What Reuters Preaches... ( Bias ?? What Bias ?? )

[Jolie Rouge]

WHAT REUTERS PREACHES...
By Michelle Malkin · March 10, 2006 10:11 AM



From Reuters' editorial policy: http://about.reuters.com/aboutus/editorial


Reuters news operations are based on the company's Trust Principles which stipulate that the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters must be upheld at all times.

Reuters has strict policies in place to ensure adherence to these principles. We are committed to accurate and balanced reporting...

...We do not take sides and attempt to reflect in our stories, pictures and video the views of all sides. We are not in the business of glorifying one side or another or of disseminating propaganda. Reuters journalists do not offer their own opinions or views.


...and what Reuters publishes (hat tip: Drudge and readers):

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060302/ids_photos_ts/r2741520107.jpg

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060302/ids_photos_ts/r2741520107.jpg

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/cheneyretire.jpg



Compare the drastic cropping above with the other photos from Cheney's speech at the U.S. Labor Department's 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/pl/031202cheney/im:/060302/ids_photos_ts/r2015014350.jpg;_ylt=AoOEAY6aUSEHxj57eq9.CuHmWMcF; _ylu=X3oDMTA5bGcyMWMzBHNlYwNzc25hdg--

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/pl/031202cheney/im:/060302/ids_photos_ts/r1949117551.jpg;_ylt=Ah3LJXj9cztbdKi5s0DF8l_mWMcF; _ylu=X3oDMTA5bGcyMWMzBHNlYwNzc25hdg--

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/pl/031202cheney/im:/060302/480/8cc27ff58b30476781ad953cc3811f35;_ylt=AreI5vtbeGYp 3TavbnJhocfmWMcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGcyMWMzBHNlYwNzc25h dg--


[color=blue]I guess this joke gets funnier everytime someone pulls it...[/coor]

[Jolie Rouge]

You put your left foot in...

If the mainstream media has no agenda, and their misreporting can solely be blamed upon the fog of war, we should see the mistakes benefiting the both sides equally; half the time, they should wrongly report a great American victory that turns out not to be so great after all. I now pause for readers to wrack their memories to recall the last time AP, Reuters, CNN, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Herald, the Wall Street Journal, or Media Matters did so.

Go ahead; I'll wait.

Curiously enough, every time a major media source blows a story, they do so by publishing something that advances the message of the "emerging defeat" in Iraq, and that only thing we can do is to manage that inevitable defeat. (Similarly, mistakes on restaurant bills always seem to be in the restaurant’s favor.)

We have never read a headline such as “American troops kills 100 terrorists,” only to find out later that we bombed a simple wedding party. It is always the other way around; the wedding-party meme always comes first, followed by a quiet correction in a little box at the bottom of an inside page.

But let us not call it an MSM conspiracy or say that Boehlert is a part of it; for they are all honorable men, and honorable men would not sling such libelous accusations without rock-solid proof.

Let us instead examine some of the stringers upon whose reports the media (especially AP) rely:

Snuff films on Haifa Street: http://powerlineblog.com/archives/009026.php

In December 2004, masked gunmen pulled two Iraqi election workers out of their car in broad daylight and assassinated them. An AP photographer-stringer just happened to be standing a few yards away, snapping pictures of the multiple homicide. The terrorists just happened to let him live. They even let him keep his camera and film. This was fortuitous, since the report earned an AP reporter a Pulitzer Prize.

After initial denials, AP first admitted that the photographer had been tipped off; then at last, they revealed the rest of the dirt on the endless supply of stringers ready and willing to accomodate "[i]nsurgents [who] want their stories told as much as other people." As Power Line's John Hinderaker concluded:


That makes the admission pretty well complete, I think. The AP is using photographers who have relationships with the terrorists; this is for the purpose of helping to tell the terrorists' "stories." The photographers don't have to swear allegiance to the terrorists--gosh, that's reassuring--but they have "family and tribal relations" with them. And they aren't embedded--I'm not sure I believe that--but they don't need to be either, since the terrorists tip them off when they are about to commit an act that they want filmed.

Stringing AP along: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-09-18T215041Z_01_N18315891_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-PHOTOGRAPHER-AP.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

In April 2006, Bilal Hussein was taken into US custody as a member of a terrorist group. Hussein had been working as an AP photographer-stringer; he had sent AP a series of pictures taken inside the terrorists’ training camp.

