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2007-11-19 Iraq

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Posted by Sherry 2007-11-19 16:33|| || Front Page|| [12 views ] Top

#1 Bilal Hussein had an uncanny knack for showing up just before seemingly random attacks. WHERE IS BILAL HUSSEIN?

And

Associated Press and the Bilal Hussein case
The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. He has close relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnappings, smuggling, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and other attacks on coalition forces, according to a May 7 e-mail from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jack Gardner, who oversees all coalition detainees in Iraq.

The information available establishes that he has relationships with insurgents and is afforded access to insurgent activities outside the normal scope afforded to journalists conducting legitimate activities, Gardner wrote to AP International Editor John Daniszewski.

And this:

The military said bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured but it never detailed what those materials were. The military said he tested positive for traces of explosives.

Get the rope.

Posted by ed 2007-11-19 17:58|| 2007-11-19 17:58|| Front Page Top

#2 I would suggest a variant of medieval trial--put him in a basket and dip in Tigris for 10 minutes. If he does not drown, he's guilty.

Posted by twobyfour 2007-11-19 18:53|| 2007-11-19 18:53|| Front Page Top

#3 put him in a basket and dip in Tigris for 10 minutes

I was always enamored of the old Roman method wherebefore being thrown from a high river bridgeconvicted felons were first bound and then tied inside of a large sack along with a dog, a cat and a full grown rooster. It must have made for a rather strenuous last few minutes.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-11-19 20:48|| 2007-11-19 20:48|| Front Page Top

#4 LGF is on the case. Since Bilal is from Fallujah, I'm guessing that some of his former terrorist friends are among the insurgents who have come over to the allies, and they have provided the goods on him.

Posted by Angique Gonque2974 2007-11-19 20:51|| 2007-11-19 20:51|| Front Page Top

#5 Do they get a better deal that way?

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-11-19 21:22|| 2007-11-19 21:22|| Front Page Top

#6 No, Nimble. Since most of the former Anbar insurgents have amnesty now, there is no deal to be made.

The amnesty doesn't apply to agents of the foreign media, though, since they don't admit to supporting terrorists in the first place.

Posted by Angique Gonque2974 2007-11-19 21:54|| 2007-11-19 21:54|| Front Page Top

#7 Likely the information came during the course of questioning.

Posted by Pappy 2007-11-19 21:59|| 2007-11-19 21:59|| Front Page Top

#8 There is at least one element of AP's (and other media agency's) public approach to this and similar cases that is dishonest - characteristically dishonest, which only serves to confirm doubts about their good faith and sense of responsibility. That is the usually implicit assertion (here made explicit by one of their lawyers) that "due process" in this situation bears any resemblance to a normal US civilian criminal court.

My impression is that the US has struggled a bit in Iraq in its attempt to bring as much "due process" as possible to what is clearly a war, an emergency situation, not a normal peace-time situation. Among other things, the attempt to involve the regular Iraqi judiciary has been complicated by that institution's devastation during the Ba'athist dark ages, not to mention the extreme levels of violence and intimidation in many areas. You've probably all heard the stories of clearly guilty "insurgents" being sprung by Iraqi magistrates or judges to the amazement and anger of Coalition troops who risked their behinds to capture the SOBs.

As I recall the suspect in question here was literally detained in the presence of very important bad guys - if nothing else an extremely damning bit of prima facie evidence of illegal activities.

When I think about it the public behavior of several news agencies WRT detained journalists, or journalists killed or wounded by Coalition fire during combat, sort of encapsulate the intellectual dishonesty that underlies much of their "coverage": while the Coalition struggles to achieve its security objectives (and bring services and opportunity for renewal to Iraqis), while battling an utterly barbaric enemy, allied with a sometimes weak and evolving Iraqi security force, the press relies on dubious or worse locals out of neccessity but then applies peace-time standards to incidents that arise from the conflict. In other words, they're having it many different ways at once, and sometimes they switch back and forth.

On a tangentially related matter, I heard somewhere that TIME had apologized for some aspect of its involvement in the Haditha case. I've been wondering about the senior public affairs officer I know who was an early contact on this, and how he feels about the court martial process (so far) not just finding no guilty Marines but in most cases producing scathing rejections of the charges at the Article 32 stage.

Posted by Verlaine 2007-11-19 22:33|| 2007-11-19 22:33|| Front Page Top

23:53 WTF
23:41 Zenster
23:35 Zenster
23:27 JosephMendiola
23:17 JosephMendiola
23:12 JosephMendiola
23:10 JosephMendiola
23:09 Redneck Jim
23:06 Eric Jablow
23:00 Barbara Skolaut
22:58 JosephMendiola
22:58 Zenster
22:54 JosephMendiola
22:53 Redneck Jim
22:53 JosephMendiola
22:50 JosephMendiola
22:49 JosephMendiola
22:48 Barbara Skolaut
22:45 JosephMendiola
22:40 Grumenk Philalzabod0723
22:37 DMFD
22:36 The Democrats
22:33 Verlaine
22:32 DMFD