Wednesday - April 16, 2008

Imperialist Justice?

The U.S. military has released Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after holding him for more than two years. Hussein was handed over to AP colleagues on Wednesday in Baghdad.

The U.S. military accused Hussein of links to insurgents. But an Iraqi judicial panel this month dismissed all allegations against Hussein and ordered his release. A U.S. military statement on Monday said Hussein is no longer considered a threat.

Hussein and the AP strongly denied any improper contacts by the 36-year-old photographer, saying he was doing the normal work of a photographer in a war zone. Hussein was detained by U.S. Marines on April 12, 2006 in Ramadi.

See? Look how fair they’re being. After catching this guy bang on, working for the terrorists, the military has let him go. Because the Iraqis said he was innocent. So there. Look how we even respect the judicial jurisdiction of this other country we’re “occupying”. Such a bunch of Imperialists we is. On the other hand, he did spend the last two full years in jail. Nobody is saying whether he had to wear undies on his head and then take his own picture doing so.  And it’s highly likely that all the insurgents he was linked to are now dead. Oh well.

I’m sure the left will make a big deal out of this. Oh, the bad US, illegally taking this guy prisoner, keeping him in jail all this time, boo hoo hoo. And now we’ll get another round of the old “deliberately tageting reports” crap, even from FoxNews. You know what any other country would have done with this guy? Accidentally shot him on sight. Oops, sorry, casualty of war. And that’s all they’d say if the body ever turned up. Which it might not have. Because a guy with a camera and a data link working for the other side is a spy, and spies get shot during war time. So consider yourself lucky Bilal. You’re the Hussein that got to live.

UPDATE

I missed it. Ooops. Sorry, but I just haven’t been paying much attention to this story over the past year. As pointed out at Malkin, LGF, and LawHawk, Bilal was released under the Iraq General Amnesty law, which is one of those Benchmarks you always hear the Dems yaddering on about. Revisiting the above link ... there’s a whole story there now, now that the VRWC blogosphere has ripped the AP a new one for ‘accidently’ forgetting to mention this. In other words, the charges against this guy were dropped to play nice-nice with Iraq, and to show that the Amnesty benchmark is working. From the new version of the above article, this snippet is buried halfway down:

Two judicial amnesty committees had ruled in recent days that there would be no trial on any of the accusations raised again Hussein. After confirming those decisions, the U.S. military’s detention command said Monday it no longer deemed Hussein a security threat and he would be freed.

U.S. military investigators had asserted that Hussein had links to insurgents and was found in possession of bomb-making materials when he was detained April 12, 2006. In December, military authorities referred Hussein’s case into the Iraqi court system for possible trial.

In February, the Iraqi parliament enacted a U.S.-backed amnesty law in a step toward national reconciliation. In separate rulings on Sunday and last week, the two Iraqi judicial panels granted Hussein amnesty, which drops the case and assumes no finding of guilt or innocence.

So, guilty as charged, but if you don’t charge him, he walks. The US made Iraq put such a law in place. Iraq then used the law. Bilal walks. If he turns out to be a terrorist, both countries can lay the blame on each other. Pretty slick, huh?

Posted by Drew458     on 04/16/2008 at 02:33 PM   
Filed Under: • War-Stories •  
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