Americans Accused of Running Private Jail Appear Before Afghan Judge, Say

[neomonkey]

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Three Americans accused of detaining and abusing Afghans on an independent hunt for terrorists appeared in court Sunday, insisting they had contacts with the U.S. Defense Department, while acknowledging that they ran an illegal jail, a judge said.

The trio, led by a former soldier named Jonathan K. Idema, and four Afghans face charges of hostage-taking and assault over the detention of 11 men in a house in the capital. They could be jailed for up to 20 years if convicted.



more...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. They are using their contract as a defense?

I can see it now--

"Sure, I raped and tortured children in Abu Ghraib-but I was a contractor for the US Government, so that makes it ok."

And people wonder why more and more people are hating us.

[Robbien]

6. Our contractors are not liable for any harm they cause

in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush set this up right before turning sovereignty over to Iraq. So yes, a contract with the US is a legal defense. How wrong is that?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. As wrong as a 'contract'

given out by the Mafia.....

[Mr_Lefty]

2. If these guys are not CIA

I'm the King of England

[Judi Lynn]

3. We deserve to know more about this story.

From the article:

Appearing at a preliminary hearing at Kabul's lower court, Idema insisted that an Associated Press Television News reporter stop making videotape of him.

"Bin Laden has half a million dollars on my head," Idema shouted, standing next to his comrades in a khaki military uniform with a patch of tape covering the insignia on the shoulders.
(snip)

After all, we're probably paying for their salaries with our required taxes.

[nodictators]

8. Also from the article: "Abuse"

The judge also gave new details of the charges against them, including alleged abuse of detainees.

"There is evidence that they tied their hands, hooded them and poured cold or boiling water over them during interrogations," Bakhtyari said.

Hey Rummy, do you know anything about these guys, your kind of guys???

[Rose Siding]

4. "Your mission, should you decide to accept it..."

This tape will self destruct in 30 seconds. Doodledeeyuuuuuu

[TahitiNut]

5. I'll have to ask my cousin about Idema next Saturday.

(My cousin, the merc for ten years.) He'll be at our family picnic next Saturday, back from a 'tour' in Afghanistan and Iraq (with a side trip to South America). He's been a 'security contractor' for ten years -- likes "wet work." :eyes:

(It makes me cringe.)

[H2O Man]

7. Time magazine (July 19)

had a chilling story about this. (pg 18) When Afghan authorities raided their "prison," they found three prisoners hanging from their feet; five more, who were severely beaten, were under lock.

Jack Idema provided CBS's 60 Minutes with a 7-hour al-Queda training film in January 2002. He is described as "given to explosive outbursts of rage," a camouflaged "ex-special operations type" who the administration was quick to disavow ..... but the type of shadowy figure that seems to be very closely associated with everything they do.

[DulceDecorum]

10. The government contractors

are starting to make Charles Manson
look like an Eagle Scout.

And I have not forgotten that former Marine "weapons inspector"
that the US State Department
sent off to Iraq.

In the Nov. 28 Washington Post, James Grimaldi reported that a member of the team assigned by the United Nations to inspect weapons sites in Iraq, a Virginian named Harvey John "Jack" McGeorge, was a founding officer of the Leather Leadership Conference, past president of an S&M club in Washington called the Black Rose, and a bondage instructor in Leather University's Dungeon 501. Four days later, the United Kingdom's foreign office released a report detailing human rights abuses committed by the government of Saddam Hussein. The juxtaposition provided a timely reminder that one man's recreation is another man's torture.
It goes without saying that adults should be allowed to engage in whatever sexual activities they desire, provided all parties consent. That's what Chatterbox wants to believe, anyway, and mostly does. But what about when the desired sexual activity is torture?
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2074821

And the White House has a LONG history
of warmaking
and forcibly sodomizing young boys.

At a speech in Brooklyn, Franklin Roosevelt boasted that his first priority had always been to render the Navy ready for war. In doing so, he jovially blurted out, he had committed "enough illegal acts to put me in jail for 999 years," including spending money on munitions before Congress or anyone else had given him authorization.
<snip>
Since it is exceedingly difficult, in the nature of things, to obtain evidence of consensual sexual acts, the diligent inquisitors employed the default method in such cases — entrapment. Homosexuals were enticed by the use of "straight" sailors, some as young as 16, who allowed lewd acts to be performed upon them. When this became known, there was outrage in Newport. In Washington, a naval commission, headed by an old friend of Roosevelt's, was formed to probe the question. One member of Section A testified that he had, indeed, reported the relevant facts to Roosevelt; the other member was excused from testifying on account of "illness." Franklin himself vehemently denied any knowledge of the immoral methods used by the secret team he had set up — in essence, his claim was that his attitude had been "don't ask, don't tell." In the end, the naval commission exonerated him, thus saving his career.
http://www.fff.org/freedom/1198e.asp

Young sailors were instructed in and ORDERED
by FDR's men to perform homosexual acts
and the details truly are unprintable.
The legacy continues
in Washington DC with the Bush Administration,
in Afghanistan, with Idema
and in Iraq with the likes of McGeorge.

