Samizdata

Here is some real news that the big media missed so far, straight from the horse’s mouth:

Abdul Al Aal Batat, known as “the lion of the marshes” because of his ferocious reputation or, alternatively, as “the man Saddam looked to for all of Southern Iraq”, was captured by the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment (QLR) in Basra last week.

He was a leading player in Saddam’s regime on the civil side, right hand man to Chemical Ali and known for killing and torturing his employees. As part of Saddam’s close circle through a connection to Saddam’s brother-in-law, he grew rich on sanction busting, smuggling, owning a lot of property around Basra on behalf of the Ba’ath party. Although just below the level of the pack of cards, he knew Saddam personally.

Until last week he was a leading criminal player, heavily involved in extortion from businesses courtesy of his tribal links from the smuggling side. He is believed to have been probably the top Former Regime Loyalist left in the south, funding and directing most of the anti-CF activity from their side in Basra (although not all of it).

He was caught by one of the QLR VCP’s (Vehicle Check Points) because his bodyguard was armed. He was then recognised by Int despite trying to grow his beard and change his dress. This is the biggest catch in the British AO (area of operations) and into the British detention facility at Umm Quasar since the end of the war.

Finally, they captured someone who has actually been running a lot of anti-coalition forces activities. It is always good news when they capture the pack of cards criminals but post-war some of the big fish are not in the pack of cards. Getting rid of the ones who are causing disruption right now may be doing more for the everyday lives of ordinary Iraqis.

Update: The QLR Media Ops Officer is John Ainley, at BASRA. The official media links should have his contact details.

A ‘legal opinion’ about the incident that made our Jonathan Pearce “mighty queasy”.

The adverts to UCMJ and the U.S. Army Field Manual only prove that hostage taking is illegal under U.S. law, but don’t prove that the action in question here was in fact a hostage taking.

So far I’m not convinced that there was a violation of either international or U.S. law — not in spirit nor letter. The only thing I’m convinced of is that lots of people are wanting to make a big deal out of an incident that doesn’t deserve the attention.

Via Instapundit

And I agree with most of what he says!

Norman Geras, who I had not previously encountered until he recently fired up his blog , has an interesting take on things from what appears to be pretty well left of center. I was particularly taken with his thoughts on the war, which echoed some of my own but were much better put (less spluttering and profanity, for the most part).

But opposition to the war – the marching, the petition-signing, the oh-so-knowing derision of George Bush and so forth – meant one thing very clearly. Had this campaign succeeded in its goal and actually prevented the war it was opposed to, the life of the Baathist regime would have been prolonged, with all that that entailed: years more (how many years more?) of the rape rooms, the torture chambers, the children’s jails, and the mass graves recently uncovered.

This was the result which hundreds of thousands of people marched to secure. Well, speaking for myself, comrades, there I draw the line. Not one step.

A spot of googling reveals that Mr. Geras is Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Manchester. His books include Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend, Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind: The Ungroundable Liberalism of Richard Rorty, and Men of Waugh: Ashes 2001, and he shows up in rags like Imprints: A Journal of Analytical Socialism (I confess to Windexing my computer screen after that web page opened up). One is always searching for sane lefties to try to gain some insight into the cult of the state, and Norm looks like he may be worth keeping an eye on.