He also snapped a picture of terrorists boldly posing by the body of a murdered Italian journalist. But perhaps Hussein was only tipped-off by, not embedded with, the killers.

PhotoShop phantasies:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5254838.stm

In August 2006, Reuters had to fire their Lebanese photographer-stringer Adnan Hajj, after his photo-shopped pictures were exposed by some sharp-eyed bloggers.

These are not isolated cases; the major news media have published hundreds of such photographs by Iraqi photographer-stringers, and thousands of stories by Iraqi writer-stringers. The standard media narrative of tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, as well as the entire case for "the emerging defeat" in Iraq (as Eric Boehlert gleefully puts it), is based upon the concatenation of these questionable stories... many of which have all the earmarks of enemy propaganda disseminated via the reliably compliant (and incurious) American and international media.

How can we ever know how much of what we read and see about Iraq is real, how much exaggerated, and how much simply defeatist fabrication? Is Eric Boehlert even curious to know the answer himself? Or does he, like Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles' magnum opus, believe the people will think what the media tells us to think?

If that is what he believes, and if he is right, then thank heavens they are all honorable men: just imagine what mischief they could concoct were they not!


Believing is seeing

Meet Salam Daher, AKA Abu Shadi Jradi, AKA Abdel Qader, AKA Green Helmet Guy (how many names do Moslem extremists get to use?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salam_Daher

In July 2006, in Qana Lebanon, in the aftermath of an Israeli attack on a rocket-launching site, the photograph of a Lebanese "civil defense worker," his face anguished as he held a dead child in his arms, was plastered across the front pages of newspapers around the globe. Yet there was something odd about the guy, a discordant note. Many bloggers pointed out that he had been photographed throughout the day for hours, ghoulishly holding up the same dead child in various poses.

Green Helmet Guy told reporters conflicting stories about the number of children found dead. And then, Germany's NDR found footage of this guy directing scenes, using the dead body of a child as a prop, toted to the site from storage somewhere. Not only that... Green Helmet Guy had done the exact, same thing 10 years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vPAkc5CLgc&eurl=

This is nothing new. In Gaza, Palestinians have been staging battles and coaching witnesses for years. We even have a name for it: Pallywood. Here is an 18 minute video from YouTube, taken during the second intifada from 2000 to 2002:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1oq7oGO_N8&eurl=

For the first ten minutes, you will see Palestinians staging various events:

* A man shoots into a building as if he were defending himself; but the building is actually deserted;

* Civilians direct soldiers and crowds of "innocent bystanders" (extras) how to act prior to filming a scene;

*Footage of a funeral march in Jenin, after the "Jenin massacre," where the pallbearers accidentally drop the corpse from a stretcher -- and the dead fellow obligingly hops back aboard.

But the most telling footage starts about the 11th minute: an interview conducted by a Palestinian “reporter” with a new mother and father and with the doctor who had just delivered their baby at the local hospital. (I wonder if the reporter is a stringer for AP?)

On the way to the hospital, the reporter discusses with his staff what kind of story he is looking for: the terrible conditions that Palestinians must endure because of the wicked Israelis. At the hospital, the reporter tells the doctor that the young couple must say that the road was so dangerous, they couldn't get to hospital in time... and the young husband had to deliver the baby all by himself. In fact the doctor had delivered a healthy baby in the hospital few hours earlier.

Chillingly, all three subjects -- father, mother, and doctor -- agree; they give the interview, describing the terrible ordeal that never occurred.

How many times have we heard that eyewitnesses, bystanders, and doctors had all "verified" some calamitous event caused by the Israelis, the Americans, or our Coalition partners in Iraq? Oh, wait, here's one:


For the record, along with Hussein, the AP based its Burned Alive reporting on an account from Imad al-Hashimi, a Sunni elder who told Al-Arabiya television about the killings. (He later recanted his story after being visited by a representative of the defense minister.) The AP also spoke to three independent eyewitnesses (two shopkeepers and a physician) and confirmed the story with hospital and morgue workers.


This is from the very piece by Eric Boehlert that is the subject of this discussion.

