Brave New World
That’s what Bilal Hussein will walk into when he is freed Wednesday, if he’s heading home to Fallujah.
Fallujah is no longer what it was when the AP photog was hauled off as a detainee two years ago. And Hussein, the U.S. military says, is no longer an “imperative threat to security.” The military has agreed to release him, after Iraqi judicial authorities granted him amnesty, declining to prosecute with no determination on his guilt or innocence. The AP’s happy about that and he probably is too, though he’s been denied an opportunity to challenge the evidence and establish his innocence in court. Having one of the world’s largest news organizations conducting his PR will have to suffice.
But he’ll go home to a very different place. His native Anbar province is one of the quietest places in Iraq, no longer in the throes of insurgency, no longer bothered by al-Qaeda bombmakers of the sort in whose company Hussein was seized, back when he was the insurgent photog of record, Johnny-on-the-spot for the attacks, hostage bodies, etc. Coincidentally, Michael Totten published something yesterday that tracks Fallujah’s evolution. A good read.
This raises the question of what Hussein will now do for the AP, if he is going to continue to work for them. His access to insurgents presumeably is no longer current. There are apparently no insurgents in Anbar to have access to. If the AP wants to start doing stories about construction, local governance, kite-flying, that kind of thing, he could shoot that. The AP has shown little interest in that kind of story, only passing interest for that matter in any kind of war reportage that takes place outside of press conferences and doesn’t involve a grim tally, illustrated with lots of death compliments of local stringers like Bilal Hussein. Though I sense a multi-part Bilalapalooza coming on, in which the old town’s current peacefulness and insurgent rejection may be unavoidable, though AP avoided them as long as possible and hasn’t bothered to dwell much on them.
Otherwise, they may need to move Bilal elsewhere if he is going to remain useful to them. His professional credentials are somewhat limited, but I’m guessing a tour of U.S. universities could be in his future, sponsored by the AP and CPJ. Maybe a Nieman fellowship. Either that or he could take whatever the AP’s giving him for his trouble and go back to selling cellphones.
Don’t forget to support independent journalism when you visit Totten’s site, by the way. If we didn’t have independent journalism in Iraq, we’d barely have any at all.
Check this out. Rupert Murdoch just got appointed to the AP’s board of directors. Unfortunately, this probably won’t mean any wholesale Murdochian jettisoning of deadweight or much likelihood the organization will modify its America-bashing, pro-”militant” agenda anytime soon.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:41 pm on Monday, April 14, 2008
2 Responses to “Brave New World”
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April 15th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Hey, maybe they’ll throw him a party…
April 15th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
The AP can always send him to Syria or Egypt (probably not Iran, as he’s not Persian). Things are still hopping there for the time being.