[Algomas]

11. I read somewhere (probably here)...

that Idema is just a bounty hunter going after the huge price on Osama's head?? Any more news on that front??

[struggle4progress]

12. Faces of 'Jack' Idema: black ops ace, nut case

By SARAH AVERY AND BILL KRUEGER, Staff Writers
Published: Jul 18, 2004

Almost a decade ago, Jonathan Keith Idema sat in an Eastern North Carolina prison cell, blaming his legal woes on a vendetta by FBI agents angry that he refused to name Soviet spies who tipped him off to a nuclear smuggling operation in Lithuania.

Now the Fayetteville resident sits in custody in Afghanistan, accused of running a vigilante anti-terrorist operation in which he rounded up innocent Afghans, held them in a makeshift jail and abused them.
<snip>

Idema, 48, has long said he participated in secret missions as a veteran of the Army's elite forces, claiming on his resume that he led a "classified successful rescue mission to the Caribbean for a mid-Eastern prince," was a firearms instructor for Ron Reagan Jr., and was a military adviser in Nicaragua and South Africa.
<snip>

For all the mystery of the Lithuanian smuggling deal, Idema stood accused of a run-of-the-mill scheme. He had set up a shell company to acquire more than $200,000 worth of goods to prop up a failing business selling paintball and quasi-military supplies. He was convicted and sentenced to four years. Throughout the trial, Idema courted media attention -- an unusual tendency for a man of his military pedigree.
<more>

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1439026p-7563028c.html

[Judi Lynn]

13. 3 Americans in illegal jail case hear charges

Posted on Mon, Jul. 19, 2004

3 Americans in illegal jail case hear charges

Leader tells Afghan judge he works for U.S.

BY CARLOTTA GALL
New York Times


KABUL, Afghanistan — The three Americans who were arrested by the Afghan police on July 5 on suspicion of operating an illegal jail in Kabul appeared in court Sunday and, at a preliminary hearing, were also charged with robbing, beating and torturing their detainees.

The three men, wearing plain clothes and U.S. Army combat boots, said they were Jack Idema, a former member of the U.S. Special Forces; Ed Caravallo, a journalist; and Brent Bennett, who gave no profession. Idema said he intended to call high-level Afghan officials, generals, corps commanders and ambassadors in his defense and said he had been working with Afghan and U.S. forces, contentions that Afghan and U.S. officials have denied.
(snip)

He said that he worked for a secret counterterrorist unit directly responsible to the Pentagon and that the U.S. Embassy would not know of his activities. He said he fought beside anti-Taliban forces in 2001 and returned to Afghanistan this year.
(snip)

Idema, who answered questions from the judge and prosecutor for the whole group, said the four Afghans arrested with him included two interpreters, a housecleaner and gardener, and a man who had come to him for a job as a guard.
(snip/...)

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/9187479.htm?ERIGHTS=-4130994122692854754twincities:&KRD_RM=0hhjikiopihgggggggghkolmng|
(Free registration required)

[Athame]

14. Another story on the Afghan-American jails

that didn't make the American mainstream media

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_9486.shtml

Inside America's secret Afghanistan gulag: 'They said this is America . . . if a soldier orders you to take off your clothes, you must obey'
By Duncan Campbell and Suzanne Goldenberg
Jun 25, 2004, 11:34

We know about Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib but until now Bagram and America's secret network of Afghan jails have come under little scrutiny. In a major investigation, Duncan Campbell and Suzanne Goldenberg discovered a familiar pattern of violent abuse and sexual humiliation

Syed Nabi Siddiqi, a 47-year-old former police officer with piercing eyes and a long black beard, is lying with his face pressed to the floor, his arms stretched painfully behind his back. He is demonstrating one of the milder humiliations and interrogation techniques that he says happened to him after he was arrested by the Coalition forces in Afghanistan last year as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.


During the course of the next hour he will recount how American soldiers stripped him naked and photographed him, set dogs on him, asked him which animal he would prefer to have sex with, and told him his wife was a prostitute. He will tell also of hoods being placed over his head, of being forced to roll over every 15 minutes while he tried to sleep, and of being kept on his knees with his hands tied behind his back in a narrow tunnel-like space, unable to move.

An in-depth investigation by the Guardian, including interviews with former Bagram prisoners, senior US military sources and human rights monitors in Afghanistan, has uncovered widespread evidence of detainees facing beatings, sexual humiliation and being kept for long periods in painful positions. Detainees, none of whom were ever charged with any offence, told of American soldiers throwing stones at them as they defecated and being stripped naked in front of large groups of interrogators. One detainee said that, in order to be released after nearly two years, he had to sign a document stating that he had been captured in battle when, in fact, he was arrested while driving his taxi with four passengers in it.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Who gave logistical support to these mercenaries?

"They said they were a nongovernment group but that they had private contact with the Pentagon," Bakhtyari said. He said the three gave no details. "They couldn't provide any evidence."

They sure didn't do it by their lonesome! In the aftermath of Abu Graib, we must become alert whenever we hear someone say that higher ups had knowledge of their activities.

This smells like another of Rumsfeld's rogue operations.