3 Americans arrested in Kabul

Mel Smith, head of the Special Forces Association, has almost nothing to say about Idema.

''He's not a member, and he never will be,'' Smith said.

Nope, not much, just everything that needed to be said. LMAO

[Team Sergeant]

Originally posted by oldSF
Gentlemen,

The Nose knows. While I have no first hand knowledge of Idema's indescretions, I know several who do...and I trust them. For those of you who are members of the SFA, see The DROP. Keith's latest attorney states that the SFA & other charities, are below Keith's standards., only felons need apply. I wretched when I watched Edema on IMUS months ago. The dude is so full of himself. I missed him at the SFA convention in '02. Pity.

The oldSF

I read that in the Drop. Thanks for the updates oldSF!

What a friggin loser. For all those non-SF types jack, keith idema is a piece of shit, a 10%'er. He's a head case and a convicted felon. Nuff said. I hope he enjoys the Afgan jail.

TS

[Guru]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/in...11afgh.html?hp

[magician]

Not to step on you, Guru, but here is the full text of the article from the Times for the convenience of those who want it.

July 11, 2004
Portrait of a U.S. Vigilante in Afghanistan
By DAVID ROHDE

ABUL, Afghanistan, July 10 - Journalists remember him as Jack, an eccentric, heavily armed and at times, it seemed, dangerously unbalanced, middle-aged former American Special Forces soldier, who appeared in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.

Surrounded by armed Afghan guards and rumors that he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, he quickly rose to prominence. In the next two years, he was interviewed by Fox and CBS News, helped write a book called "The Hunt for bin Laden" and said he had discovered evidence in Afghanistan that linked Iraq to Al Qaeda.

This week, Jack, a convicted felon whose real name is Jonathan Keith Idema, was arrested with two other Americans and accused of running his own vigilante antiterrorism campaign in Kabul. Afghan and American officials said that Mr. Idema, 48, and the two other Americans posed as government officials and illegally imprisoned at least eight innocent Afghan men for 10 days or more.

A senior Western diplomat said Saturday that Mr. Idema's campaign appeared to have been an attempt to get American intelligence agencies to take him seriously. American officials have said that Mr. Idema had no ties to the American government. "Perhaps if he did something successful," the diplomat said, "the government would pay attention to him."

In an article about the exploits of Mr. Idema's group sent by e-mail to news organizations in Kabul just before his arrest, a journalist identified as Mohammed Ashimey wrote that a "supersecret group" of "renegade Green Berets" had decided to break up a major terrorist plot in Kabul "without United States support and without government funds."

But local Afghan journalists said they had never heard of Mr. Ashimey, and there was no response to a message sent to the e-mail account from which the article originated.

In breathless prose, the article said the former commandos, frustrated by American government inaction, had dubbed themselves Task Force Saber and had arrested 13 people suspected of terrorism since arriving in Afghanistan three months ago. The article, which sounded like it could have been written by an American, included an accurate description of the illegal arrests that led to Mr. Idema's detention and a fawning description of his work.

"Driving beat up old S.U.V.'s, wearing low-slung holsters like Clint Eastwood, long hair, beards and Afghan scarfs, the Green Berets operated they way they did during the 2001-2002 war, with no rules, no oversight and no plan," the article said. "Changing cities, houses and bases every few days, they seem to appear and disappear at will."

American and Afghan officials are still investigating how many Afghans Mr. Idema detained during his spree, how long it lasted and whether he harmed anyone.

The Western diplomat said bloody clothes had been found at a house in Kabul where the Afghan authorities freed five of the Afghans whom Mr. Idema had been holding prisoner.

Black curtains still hang over two back rooms where prisoners were held in his house in Kabul. Prisoners also appeared to have been tied to chairs in the kitchen and bathroom, Afghan officials said. In an office, there were two clocks on the wall, one showing the time in Kabul and one showing the time at Fort Bragg, the military base used by Special Operations forces in North Carolina. A piece of paper on the wall was titled "Missions to Complete" and listed various tasks. Item No. 2 was "Karzai." Item No. 4 was "pick up laundry."

One of the prisoners, Muhammad Hanif, a 19-year-old mechanic, said in an interview on Saturday that when Mr. Idema's group arrested him, they burst into the house where he was working and fired shots into the ceiling. Local police who arrived at the scene said the armed Americans said they were with the United States military.

When he and seven other prisoners were taken to Mr. Idema's house, they found an Afghan named Sher Ali, who said he had been imprisoned there for six days. The next day, Mr. Ali was gone.

Mr. Hanif said he had been denied food and water for the first three days of his imprisonment and at one point had become so weak that he had lost consciousness. Through 10 days of imprisonment, he said, his hands were tied and a bag was placed over his head. He said that when the prisoners had asked their captors if they could pray, one American had answered: "You are terrorists. Why do you pray and what do you pray for?"

Afghan officials said all the men Mr. Idema arrested appeared to be innocent.

Mr. Idema grew up in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., joined the Army in 1975, and was on active duty for three years before joining a Reserve Special Forces unit in New York, according to The Fayetteville Observer.

In December 2000, he was featured in an article in The New York Times about pet owners who believed animal cloning may eventually be possible.

Mr. Idema, who lived in Fayetteville, N.C., at the time, said he had saved some genetic material from Sarge, a dog he had used while serving as a soldier. Mr. Idema said the dog had parachuted out of planes with him and sniffed bombs.

In 1994, a federal jury in Fayetteville found Mr. Idema guilty of wire fraud, according to court documents. Prosecutors said he faked credit reports and established a false company to obtain roughly $270,000 in merchandise for his troubled military equipment business, Idema Combat Systems. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

Ali Ahmed Jalali, the Afghan interior minister, questioned how Mr. Idema was able to operate without being noticed by foreign intelligence agencies. He said that in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Mr. Idema's spree would fuel Afghan suspicions of American forces.

"There are people who are trying to find excuses to blame everything on the Americans," he said. "He was running a prison in Kabul."

I am wondering if kidnapping charges will be conferred against these guys. Hate to wish bad things on anyone, but looks like charges of kidnapping and impersonation of a US official, at minimum, are on the horizon. In my opinion, they will be very, very lucky if they are charged in a US venue. If Lady Luck takes a walk, they just might end up doing time in Afghanistan.

How would that be for justice?

Big boy rules. You play, you fucking pay.

It is just unfortunate that it took this long for the guy to overreach and jam himself up. He has been giving the SF community a bad name for a long, long time. It is incredible to me that he was able to interact with all these news agencies in the past. I mean, Fox News has some real yahoos working as Talking Heads, but this guy? Jesus. Who the hell runs those places, anyway?