Here we are practically in June. Jack Idema and Brent Bennett have still not been released from that horrible and dangerous Pulacharke prison, despite constant appeals to our elected officials and others, and despite the daily threat to their lives from their fellow inmates; members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
In concentrating on the gross injustice of the illegal imprisonment of U.S. Special Forces soldier Jack Idema, and his right-hand man Brent Bennett, it’s possible to forget about Idema’s contribution to the WoT. This would be a mistake, as understanding what Jack does and how he thinks is an important part of the story.
So. In 2001, Jack Idema, then in his mid-forties, was enjoying retirement from the U.S. army. When 9/11 occurred, he contacted the military immediately and had himself placed back on the active service list and shipped out to Afghanistan. He arrived two weeks after the twin towers fell, with orders to organise air-drops supplying the Northern Alliance, who then controlled only the northern 10% of the country.
This was at the beginning of the two-month period in which a coalition of U.S. Special Forces, British SAS and Northern Alliance troops swept across the whole of Afghanistan, routing Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Here’s Idema’s take on what it was like to participate in this action:
So Massoud’s forces, Buldock and some of the other guys like Captain Mark Mitch who was in Dostrum’s area up in the northwest of Afghanistan, they did a remarkable job, they really did. And quite frankly, it shocked the conventional forces and it shocked the Pentagon at how fast.
This is the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan: 100,000 of Massoud’s mujahideen picked up weapons and stood next to us and fought. In Iraq not a single Iraqi picked up a weapon to fight the Iraq government. So there’s a huge difference here; this is a country that wanted liberation, I talk about Afghanistan, and they were willing to die for that liberation, and all they needed was our air support and our advice. And we gave it to them. The bombing started October 12th and on November 12th, Kabul fell. And after Kabul fell, we headed to Tora Bora and other places. I took one of the Northern Alliance groups into Tora Bora later on into Shahi Khot and Anaconda, and it was really a (cuts out) as far as an unconventional war.
It’s tremendously important we remember that without Special Forces troops like Jack Idema, the push to liberate Afghanistan would have been delayed by the months it would have taken to get conventional forces in place. Instead, the Taliban were removed from power with remarkable efficiency, and, compared to the losses conventional forces would have suffered, at the cost of remarkably few coalition lives.
This is why men like Jack Idema matter. See, no one would have blamed him if, after a long and distinguished career in the service of his country, he’d decided to leave the WoT to younger men. Instead, Idema fought hard to get back into the game, then harder still to capture and kill as many Islamist terrorists as he could. Moreover, when the first stage of the war was over, Jack elected to stay on in Afghanistan, working with the Northern Alliance in its efforts to ensure a stable and free society flourished there.
As this excerpt from a UPI report on the rescue of Afghan officials from an Islamist mob shows, this was and is important and necessary work:
The mob moved so quickly that the 100-200 policemen deployed near the airport could not move quickly enough to control the situation, according to Shergai.
“Jack,” as the special advisor to the Afghan military is known, managed to rescue the President of Afghanistanís Ariana Airlines, Robullah Amain, who had escaped from the mob and was surrounded in a terminal office. Along with seven Afghan commandos, Jack rescued Amain, Haji Timor the airport manager and five others and escorted them to safety.
An ISAF spokesmen claimed that a small team of British soldiers supposedly helped to save the national airline executive from certain death.
Ariana President Robullah Amain confirmed that in reality, it was an American Green Beret and his Afghan soldiers.
Karzai has made increasingly urgent calls for an expansion of ISAF forces in Afghanistan. But the UN mandated European peace keeping mission is becoming increasingly discredited even in Kabul.
And yet. Idema remains stuck inside Pulacharke prison while the war he should be fighting, and, remarkably, still wants to fight rages on without him.
So what can we do? Well, anyone reading this with their own blog, and who believes the WoT still needs fighting, 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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