Please also notice that the "Sunni elder" recanted... but that this was "after being visited by a representative of the defense minister." Not that Boehlert is implying any threats, intimidation, or torture... he would never do such a thing without a shred of evidence, for Boehlert is an honorable man.

So are they all. All honorable men.

[MIKAER]

WHAT REUTERS PREACHES...
By Michelle Malkin · March 10, 2006 10:11 AM



From Reuters' editorial policy: http://about.reuters.com/aboutus/editorial




...and what Reuters publishes (hat tip: Drudge and readers):

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060302/ids_photos_ts/r2741520107.jpg

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060302/ids_photos_ts/r2741520107.jpg

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/cheneyretire.jpg






[color=blue]I guess this joke gets funnier everytime someone pulls it...[/coor]
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[Jolie Rouge]

See - that is part of why I choose to "C&P" articles ....

[MIKAER]

No I don't see. What Is see is that your support documentation is DEAD

[Jolie Rouge]

Some are from sites that you have to register ( and then get spammed ) in order to read the whole article. Sometimes the sites only display artcle for a limited amount of time after which it is archived ( you have to pay a fee to read it then ). There are some sites that don't archive, you just get a "page not found" message because it has been dumped into the ether.


http://www.bigbigforums.com/vent-whine/507520-copy-paste.html?highlight=articles+Jolie

The OP ( & quoted sources ) was put up last March ... sorry you missed it.

[Jolie Rouge]

http://michellemalkin.cachefly.net/michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/5hussein0051.jpg

I meant to note this intriguing New York Times story on Associated Press stringer/suspected jihadi collaborator Bilal Hussein earlier today, but got tied up with family ... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/business/media/17apee.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


A spokesman for the military said that Mr. Hussein had been detained as “an imperative security threat” and that he has persistently been “treated fairly, humanely and in accordance with all applicable law.”

In a lengthy e-mail message, the spokesman said that Mr. Hussein had been named by “sources” as having “possessed foreknowledge of an improvised explosive device (I.E.D.) attack” on American and Iraqi forces, “that he was standing next to the I.E.D. triggerman at the time of the attempted attack, and that he conspired with the I.E.D. triggerman to synchronize his photograph with the explosion.”

....

The military spokesman said further: “The Associated Press was informed that the sources had reported Mr. Hussein’s knowing and willing offer to provide a false Iraqi national identification card to an alleged sniper, whom Mr. Hussein knew was wanted” by the military, “in order to assist the sniper in eluding capture.”

You’ll note that the reporter had space to fit this in…


The role of Iraqis as front-line reporters, and the dangers they face working for Western news organizations, is well known. In a few recent examples, in October a journalist for The Washington Post, Salih Saif Aldin, was shot dead in a Baghdad neighborhood rife with sectarian violence. That death occurred three months after a local journalist working for The New York Times was killed in the same area. Of the 124 journalists killed in Iraq since the war began, 102 have been Iraqi, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

And while Western journalists do depend on Iraqi freelancers, several news organizations, including The New York Times, continue to have resident correspondents who leave their compounds to report in Baghdad and beyond.


As the Jawa Report points out, there are some important details revealed in the piece that once again downplays the dangers of collaborating with foreign stringers. http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/190504.php


…but no space to mention the multiple cases of suspected staged, faked, or questionable war photos–including incidents involving Hussein. http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0410nj1.htm


Hussein is the AP's lead photographer in Ramadi, the largest town in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, which has been the main base for the Sunni insurgency against the Shiite-dominated Iraq central government. Hussein, who grew up in Falluja, has personally experienced the intensity of the fighting in Iraq. In November 2004, an AP reporter interviewed him about his escape from Falluja, which was then under attack from U.S. Marines.

"I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river," Hussein said. He watched, horrified, as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, "I helped bury a man by the riverbank, with my own hands.... I kept walking along the river for two hours, and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards." In 2005, Hussein was part of an Iraq-based team that won a Pulitzer Prize for news photography.

