Posted on 09/22/2004 9:46:28 PM PDT by NavySEAL F-16
Dan the Man is completely off his rocker. This is a whole 'nother planet heard from, and here we thought Burkett was the one who needed thorazine. Verizon must be really happy with their flagship newshound. Talk about tanking. Hehehehehe.
These soldier of fortune types always have outsized egos, creative imaginations and shady connections, (see Marcinko, Richard) but that doesn't mean his story is total BS. The real story here is that Rather was willing to ignore and sort of abet rough treatment of prisoners because he thought it got him closer to an even bigger story--Bin Laden. Does anyone doubt (or care) that the Pentagon has some shady black ops types doing the dirty work in Afganistan? We should have had them out there before 9/11. This Idema dude obviously let the job go to his head and tried to go all Hollywood. Sounds like he tried a little blackmail too. He shouldn't be surprised that they left him hanging. This game is "disavow knowledge of your activities" type stuff.
Interesting read. He alledges his contact was Lt. General William G Boykin, who made news with his comments about a somali warlord.
"Boykin said the enemy in the war on terrorism was Satan, that God had put President George W. Bush in the White House and called one Muslim Somali warlord an idol-worshipper."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/16/attack/main578471.shtml
Man accused of running private Afghan jail had U.S. letter
(excerpt) Sources say that Idema and Scurka hooked up with Artis' KnightsBridge relief group in early November 2001. Within two or three days, they say, Artis booted Idema out of his camp.
The animosity centered partly on a story proposal for Scurka's National Geographic piece, sources say. Artis became aware of the proposal, which was written before Scurka went to Afghanistan.
The proposal, provided by two sources, describes a scenario in which former Green Berets will team with a well-known humanitarian to deliver food and medicine.
"National Geographic Producer Gary Scurka was invited on the mission by his longtime friend and business partner, former Green Beret Keith Idema," the proposal says. "It will be a harrowing journey. The mission: Operation Pathfinder."
The proposal says Idema and Artis will journey to the front line of the Northern Alliance, where Idema will use a radio to guide C-130 cargo planes to the drop zones.
"It will take expert timing to make the drop successful," the proposal says. "It is touch and go for a few moments, but Keith delivers the cargo on target. Keith, Ed and the Alliance commanders excitedly rush out to drag the prized cargo inside."
A week after the discovery of the proposal, Idema and Artis got into another shouting match, this time over an incident that put Idema in the limelight.
On Nov. 11, 2001, Idema and Scurka found themselves in the middle of a firefight between the Northern Alliance and Taliban soldiers.
Scurka got hit by shrapnel and suffered a bad leg wound. He credits Idema and journalists Tim Friend and Kevin Sites (The NBC blogger who has accused our marine of shooting an unarmed man) with saving his life.
Some people who were there question Idema's actions. Scurka says Idema acted responsibly and appropriately. Idema has said he rebandaged Scurka's wounds and tried to call in a helicopter to evacuate him.
"To see his friend lying on the ground, I didn't find it odd at all knowing his character - very brash and aggressive," Scurka said.
Nice catch.
I get the impression here that CBS was trying to pull another "forgery" of sorts using this nutjob Idema and his private prison. Just as when CBS came up with forged TANG documents to try to trash the President, it looks like they were trying to have video made to use in this other liberal attack plan, the prisoner abuse thing they seem to hope will get them the big impeachment case of their dreams, or cause people to oppose the war, or both.
Remember how odd the Nick Berg case was, with him having contacts with Michael Moore's cameraman and with Berg climbing towers near the Abu Ghraib filities and the photos coming out all at once. This use of CBS's equipment by a guy who's in debt up to his ears and needs the money, plus conveniently had his own personal prison abuse circus to film - not unlike ol' Burkett's "reconstructed Bush TANG records" - has the same smell as the Rather forgery case, only in this case no one got their head chopped off. Certainly there is enough money floating around out there to procure not only forgeries and controversial photos but also to buy actions, or even your own prison to use as a prop for your fabricated scandal. Would CBS go that far? Would anyone else?
Mr. Idema is now accusing CBS News of abandoning him after having what appears to have been an ad hoc arrangement with the mercenary soldier in which he used CBS equipment and personnel to transmit information to Mr. Rather for possible use in CBS broadcasts.
