort.

   They may be domestic born and raised but they are overtly and completely loyal to the enemy’s needs/wants/desires in fulfilling objectives on the Info War front.

   “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear.”

   Quote by:

   Marcus Tullius Cicero
   (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
   Date: 42 B.C.
   Source: Speech in the Roman Senate

4. tanstaafl Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 12:58 pm

   Pallywood staging scenes in Gaza.

   (and “the corpse” got off the bier and walked away laughing when the cameras stopped rolling)

   Shots in Lebanon, summer 2006, including one whose “creator” (artistically enough) managed to catch the page of the Koran only half gone, as the fire burned.

   All that photoshop to doctor up the picture of buildings on fire in Beirut.

   Scott Beauchamp’s delusions of grandeur backed up by a (forever explaining) fogged up Foer.

   And Bilal.

   Probably just the tip of the fauxtography/fauxjournalism iceberg.

5. mojo Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

   I love that they hired him an all-American inside-the-beltway white-collar crime mouthpiece with no experience in Iraqi law.

   ‘Cause it’s the US public’s opinion that counts. Uh-huh…

6. tanstaafl Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 1:16 pm

   Remember when Ramsey Clark was hired as part of Saddam’s defense team ?

   (I think Saddam eventually fired him)

7. Vanguard of the Commentariat Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 4:00 pm

   “I think Saddam eventually fired him”

   How’d that work out for you Saddam?

8. Dave Surls Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 5:30 pm

   “Hussein was in his house with Hamid Hamad Motib, a known al-Qaeda leader…”

   If that’s true, then he’s in effect, a spy, and he should have been tried in front of a courts martial and shot, not handed over to the Iraqi civil authority.

9. The_Real_JeffS Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 5:47 pm

   …he should have been tried in front of a courts martial and shot…

   I agree with the sentiment, Dave, but that wouldn’t be possible even if Bilal were a US citizen.

   A more likely scenario would be “killed while resisting arrest”.

10. Grimmy Says:
    December 10th, 2007 at 5:54 pm

    Shove a tracking device up in him and turn him loose.

11. Vanguard of the Commentariat Says:
    December 10th, 2007 at 6:10 pm

    I’m actually surprised we haven’t done more of that Grimmy. Give em a pharmaceutical nightstick, insert tracking device, and on their way. Then, anytime two or more of the signals showed up in the same place, instant arty firing solution or TACAIR “dimpy”. The sharing and caring set would scream, but they are going to anyway.

12. Grimmy Says:
    December 10th, 2007 at 6:18 pm

    VotC:

    Who’s to say it’s not done from time to time?

13. heather Says:
    December 10th, 2007 at 8:42 pm

    AP’s Board of Directors consists mostly of owners of newspapers sold in the US Midwest and Southern States. You know, where a large number of American soldiers come from.

    Interesting, eh?

14. Fatty Bolger Says:
    December 10th, 2007 at 11:04 pm

    The AP managed to get a reporter embedded with the insurgency. That’s quite a coup. I’m sure they were clapping each other on the back in congratulations. “Let’s see you match that, you Fox News neocon warmongers!”

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