Kenders' Musings

The Free Jack Idema Blogburst

One of the strangest aspects of the story of illegally-imprisoned US Special Forces soldier Jack Idema is his bizarre treatment at the hands of MSM.

Indeed, for anyone currently searching internet archives for information on this case, the 'Idema' presented to them will, invariably, be this one

The colourful Idema - sunglasses on in court as always - insisted again he was on an anti-terrorist mission approved by the Pentagon and the Afghan government.
[...]
But there will be many in both governments who will be breathing a sigh of relief that for the moment, the case is over - and out of the public eye. It has proved embarrassing for them, because of a drip feed of revelations.

What we have here, then, is Jack as 'colourful' rogue, Jack as fantasist, Jack as crook. Almost without exception, such unfair and derogatory descriptions of Idema are the only ones available from mainstream outlets. And, almost without exception, all mention of Idema starts with his arrest in July 2004. Looking at this material, a person could, in fact, be forgiven for thinking that no journalist had ever heard of Jack until that point.

This just isn't true.

In reality, Jack and his team's activities received extensive coverage in the media from September 2001 onwards. Here's a sample of this, which is archived (along with many, many others) over at SuperPatriots:

On the rocky hilltops overlooking the earthquake-battered villages there were hundreds still hoping for help, still praying, and still untreated days after the powerful earthquake levelled the area.
Untreated, that is, until Jack showed up.
Coalition Forces may not be able to reach the injured, and German military forces had to turn back at the base of one mountain due to security concerns, but this American doesn't seem to have a problem.
On Saturday, wearing a khaki-and-brown, U.S. flag patch on his shoulder, sporting a beard and carrying an assault rifle and pistols, Jack continued his own one-man mission to help those hurt in the quake that struck this area of northern Afghanistan a week ago - and in particular find all of its neglected victims: women and children.

This story originally appeared after the Nahrin earthquake, on April 2nd, 2002, and is interesting because it shows how Jack and his team were presented in a heroic light by MSM when it suited their purpose to do so.

Only, here's the thing: Jack and Brent's arrest in 2004 presented the media with an opportunity to repeat Taliban-manufactured lies about how Jack had kidnapped and tortured Afghan prisoners by hanging them from the walls of his (non-existent) basement -- For the average lefty-journalist this story must have been very tempting indeed.

Except. What to do about all those other stories, the ones which truthfully portrayed Idema as the kind of hero who hunts terrorists and saves women and children under fire? After all, MSM's post-2004 'version' of Jack Idema clearly wouldn't stand up to scrutiny if all those earlier stories were around to contradict it.

It's at this point that the media should have just done their jobs, asking serious questions about the truthfulness of the allegations against Jack and his team, and helping to clear their names. Instead, the media elected to erase virtually all pre-2004 stories about Idema from their servers, pretend they were unaware of his presence in Afghanistan prior to his arrest, then run the (to them) far more attractive story of the US 'torturer' put on trial by those he'd tormented.

To see how effective (and systematic) this 'scrubbing out' of the truth about Jack actually is, simply try clicking any of the links to pre-2004 Idema stories on the SuperPatriots website. In almost all instances, the result is the same as this from Britain's Guardian

Sorry, the requested article is no longer available.

It's in this way that the truth about a decent man has been buried in order to promote the lies that keep him imprisoned to this day.

So what can we do? Well, anyone reading this with their own blog can sign up for the weekly Free Jack Idema Blogburst by emailing Cao or Rottweiler Puppy for details. I'd urge everyone to do this, as we're still terribly short on takers. If you want to know more about the story, Cao's Blog has a large section devoted to Jack Idema. There's also a timeline here, and, of course, a huge amount of information is available over at SuperPatriots, without whose work none of us would have learned about Jack's story.

You should also contact the following people and make your feelings known,
especially to write letters of complaint about this despicable situation:

Secret US EMBASSY Fax: - 301-560-5729
(Local US Fax: Goes RIGHT TO Ambassador)
c/o US Ambassador Ronald Neuman
US Embassy- Afghanistan
6180 Kabul Place
Dulles, VA 20189-6180

US Consul Russell Brown - 011-93-70201908 (Fired)
US Consul Addie Harchik- 011-93-70201908
(denied them water and mail at Thanksgiving- Gone)
US Consul Edward Birsner- number yet unknown
US Embassy Translator Wahid - 011-93-70201902
US Embassy Asst Consul Bashir Momman- 011-93-70201923
US Consul (friend) Dawn Schrepel- 011-93-70201908 (Fired)

Ambassador Massoud Khalili
(wounded with Massoud)
(Great and Kind man)
Islamic State of Afghanistan
Embassy of Afghanistan
Ankara, Turkey

H.E. Said Tayeb JAWAD (Afghan Ambassador- powerful in US)
(Northern Alliance Good Guy Fired- New Pro Taliban Ambassador)
Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington
2341 Wyoming Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
Tel: (202) 483-6414
Fax: (202) 483-9523

Mr. Jahed Hamrah, Consul General (pro-Taliban)
CONSULATE GENERAL OF
AFGHANISTAN IN NEW YORK
360 Lexington Avenue,
11th Floor New York,
New, York, NY 10017
Tel.: (212) 972-2276 or 972-2277
Fax: (212) 972-9046

Chairman Peter Hoekstra
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
H-405, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20515-6415;
Office: 202-225-4121 / Fax: 202-225-1991
Toll Free: (877) 858-9040

M. Cherif BASSIOUNI
Independent Expert of the Commission on Human Rights
On the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
UNOG-OHCHR
CH-1211 Geneva 10
Ph: +41(0)22 917 97 27 Fax: +41(0)22 917 90 18

Senator Steven Saland (Jack's Rep and Neighbor)
9 Jonathan Lane
Poughkeepsie, NY 12603

Senator Elizabeth Dole (Jack's Rep)
United States Senate
555 Dirksen Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Ph: 202-224.6342
Fax: 202-224.1100

Senator Richard Burr (Interested)
United States Senate
217 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3154 / Fax: 202-228-2981

Senator Bill Nelson (in the fight on Jack's Side)
United States Senate
Hart Senate Office Building
Room 716
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-5274 / Fax: 202-228-2183
FL Fax 407-872-7165

Senator Dianne Feinstein (Bennett's Representative)
United States Senate
Hart Office Building, Room 331
Washington, D.C. 20510
202-224-3841

Representative Mike McIntyre (Jack's Representative)
United States Congress
2437 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202-225-2731 / Fax 202-225-5773

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
(Reference Captain Bennett- CA citizen)
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841 / Fax: 916-445-4633


Finally, PLEASE NOTE: The SuperPatriots and Jack images on this site are used with WRITTEN COPYRIGHT PERMISSION and any use by any third party is subject to legal action by SuperPatriots.US

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The Free Jack Idema Blogroll:

The Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill
The Lone Voice
Kender's Musings
Irate Nate
The Devil's Kitchen
Cao's Blog
Big Dog's Weblog
Theodore's World
NIF
Rottweiler Puppy
Right For Scotland
Freedom Folks
The City Troll
Sacramento Boxing
Causes of Interest
Concatenation of Events
Hyscience
Stuck On Stupid
The Daily Blogster
You Don't Know Jack
Right Wing Nation
Ron's Musings
Right Voices
7.62mm Justice
Special/Blown-It