However, I just LOVE the press' need to draw lines to Abu Ghraib. We are fighting a war with brutal people; teddy bears aren't going to make them talk.
Ping!
Looks like someone out there trying to work for that reward money....
How so? Is Dari some secret American Special Ops language?
'teddy bears aren't going to make them talk'
Have you tried it? /sarcasm
This guy has Strange Ranger written all over him
This from NY Daily News a while back.... and remember, the real guys don't talk about it.
"Geraldo Rivera should be glad he got out of Iraq without a broken nose, according to a former Green Beret who says the Fox News star has a history of jeopardizing military operations.
Ex-Army commando Keith (Jack) Idema isn't surprised that military officials accused Rivera of leaking their positions on the air. Idema tells us that, when he served as an adviser to Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan, he was ready to "punch out"
Rivera for allegedly putting his coalition comrades at risk with his newsgathering.
Idema, who figures prominently in Robin Moore's best seller "The Hunt for Bin Laden," was retired when he flew to Afghanistan in December 2001 to help Gen. Hazrat Ali.
"We had two- and three-man sniper teams hiding out in the mountains" of Tora Bora, recalls Idema. "Geraldo found out about it from the [anti-Taliban] mujahedeen soldiers. We were paying them between $25 and $100 a month. Geraldo put the word out that he would pay any Afghan who deserted the U.S. Army $100 a day to point out where the snipers were so he could get pictures of them."
Not surprisingly, Idema says, it wasn't hard to find volunteers. "Here are a couple of snipers hidden in this cave, and Geraldo comes prancing up.
Of course, now everybody knows where they are.
"One of my muj told me about him. I got into my damn car, drove to the hill where the media was camped to find Geraldo. He'd just left. Several of us were drawing straws about who would knock him out and escort him out of the place."
Rivera also caught heat in Afghanistan when he erroneously claimed to be standing on "hallowed ground" where U.S. soldiers had been killed by friendly fire.
A spokesman for Fox said the newsman couldn't be reached for comment. Maybe we'll hear from him once he's settled into his new digs in Kuwait."
More:
Ex-commando sues Fox News over terror tape
A former Army Special Forces commando who claimed to have exclusive video of an al Qaeda training camp is suing Fox News Channel. J. Keith “Jack” Idema claims that Fox News never paid him for the tape, which the network aired repeatedly, and never returned it to him. He seeks more than $2 million in damages.
The 45-year-old Idema journeyed to Afghanistan in October 2001 on a sort of self-sponsored combat and humanitarian mission after being turned down to re-enlist. He claimed to have filmed the 52-minute tape during his nine-month stay in Afghanistan, where he said that he became a Northern Alliance adviser.
Idema alleges that he gave Fox News the videotape on the conditions that it be returned, not copied and used only once a usage agreement was in place.
Idema appeared as a pundit for the network, which he also claims reneged on an agreement to pay him for combat zone reporting. Author Robin Moore chronicled Idema’s story in “The Hunt for Bin Laden.”
Turned down for re-up..... hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Sounds like someone out to make some big money!
Hmm. Something's not right here. Perhaps he has a case of Stolen Valor.
This too sounds suspicious.
I know this guy. He is absolutely, completely a fraud. Even the stuff in Robin Moore's book about him is mostly fiction -- HE was Robin's researcher's sole source for it. In fact, wanted posters of him were posted in Bagram for months, directing the MPs and USAF SPs to grab him, before the Afghans finally bagged him.
He's a felon. Go to www.bop.gov and search for Jonathan Keith Idema in the inmate locator. He did five years inside, on top of whatever part of his sentence was paroled. (Wire Fraud).
He has represented himself as an Army major, a special forces operator, a former member of the unit known as Delta, and a member of US intelligence agencies. And I can say with 100% certainty that these claims are all untrue. He did serve briefly in the Army special forces - 15-20 years ago. He was caught stealing in Phase I of training. He was barred from re-enlistment as a result of other misconduct. He then showed up in the Reserves, with his bad paper from active duty miraculously missing from his file. He left there under a cloud also.
He is a legend in his own mind who has been in Afghanistan on and off since 2001 and a long list of NGOs, REAL SF operators, and REAL intelligence agencies have been looking for him, on a "not to interfere" basis with other missions. I would bet money that at least one of the phone numbers on his card belongs to a satellite phone that he borrowed from a Knights of Malta sponsored charity three years ago -- they are still looking for it.
Let's let the NDS hang on to him and do their investigation. If it turns out he has committed crimes under Afghan law, well, when he gets out he can write a book on comparative penology: from the inmate viewpoint.
The USG does not generally post wanted posters (complete with a mis-spelling, so you know a GI made it!) of its agents conducting "black ops." If any.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
"As always, should you, or any of your IM Force, be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of the matter."
What was the bounty on bin Laden?
Are you sure teddy bears won't make them talk? What about puppies?