The_City_Troll: The Free Jack Idema Blogburst

Although the main reason I campaign for the release of illegally-imprisoned U.S. Special Forces soldier Jack Idema and his fellow prisoners, Brent Bennett and Ed Caraballo, is to see a gross injustice put right, it really is worth bearing in mind how valuable men like Jack are to our side in the WoT.

A common perception about the fight to rid ourselves of Islamofascism is that the hot-spot right now is Iraq, while hostilities in Afghanistan are, to all intents and purposes, over. Sadly, as the BBC reported yesterday, nothing could be further from the truth:

It is only 200km (125 miles) from Kabul to Khost, but Afghanistan's capital has little control over this rugged border province.
Government officials in Kabul say well-armed fighters cross regularly from next-door Pakistan, but admit they can do little to stop them.
In remote areas, more than $5,000 (£2,865) in bounty money has been offered to local men to kill senior government workers, one administrator said.
"It is big money. It is al-Qaeda money and it is from the Gulf," he said, referring to Arab supporters of al-Qaeda.

For anyone paying attention, this is precisely how al-Qaeda infiltrated Afghanistan during the Taliban era, using cash, assassination and foreign fighters to set in place the system that eventually brought about 9/11.

Grasping why history is repeating itself in this way isn't difficult -- All it has taken is for the U.S. State Department to remain stuck in the pre-9/11 mindset of containment and appeasement. Rather than rooting out all the Taliban sympathisers of importance in Afghanistan in 2001, the philosophy that came to govern post-Taliban Afghanistan was, more often than not, one of allowing members of the old regime back into the political life of the country if they agreed to 'renounce violence'.

Now, granted, the idea of peace and reconciliation, of healing divisions after a war draws to an end, is something any reasonable person would desire. Only, here's the problem: we are not dealing with reasonable people. Most of us woke up to that fact on the morning of 9/11, but not, it seems, the U.S. State Department or the Karzai interim government. Both have sought to appease a hard core of Islamofascists with promises of power in exchange for agreements to refrain from violence. What we're beginning to see is just how disastrous a policy this was.

... Though Jack Idema could have told the State Department that back in 2004. We will remember, after all, that Idema and his men were arrested after they captured an 'ex'-Taliban judge, Sidiq, who was in possession of:

Photographs of himself with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Bomb plans
Explosive detonators
al-Qaeda and Hezb-i-Islami documents and recruiting cards
A letter from Taliban leader Mullah Omar

The State Department and Karzai interim government reacted to this arrest by handing Idema over to the very terrorist elements he'd been hunting. This was done in a desperate, and desperately misguided, bid to smooth ruffled feathers and keep the 'peace process' on track.

Two years later, we can see the results of this strategy as entire sections of Afghanistan fall back under the control of Islamofascists, and foreign-funded jihadists pour across the border from Pakistan. If this proves anything, it's that Idema and the Northern Alliance's distrust of 'former' terrorists was entirely appropriate. Moreover, as the recent shift in power from Karzai to the Northern Alliance shows, ordinary Afghans, too, want the Taliban's bloody hands removed from the levers of power once and for all.

Here's Jack, writing just after elections handed power over to the Northern Alliance:

What did you expect? Did you expect Afghan families to vote for the return of the whip and rod? During their brief time in power, the Taliban denied the people all human rights, abolished music and song, televisions and pictures; even personal pictures. All males had to wear turbans and could not cut their beards—violations were met with beatings and executions. Females had no rights except the right to be stoned in public until dead for even a minor infraction. The Taliban closed all schools and medical centers, and established the Ministry of Good and Evil to enforce their belief system on the entire country; everyone had been whipped at least once. To possess any picture, even a gum wrapper with a cartoon on it, meant you violated Islam, and that required a beating. Fly a kite, go to jail. Trim your beard, go to jail. Let your wife go shopping alone, go to jail. Sports were outlawed so they used the Kabul Soccer Stadium to execute women-- hey, don't waste resources. Oh yeah, the Afghan people were going to vote for these psychos again.

It's high time Idema was released so he can continue working to fulfil the wishes of both the American and Afghan people -- To rout the Taliban and make sure they never get close to political power again.

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 can also contact the following people and make your feelings known:

Secret US EMBASSY Fax: – 301-560-5729 (Local US Fax: Goes RIGHT TO Ambassador)
c/o US Ambassador Ronald Neuman
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)

US Embassy Translator Wahid – new – 011-93-70201902

US Embassy Translator Bashir Momman– 011-93-70201923

US Consul (friend of Jack's Now fired) Dawn Schrepel– 011-93-70201908

Embassy of Afghanistan (Good guys, Northern Alliance)
2341 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Ph: 202-483-6410, Fax: no. 202-483-6488

Ambassador Massoud Khalili (wounded with Massoud)
Islamic State of Afghanistan
Embassy of Afghanistan
New Delhi, India

H.E. Said Tayeb JAWAD (Afghan Ambassador- powerful in US)
Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington
2341 Wyoming Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
Tel: (+1-202) 483 6414
Fax: (+1-202) 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.: (+1-212) 972 2276 or 972 2277
Fax: (+1-212) 972 9046

Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon – Room # 3E880
Washington, DC 20301-1000
Ph: (703) 692-7100
Fax: (703) 697-9080

Lt General William Boykin
Deputy Undersecretary
of Defense for Intelligence
1800 Defense Pentagon – Room # 3E836
Washington, DC 20301
Ph: (703) 697-0170
Private Fax: (703) 697-9080

Stephen Cambone
Principle Deputy Secretary for Intelligence
1800 Defense Pentagon – Room # 3E
Washington, DC 20310-0100

General Peter J. Shoomaker
Chief of Staff, Department of the Army
200 Army Pentagon – Room # 3E528
Washington, DC 20310-0200
Ph: (703) 695-2077 / Fax: (703) 614-5268

The Honorable John D. Negroponte
Director National Intelligence
New Executive Office Building
725 17th Street, N.W., Room 4203
Washington, DC 20503

The Committee
On Homeland Security
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

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
Email

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

Senator Elizabeth Dole (Jack's Rep)
United States Senate
310 New Bern Avenue, Suite 122
Raleigh, NC 27601
Ph: 919.856.4630
Fax: 919.856.4053

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 (of Interest)
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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