concatenation of events: October 2006

Free Jack Idema Blogburst

After the turmoil of recent weeks, the past seven days have been uneventful in the case of illegally-imprisoned Special Forces soldier Jack Idema.

Jack remains holed-up in his compound at Pulacharke prison, still under threat from the men President Karzai has posted outside the prison, but, for the moment, relatively safe.

As for Brent Bennett, Jack’s right-hand man, he remains free since giving his State Department captors the slip en route to back to the U.S. While this is, in itself, good news, it is still unclear precisely what his legal status actually is — As Brent himself wrote in his account of his removal from Afghanistan, “the United States Consul seeks to make me a man without a country to go home to”. Some reward for answering your country’s call to hunt terrorists in a time of war, eh?

While Jack and Brent continue existing in what amounts to a legal limbo, however, President Karzai’s behaviour toward hardened Taliban fighters couldn’t be more different:

Early Sunday morning, 20 Taliban fighters/terrorists were released from Pulacharke as a ‘gift’ for Ramadan. This, I’m certain, is to ensure they’ll join their terrorist brothers in the south where the American food is being dropped to help the Pashtun/Taliban. Meanwhile, the Red Cross food supplements to the women in the North has been cut off. The money and the food is going to help the Taliban fighters and their families, which barely seems possible, while the Northern Alliance, our real allies, are suffering through the beginning of another cold winter without the aid they had from America before.

This situation — the release of Taliban prisoners and the shifting of aid from friendly to hostile Afghan provinces — closely relates to the Jack Idema case.

From day one, the Karzai administration has pursued a policy of appeasing terrorists and fanatics. This is why Jack and his men wound up in prison after they arrested an ‘ex’-Taliban judge. It’s why food aid is being siphoned away from the Northern Alliance who fought with us in 2001 in order to feed the very terrorists who are still fighting (and killing) our troops today. It’s why Jack Idema is sitting in a prison cell, even as 20 convicted terrorists walk free, presumably in order to rejoin the Global Jihad.

And, of course, all of this is being paid for by the U.S., British and Afghan people, through our taxes, and, on the battlefield, with our soldiers’ blood.

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
Making Headlines
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

I took Joe's lead

And changed the blog design. A new addition is the freshly installed stat counter for the site's statistics. I don't, you see, rely on all my different personalities congratulating themselves or venturing out to the internet posting on discussion forums under different pseudonyms pointing back to this place to establish the success of the blog; it's purely for this one tyke's amusement....and to see if I might raise the ire of a certain twit who's as thick as two short planks. If I'm lucky, the short stubby ugly jobless old get might throw a wobbly, just as he did when he abruptly quit FOX News when people became aware of the truth.

Free Jack Idema Blogburst

And yet another blogburst from the not-so-distant past, which brings us to the present, methinks. One is left to ponder in the interim what has happened to Brent Bennett and where he is now. However, I'm quite certain we will all be finding this out at some point. I think this post brings us up to the present, although the prolific Cao at Cao's blog brings us affadavits from Brent Bennett himself, and one from Zorro Banderas as well as one from a man named Tawous Noorzai who works at block three within Pulacharke prison itself, which details the story even further. The Jack Idema the Northern Alliance knows and loves is far and away removed from the character that Joe Cafasso portrays him as at his blog Stuporpatriots. All of Joe's different personalities manifest themselves at that blog; Mosca, Jay Cafasso, Gerry Blackwood, and whatever other pseudonym he makes up while he's working as a janitor at the Bank of New York or wherever he's managed to scam his way into. It's no wonder a nickname he's been given is 'Sybil'! Getting paid under the table for this menial work suits him quite well; for most of the people he deals with as the super sleuth CIA spy aren't peering into windows to look at the cleaning people in the middle of the night.

Thanks for dropping by, Joe, it's rewarding to realize this old crusty brit has your attention; even if it's for a fleeting moment.

-------------------------

So where do things stand with Jack Idema, the U.S. Special Forces soldier being held illegally in Afghanistan?

On the face of it, the situation seems to have stabilized:

Jack continues to broadcast his weekly Wide Awakes Radio show from Pulacharke prison
Captain Brent Bennett, in spite of being bundled out of Afghanistan against his will by the U.S. State Department two weeks ago, remains free
Jack now has his friends in the Northern Alliance watching his back again
Solitary Confinement Cell Number 10 at Tawab Keef prison, reserved by Karzai for Jack, remains empty

… So has everything returned to ‘normal’? Well, no. For one thing, the Karzai/State Department plan was at least partially successful in that it separated Jack from one of his right-hand men, something neither Idema nor Brent Bennett are happy about. Then there’s this:

Idema Update 10/5: Although it appears that Karzai special police have been withdrawn from Pulacharke, Jack Idema is still barricaded in and preparing for another attempt on him at his POW compound. Karzai’s men cut down his satellite dishes on the Pulacharke tower and he has not been allowed to get food or water. A 50 man force has been kept a short distance away waiting for orders. The regular officers at Pulacharke have refused to him attack again. The appearance is that everything is back to normal and there are no problems. Appearances can be deceiving. In the prison command say another attack by outside forces is inevitable.

There are two issues here, and both of them are serious.

First, and obviously, having Karzai’s ‘50 man force’ parked outside Pulacharke doesn’t exactly bode well for Jack’s future wellbeing. Clearly, if the plan to move him to Tawab Keef had been completely aborted, the force would have been stood down. Instead, they remain ready to move on Idema again — It only takes an order from Karzai or, as we’ve shown in the past, the U.S. Embassy.

The second issue is that of Idema’s access to food and water. Although the U.S. Embassy are duty bound to ensure that American citizens imprisoned abroad have access to a clean supply of drinking water, since Jack and Brent were moved to the relative safety of their annex by the Northern Alliance two years ago, the State Department have blocked all access to clean drinking water. This is a major issue, since, for Westerners, Afghan water is highly unsafe to drink. Because of this, Jack has always relied on friends in the Northern Alliance and elsewhere to supply him with food and clean water — If this is now being blocked by Karzai and the State Department, then Jack’s health is in very real jeopardy.

So where do things stand with Jack Idema? With his satellite communications curtailed, his access to safe food and water cut-off, and fifty-plus hostile troops stationed around the corner, just waiting on the order to haul him off to Tawab Keef and a solitary confinement cell — With all of this stacked against him, things are looking pretty grim.