Sometimes I have to struggle between seeing delight at another person’s pain and satisfaction at seeing justice done. Such is the case with Bilal Hussein, the Associated Press photographer who, all evidence suggests, was an al-Qaeda sympathizer if not an actual al-Qaeda operative.

The AP, who epitomizes the Dinosaur media, filed a sob story on Bilal Hussein last night about Hussein’s hearing and, not surprisingly, does not mention the evidence that the US military has compiled against him. According to AP:

NEVER MIND THE FACTS
“Military officials said Hussein was captured on April 12, 2006 in the company of two alleged insurgents in an apartment where there were bomb-making materials. He was being held indefinitely for “imperative reasons of security” under United Nations resolutions, because of “strong ties” to insurgents that went beyond the role of a journalist, they said.”

“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.

This jives with AP’s official contention that no “evidence [has] been disclosed to suggest wrongdoing.” Of course, AP is lying through their teeth. The AP stories on Hussein tend to leave a few things out, like, um, the fact that when the military began investigating his phony stories, they found bomb-making materials in his house. From CNN:

The photographer, Bilal Hussein Zaidon, faces charges in the Iraqi Central Court based on the evidence, Pentagon officials said Monday.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell and other U.S. military officials would not say directly what charges he faced. They referred reporters to the Iraqi court system.

Hussein, an Iraqi who lives in the western Anbar province city of Ramadi, has been held without charge by the U.S. military since April 2006, when bomb parts and insurgent propaganda were found in his house after the U.S. military asked to use it as an observation post during an operation.

Hussein was already under suspicion by the U.S. military because he arrived at terrorist attack sites so quickly that they suspected he had advance knowledge of attacks, according to Morrell.

Not only that, but according to The Washington Post:

Military officials said Hussein was captured on April 12, 2006 in the company of two alleged insurgents in an apartment where there were bomb-making materials. He was being held indefinitely for “imperative reasons of security” under United Nations resolutions, because of “strong ties” to insurgents that went beyond the role of a journalist, they said.

Funny how the Associated Press leaves out inconvenient facts in their defense of Hussein. Leaving out inconvenient facts seems to be AP’s corporate policy. As usual, it was bloggers like Rusty Shackelford, whom I had the pleasure to get to know casually back around 1990, Belmont Club, Michelle Malkin, and Sir Humphrey’s who were the leaders in getting the scoop on Hussein.