A series of Hussein's photographs illustrate another dilemma for photo editors -- whether to publish images that may have been created for the photographer. Last September 17, in Ramadi, Hussein took pictures after a battle at a dusty intersection. At least one U.S. armored vehicle had been damaged and towed away, leaving behind its 40-foot dull-gray metal track tread. Hussein's photographs showed the locals piling debris and auto tires onto the tread, and then celebrating as they lit a fire. Without the fire, smoke, and added debris, the photo would have presented a pretty uninteresting image of people looking at a leftover tank tread. With the smoke, fire, and debris, the image seemed to convey that a major battle had just taken place.

Weeks later, USA Today published a similar Hussein photograph from a different incident in Ramadi, which featured celebrating Sunnis, burning car tires, and a tank tread pulled over on its side.

Lyon said that AP bars photographers from asking people to change a scene, but that a crowd's spontaneous decision to change a scene in front of a cameraman presents a different situation. "You have this [dilemma] every day all around the world," he said. "There's nothing new there."

You’ll also find no mention of the tough questions posed by LTC Robert Bateman, the military journalist with expertise in dealing with AP cover-ups and the AP P.R. machine. http://www.concernedjournalists.org/bilal-husseins-day-court

As I said on Dec. 9, “What you will not read in the AP’s coverage of itself (or in the coverage by its supporters) is any honest, in-depth acknowledgment of the enormous perils of Western media outlets relying on dubious foreign stringers.”

This NYT propaganda piece is no exception.

[Jolie Rouge]

Bilal Hussein's Day in Court
Robert Bateman, CCJ Contributing Writer
November 30, 2007

Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Bateman is currently stationed in Washington, D.C. He was a Military Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and has authored two books: "Digital War, A View from the Front Lines" (Presidio: 1999) and "No Gun Ri, A Military History of the Korean War Incident" (Stackpole, 2002). These opinions are his own and do not reflect those of the U.S. Government or the Armed Forces.

http://www.concernedjournalists.org/bilal-husseins-day-court

This is a column that requires immediate and complete disclosure: I have a history with the Associated Press.

In 1999, the AP published a story about events that took place a half century earlier at a place called No Gun Ri. That is a small town in South Korea, and the events took place during the Korean War. I was, at the time the story came out, a historian on the faculty at West Point. After doing some archival checking of my own, I contacted the lead AP reporter and informed him that his star witness could not possibly have done the things the AP reported him to have done in Korea. I told him that I had uncovered evidence (in the very same archival material used by the AP for its reporting) that its witness was a complete fake. The AP blew me off. The next week, that AP team won the Pulitzer for their story. So I passed what I had to reporter Joe Galloway, then at US News and World Report, and eventually wrote my own book. (Strangely, the AP tried to censor this book, making me perhaps the only soldier ever to have journalists attempt to silence his voice. Go figure.) The AP’s star witness? He went to prison. It seems that the AP was not the only ones he had fooled. He had been collecting a paycheck for 100% disability for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for nigh on 15 years at the time I helped expose him as a fraud.

Then in December 2006 I raised some serious questions about AP’s sourcing for stories in Baghdad. It seems that one police officer, about the equivalent to a local desk sergeant in U.S. cop terms, was providing quotes and “eyewitness” accounts for events occurring all over Baghdad, but only when Sunnis were the victims. I threw a yellow flag on that one, too, based in no small part on my own life in Iraq, working with the Iraqi police, in Baghdad. I published my critique on the admittedly liberal/left-leaning news watchdog site Media Matters for America (where, in a bizarre twist, it apparently made me the temporary darling of the Right side of the online world.)

So, there you go. The AP and I have, you might say, a significant and developing history. It is a wee bit lopsided – one military historian versus the largest news organization in human history, but life is strange that way.

In any event, this column has nothing to do with those previous brouhahas. This column is about Bilal Hussein.

Hussein is, apparently, a man with an eye. He captures images, and by all accounts he does this quite well. He does so well enough, in fact, that the images he took made him a part of the AP team that won a Pulitzer Prize for news photography in 2005. Hussein is Iraqi. He is a native of the city of Fallujah, which is in Anbar province. He was assigned by the AP to the Anbar city of Ramadi. In April 2006, Hussein was captured by the U.S. military. He was taken into custody in the company of two men who were members of an insurgency group (or at least believed to be members of an insurgency group). These men were, at the time of their arrest, having breakfast with Hussein. This is all that I really know about Bilal Hussein. Everything else seems, at this point, to be a case of he-said-she-said.