That's interesting.
Thanks for the ping piasa.
I think, like you, that Rather was trying to manufacture another story. A good question to ask is why the report on the Rather/forged NG documents been delayed. There cannot be that much stuff to investigate, unless in doing so some more nefarious activities were uncovered.
Here's a link to the cached article since the one at the top of the thread leads to a page that's been updated since first posted. The rest of the article here is interesting as heck, pulls a lot of loose ends together:
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:GDH56shdK9IJ:www.observer.com/pages/story.asp%3FID%3D9596+%22American+Who+Ran+Afghan+Jail+Says+He+Sourced+CBS%22&hl=en
Thanks piasa.
According to Mr. Tiffany, his client told him that a CBS engineer was present at the prison before the arrest. "The person was present where some if not all of the detained prisoners were being held," said Mr. Tiffany. "They were on the premises. They were aware that there were detainees on the premises.
"My client is either incredibly bold or my client is operating consistent with D.O.D. interrogation guidelines," Mr. Tiffany argued. "Why would he invite a CBS engineer in the house if there were problems?"
Oh, maybe he invited a CBS engineer because CBS was paying a moneyhungry fraud for a ready-made example of "prison abuse" to film since real examples are kind of hard to come by?
The lawyer's name is John Edwards Tiffany? How weird is that? (CBS was long known as "the Tiffany network".)
The spokesman said the network had an "inquiry" over the summer after Mr. Idema was arrested. CBS found the footage "in the archives
(Oops! Hot potato!)
and then our bureau chief in London saw it on Aug. 20," he said. "The tape in no shape or form could be vetted.
Nah, you didn't see those of us at CBS do it.
There was no way of knowing whether it was real.
You can't prove anything against those of us at CBS... we couldn't tell if it was real even if we swore up and down we could tell that TANG forgery of Burkett's was real...
He didn’t work for us.
Nobody saw CBS do it.
There’s no relation to us."
You can't prove anything so don't even try!
But if the "instructions" were to send his material to Mr. Rather, and there was CBS technical participation in the transmission, then it appears the network had a relationship with Mr. Idema and was viewing his material.
(You mean they hired a prisoner abuser?)
"While it’s true that some technician some place could have seen it," said the CBS spokesman, "that could have been their own unprofessional opinion of this stuff. It wouldn’t be the same as a bureau chief seeing it."
CYA all the way ...
This is Dan Rather. CBS News has learned that under secret orders from a controversial fundamentalist Christian general we profiled a few months ago, clandestine operatives from the DoD have been conducting a systematic torture campaign in Afghanistan. Although we cannot yet confirm it, the men involved in this scheme insist that they were under orders from people in the highest levels of the Pentagon, even approved by the the Defense Secretary or the White House.
Gee, that was easy to write. I think you are EXACTLY right, piasa.
Now THAT's a good observation.
You know, you could get Alan Colmes' job with a script like that.
This guy's case has been covered in the last few issues of Soldier of Fortune magazine. They're supporting him about like you are. SoF seems to have reasonable street cred, to me. They're about the only print media giving significant in-the-BDUs reporting from the real hot spots.
One freelance journalist working in Afghanistan, who declined to be identified, said that CBS staffers had expressed concern that they might be implicated in Mr. Idema’s case because, in fact, they knew what they were looking at.
"Their satellite engineer came over: ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be arrested,’" recalled the journalist. "They had been feeding this material to CBS. They had been feeding into their London bureau footage of Jack’s detention center and of him capturing and interrogating people about 10 days to two weeks before he was arrested."
Asked if a CBS employee had been on the premises of Mr. Idema’s jail, the network spokesman said, "Even if he was there, he’s just there to make sure the tape is O.K. He just sends the feed. It doesn’t mean they’re in cahoots with this guy. It doesn’t mean CBS knew what was in this footage. His job was just to make sure it was fed to London and that’s all."
The guy is a nutball. He wasn't over there to kill bad guys on our behalf, he was over there to make a profit off the media by giving them the show they wanted.
Thanks for the ping!
I had not seen this; these people are just beyond belief!
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