On the one side, there is a consortium of right-wing bloggers and commentators who have had it out for Hussein even before he was part of the Pulitzer-winning team. “Conspiracy theorists” would, in some cases, be too gentle a term for the people who have trotted out some of the more extreme ideas on this issue. At their worst, some of these people are just plain nuts. Even at their best, few exhibit any real working understanding of how journalism works, or the ethics of journalism as they are commonly accepted.

Oh, and at least to some degree, the military officers who have determined that Bilal Hussein is not who he represents himself to be (an innocent journalist just trying to put food on the table in a tough environment) seem to come down generally on this side of the argument. That point should be clear because the U.S. military has held Hussein for more than a year and a half now. However, I would note that my own experiences within the military these past 18 years suggest to me that the overwhelming majority of my peers are not, in fact, conspiracy theory inclined. Occasionally we may be accused of paranoia, but in some environments in which my profession operates, this is a healthy and appropriate response. You are not paranoid, for example, if there really are thousands upon thousands of people who are trying to kill you. Living in Iraq reminds you of the truthiness of this observation.

On the other side is the world’s largest news organization, a body that itself seems somewhat conspiracy theory inclined. This is not a positive development.

Standing at the head of the AP today is Tom Curley. In 2006, several months after Hussein’s arrest, Curley’s frustration spilled over in an editorial in which he wrote of Hussein, “He is no longer free to circulate in his native Fallujah or in Ramadi, taking photographs that coalition commanders would prefer not to see published…” and, “Both official and unofficial parties on every side of a conflict try to discredit or silence news they don't like. That is certainly the case in Iraq, where journalists are routinely harassed, defamed, beaten and kidnapped. At last count, 80 had been killed.”

Now, since the rest of that Washington Post column was all about how Hussein had been arrested by the U.S. military in Iraq, the only connection a reader can logically make (although it is not explicitly stated) is that it is the U.S. military that has “routinely” been beating and kidnapping, journalists and by implication as well, deliberately killed 80 reporters or others involved in journalism. That, folks, is not true.

The U.S. military has not defamed, beaten, kidnapped or killed any journalists. At least, it has not intentionally killed any because they were journalists. (Several Western journalists have, in fact, died as a result of U.S. weapons fire, but not because they were journalists. The same applies for non-Western journalists. All tolled, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, some 124 journalists have died in Iraq, 16 of whom were killed by U.S.-fired weapons or in cross-fire between coalition forces and insurgents. See it all here.)

I thought I should mention that point since nobody in the U.S. government responded to Curley’s comments at that time, at least so far as I could determine.

Curley ended his essay this way: “If Bilal has done something wrong, the Iraqi courts stand ready to try him. Iraqi authorities have asked more than once that he and other Iraqi citizens in prolonged U.S. military custody be turned over to them for due process. We ask the same.”

( continues ... )

[Jolie Rouge]

In mid-November of this year, the U.S. government announced that it planned to do just that. Hussein is to be turned over to the Iraqi legal system. Curley, meanwhile, appears to have changed his mind. The Iraqi justice system, in his eyes, is no longer sufficient. But instead of working with the Iraqi government and judicial system, the AP has hired a former prosecutor named Paul Gardephe to represent Hussein. Now here is the curious part. Gardephe apparently does not speak Arabic. He does not read or write Arabic. He has never represented a client before an Iraqi court, or before any Arabic court. He has no legal training in the Iraqi judicial process, and it will doubtless require a waiver for him to practice law in Iraq before Iraqi judges. But what he does have is this (from Mr. Gardephe’s bio on his New York City law firm’s Web site):

“Paul Gardephe chairs the firm’s Litigation Department, White Collar Defense and Investigations group and is co-Chair of the firm's Subprime Mortgage Practice Team. His practice includes the defense of white collar criminal prosecutions and grand jury investigations, internal corporate investigations, and related regulatory proceedings. He also co-chairs the firm’s Appellate Practice group and has extensive appellate practice credentials. He often represents the media, particularly in libel and related matters.”

Say what? Are they serious? Bilal Hussein is facing an Iraqi investigative judge, and the AP hires an American lawyer? (The Iraqi system uses a two-tier judge system. The first tier consists of “investigative judges,” which the Iraqi system uses in much the same way that we use grand juries … which is just the tip of the iceberg as far as differences between the two systems go and also partially explains why the specific charges have not been enunciated. Anybody with 30 minutes experience with the Iraqi legal system knows this.)

The AP’s man faces charges with real, serious, consequences, and the AP hires an attorney whose primary qualification seems to be public relations spin for white-collar crimes? On what planet does that make sense? What was Curley thinking when he hired a NYC firm, and a lawyer with no Arabic language skills, no experience in military issues (let alone war zones) or the laws of land warfare, and no legal training in the country in which their employee faces trial? The only thing that occurs to me is that Curley somehow believes that American public opinion is what really counts in the Iraqi justice system. In short, Curley’s behavior (and that of the AP) suggests that his assumption is that it is domestic U.S. public relations that really matter in Iraqi courtrooms. Why else post its lawyer’s 46-page, English-language-only message on its Web site? There is no Arabic version; there are no Iraqi lawyers cited. The sum is the apparent product of a single New York City lawyer.


Yes, I understand, Curley himself does not speak Arabic. I get that he would personally probably be more comfortable with a lawyer from his own socio-economic and cultural circles, in this case those of New York City journalism circles. (Mr. Gardephe is apparently also renown for representing news organizations in libel suits.) I grok the emotional load Mr. Curley has in his desire to defend one of those he believes to be a part of his tribe. But none of that explains why he hired a libel lawyer from New York City to defend an Iraqi citizen in a criminal case in Iraq under Iraqi law. In his essay in last Saturday’s Washington Post, Curley used the singular when referring to Hussein’s legal team. He said “he” and “his lawyer” and made no suggestion that the AP has even attempted to create an Iraqi legal team to defend its Iraqi client in an Iraqi court. News organizations at least theoretically are pretty precise with language. Using the singular in reference to Bilal Hussein’s lawyer implies that there is only one lawyer.

Viewed in that light, Curley’s words do seem to dovetail nicely with his actions. In late November, in response to the announcement that Hussein was being turned over to the Iraqi legal system (remember, again, that Hussein is an Iraqi citizen), Curley appealed to the conspiracy minded. In the complete absence of evidence, and in defiance of common sense, he wrote:

“We believe Bilal's crime was taking photographs the U.S. government did not want its citizens to see. That he was part of a team of AP photographers who had just won a Pulitzer Prize for work in Iraq may have made Bilal even more of a marked man.”

Let me see if I get this straight.

Curley actually believes that Hussein was deliberately singled out and captured by some 19-year-old privates and their 24-year-old sergeant, none of whom is likely to have more than a high school diploma or equivalency document, who were reacting to (or targeted by) a roadside bomb that went off near Hussein’s place, was because these men somehow knew about the Pulitzer Prize?* Or, alternatively, that from their dusty FOB in the middle of Iraq, they keep track of photographic bylines of photos that appear in the United States? And your source for this is … what?

Sorry, folks, but only in the most insulated New York City bubble could that possibly pass the “makes sense” test. But then the AP’s hiring of a NYC lawyer known best for white-collar crimes and media libel law would tend to confirm the thesis that at the top they are, indeed, living in an insulated cocoon.

Mr. Curley, I am afraid I have bad news for you. Most of our soldiers, our privates, corporals, and sergeants, to say nothing of our lieutenants or captains, do not have a clue what the Pulitzer Prize is, what it means, or who has won the blasted thing. Frankly, damned few of our majors or lieutenant colonels know anything about this, either. For most of my peers, April is just April. It is not “Pulitzer season.” They are not on pins and needles waiting to see who of the nominees have grasped the brass ring of journalism. Nor do they obsessively check photo caption credits to see who has the byline. You might be better served by Occam’s Razor than by conspiracy theory.

The U.S. government, and our military, screws up. Sometime by an excess of zeal, sometimes through a dearth of the same. It may well prove that the Iraqi courts determine that Mr. Hussein is, in fact, innocent of the charges. I am not myself aware of all of the evidence that the government plans to use in his trial, though I have read your NYC lawyer’s analysis of the charges and accusations. But I do believe that it might behoove you to perhaps check your own biases. Remember, nobody believed that Time magazine reporter Pham Xuan An was anything but a dedicated local Saigon reporter either. **

You can write to Bob Bateman at [email protected]. He welcomes all, pro or con. This, he believes, is the foundation for discourse.

* I do not know the actual ages or ranks of the soldiers involved in Hussein’s capture. These are just averages for the typical infantry squad.

** For those unaware, the man now known as Major General Pham Xuan An was, in fact, a North Vietnamese spy during the entire period when he was also in the pay as a stringer and then full-time reporter for Time magazine, during the Vietnam War. He was a colonel in the North Vietnamese intelligence services.

You can find additional stories about Bilal Hussein here http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003678589 and here http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003677559

Also, you might be interested in this tidbit of news. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_on_re_eu/red_cross_protecting_journalists

[Jolie Rouge]

AP photographer granted Iraqi amnesty
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
Wed Apr 9, 4:49 PM ET

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi judicial committee has dismissed terrorism-related allegations against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and ordered him released nearly two years after he was detained by the U.S. military.

Hussein, 36, remained in custody Wednesday at Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention facility near Baghdad's airport.

A decision by a four-judge panel said Hussein's case falls under a new amnesty law. It ordered Iraqi courts to "cease legal proceedings" and ruled that Hussein should be "immediately" released unless other accusations are pending.

The ruling is dated Monday but AP's lawyers were not able to thoroughly review it until Wednesday. It was unclear, however, whether Hussein would still face further obstacles to release.

U.S. military authorities have said a U.N. Security Council mandate allows them to retain custody of a detainee they believe is a security risk even if an Iraqi judicial body has ordered that prisoner freed. The U.N. mandate is due to expire at the end of this year.

Also, the amnesty committee's ruling on Hussein may not cover a separate allegation that has been raised in connection with the case.

AP President Tom Curley hailed the committee's decision and demanded that the U.S. military "finally do the right thing" and free Hussein.

In response to a question from the AP, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it "will be up to officials in Iraq" on whether to release Hussein. The decision, he said, will be "based upon their assessment as to whether he remains a threat."

Under Iraq's 2-month-old amnesty law, a grant of amnesty effectively closes a case and does not assume guilt of the accused.

Hussein has been held by the U.S. military since being detained by Marines on April 12, 2006, in Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad. Throughout his incarceration, he has maintained he is innocent and was only doing the work of a professional news photographer in a war zone.

The amnesty committee's decision covers various allegations by the U.S. military against Hussein, including claims he was in possession of bomb-making material, conspired with insurgents to take photographs synchronized with an explosion and offered to secure a forged ID for a terrorist evading capture by the military.

The committee may still be reviewing a separate allegation that Hussein had contacts with the kidnappers of an Italian citizen, Salvatore Santoro, whose body was photographed by Hussein in December 2004 with two masked insurgents standing over Santoro with guns.

Hussein was one of three journalists who were stopped at gunpoint by insurgents and taken by them to see the propped-up body. None of the journalists witnessed his death, said Santiago Lyon, AP's director of photography. The AP wrote a story about the incident at the time.

The AP said a review of Hussein's work and contacts also found no evidence of any activities beyond the normal role of a news photographer. Hussein was a member of an AP team that won a Pulitzer Prize for photography in 2005, and his detention has drawn protests from rights groups and press freedom advocates such as the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"The Amnesty Committee took only a few days to determine what we have been saying for two years. Bilal Hussein must be freed immediately," said Curley, the AP's president.

"The U.S. military has said the Iraqi process should be allowed to work. It has, and the military must finally do the right thing by ending its detention of a journalist who did nothing more than his job. Bilal's imprisonment stands as a sad black mark on American values of justice and fairness," Curley added.

The U.S. military referred the case in December to an investigating judge, who reviewed the evidence and submitted his findings to the Central Criminal Court of Iraq to determine whether the case should go to trial.

In February, however, parliament approved a law providing amnesty to those held for insurgency-related offenses — including detainees such as Hussein who have never been convicted.

The committee from the Iraqi Federal Appeals Court ruled Monday that allegations against Hussein were covered by the Anti-Terrorist Law and were subject to the amnesty law.

The order was sent to the Iraqi public prosecutor, but it was unclear if it had been received.

A lawyer for the AP was provided a copy of the order, but Wednesday was a public holiday in Iraq and government offices were closed.

The amnesty committee — or any Iraqi institution — cannot force the U.S. military to release or turn over any of the estimated 23,000 detainees it holds in Iraq. But a provision in the amnesty law states that the Iraqi government "is committed to take the necessary measures to move the arrested people" from U.S. control.

"The detention of Bilal Hussein has been a terrible injustice, and we are relieved that his ordeal might finally come to an end after nearly two years behind bars," said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Sylvia Smith, president of the National Press Club in Washington, called the amnesty ruling "a long-overdue decision."

"The next step is to free him," she said.

___

Associated Press military writer Robert Burns in Washington and AP writer Carley Petesch in New York contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080409/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_detained_photographer;_ylt=AlpSGdB.vkzjT4J2Zi Uk3Wes0NUE


See also http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-information/520022-myth-fact-al-dura-affair.html

http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-information/552670-who-pvt-scott-thomas-beauchamp.html

There is more to this story, believe me. Amnesty does not equal absolution.

Stay tuned–and do not just rely on the conflict-of-interest-addled Associated Press for the news.

http://michellemalkin.cachefly.net/michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/5hussein0051.jpg


On the Net:

The AP's site on Bilal Hussein: http://www.ap.org/bilalhussein/

The AP's site on the Santoro slaying: http://www.ap.org/santoro/

[Jolie Rouge]

AP photographer freed by US after 2 years in custody
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
Wed Apr 16, 4:25 PM ET


BAGHDAD - Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was reunited with family and colleagues Wednesday, ending more than two years in U.S. military custody after Iraqi judges dropped all legal proceedings against him.

Tearful relatives rushed to embrace Hussein, who had been given just a few hours' notice of his release. He thanked co-workers and supporters around the world who had worked on his behalf.

"I have spent two years in prison even though I was innocent. I thank everybody," said Hussein, 36, looking healthy and dressed in a brown traditional Iraqi robe.

American military police handed over Hussein to AP colleagues at a checkpoint near Baghdad International Airport two years and four days after he was detained by U.S. Marines in Ramadi, 70 miles west of the capital.

Hussein, who is unmarried, was brought out of the detention facility at Camp Cropper to the checkpoint aboard a prison bus. There he was hugged by two colleagues before being driven to a Baghdad location for his reunion with more than a dozen family members.

He spoke to other well-wishers on a mobile phone as he was showered with flowers and sweets. Later, he was the center of attention at a traditional feast surrounded by colleagues and relatives.

"I thank God for Bilal's release and I hope that all Iraqi detainees will be released," said his 69-year-old mother, Taqiya Ahmed.

"Right from the beginning, I believed my son was innocent ... I didn't sleep a single minute last night thinking it would be the happiest day of my life to see Bilal again. I would like to thank the American army for his release, though it came late," she added.

His brother Yassir Hussein, a 35-year-old university professor in Baghdad, said he could not describe his happiness. "The family has been going through a hard time over the past two years, but now we thank God that we will have some rest," he said.

In the United States, AP President Tom Curley said Hussein "is safely back with AP and his family, and it is a great relief to us."

"Our heartfelt thanks to all of you who supported us during this difficult and challenging period," Curley said. "Bilal will now be spending some quiet time with his family and resting up."

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.

Throughout his detention, Hussein denied he maintained any improper contacts, saying he was doing the normal work of a photographer in a war zone.

Hussein was a member of the AP team that won a Pulitzer Prize for photography in 2005, and his detention drew protests from rights groups and press freedom advocates.

In New York, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon, said the group was "thrilled" by Hussein's release.

"He now joins a growing list of journalists detained in conflict zones by the U.S. military for prolonged periods and eventually released without any charges or crimes ever substantiated against them," said Simon. "This deplorable practice should be of concern to all journalists. It basically allows the U.S. military to remove journalists from the field, lock them up and never be compelled to say why."

Hussein said he heard about the amnesty rulings while listening to Radio Sawa, an Arabic language station financed by the United States. But he received formal notice about the military's decision to free him just a few hours in advance.

___

On the Net:

The AP's site on Bilal Hussein: http://www.ap.org/bilalhussein

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080416/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_photographer_freed;_ylt=AsVCJG0vpE4GEAjp.yVr9 I2s0NUE