If you’re looking for pieces on Jack Idema and his team, please click on this link.

This is a look at Ed Caraballo’s point of view–the photojournalist whose own professional community has hung him out to dry. I’ve been focusing in on Jack, his history, his qualifications and so on, but there are two other Americans at Pulacharke with Jack, so let’s hear what they have to say. Here’s what Peter Bergen said in his interview at NRO:

…And this was when Jack’s sort of private operation became rather public. Because people notice when an Afghan supreme court justice doesn’t show up for work. And that blew the cover off his operation, and led to him now–he was sentenced to 10 years, his colleague Brent Bennett was sentenced to 10 years, and Ed Caraballo who by the way is in my view a blameless journalist—he was just documenting what Jack was doing–was sentenced to 8 years. That’s an astonishing sentence for a journalist.

And a little more:

Well he’d had links with Jack in the past. But nonetheless, he was making a documentary. There was never any allegation at trial, by the way, that he’d mistreated–the he did anything other than simply document Jack’s activities. The Committee to Protect Journalists, the New York-based organization is supposed to protest these things- has done absolutely nothing in Ed Caraballo’s case.

You can also read this at Superpatriots.us

My name is Edward Caraballo, but, my friends call me Ed. Only my family is allowed to call me Eddy. My Afghan friends like to call me Najeeb.

I am a documentary filmmaker that came to Afghanistan to examine the state of the War on Terror through the eyes of one of America’s most unconventional weapons, Jack Idema.

To my friends, family, and media colleagues who may be concerned about my welfare and health, let me say that I am alive and quite well. On my answering machine, it says: leave a message….I’m on a shoot….a really long shoot. Actually I’m awaiting my appeal in this odd case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I say this for my family’s benefit, who have suffered in this ordeal one hundred times more than I have, but from the perspective of being a student of the human condition, I couldn’t have been in a “righter” place, at a “righter” time to learn about this fledgling democracy of Afghanistan, the American influence here, the ineptitude and arrogance of the “geniuses” at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not to mention the superficial reporting of stringers who gave credence to a bunch of terrorists and Taliban judges over us. They all knowingly ignored MY First Amendment right* to gather the news, while exercising their right irresponsibly- nobody bothered to check the law.*

I first became interested in Jack’s story twelve years ago, when he was bossing around prison guards, staging hunger strikes, and generally being a pain in the ass to his captors in a Federal Penitentiary. He was there because the FBI had set him up when he refused to give up his assets in Eastern Europe after briefing the Pentagon on the emerging threat of nuclear smuggling through Lithuania. My colleague Gary Scurka and I flew to Lithuania to check it out, and everything Jack said turned out to be true, despite US government press conferences to the contrary. Now it seems like deja vu™ with the FBI setting Jack up again, this time using the Afghan NDS as their proxies and smearing myself, Brent, and anyone anywhere near Jack with the same ugly brush. NDS (The National Directorate of Security) used to be the Afghan CIA when it was run by Engineer Araf under Commander Massoud, but it has recently been co-opted by the FBI, remade into an Afghan version of their own image.

I have been embedded with these guys for more than a year now, and I am proud to say that they are my friends and comrades, bonded by the experience of being hung out to dry together.

Brent and Zorro (to the left here) are strong, true men; we always pick up each others spirits when one of us gets down. Brent is hardly ever down. He is one of the most even-keeled individuals I’ve ever met.

Jack is one of the most intelligent, creative, and dangerous individuals I have ever met. He is a warrior of the battlefield, of the courtroom, and in the media.

The United States is spending billions in Afghanistan and I wanted to document how our tax dollars were being spent. Traveling with Task Force Saber/7 was and is my all access pass. Let me tell you, did I get an eyeful. I’ve seen NGOs that take a million dollar cash advance contract to rebuild a school, but skip out after half the job is done. I’ve seen overweight, over-armed, security guards make a thousand dollars a day to shop for carpets, while their Afghan counterpart earns sixty dollars a month.

Unfortunately, the majority of the modern western news media gatherers are a bunch of corporate minded lemmings, slaves to their official sources (a free-lance reporter cannot afford to question an official source- they risk being cut out of the loop at press conferences and photo opportunities). Their job is to promote the most salacious stories that news agencies can maximize the profits on, repackaging the news into “content” and peddling it to consumers on their TV, computer, and even their mobile phones, like so many widgets.

An example of lemming-ism is the bait and switch coverage of the Northern Alliance; during the 2001 the US needed these allies to hunt the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, we (the U.S.) lionized these Mujahadeen warriors and lavished them with tremendous financial and military assistance. It made sense since these were the only Afghans to fight the Russians and the Osama-harboring Taliban. They were rewarded for their efforts with high positions in the Interim government and Ministry Of Defense. Now these same Generals are called “war-lords” in the media; a concept/party line fed to them by their “official/anonymous” sources within the US State Department, Pakistani ISI and sundry American alphabet agencies… During the war Karzai was a military commander flown in with enough cash (from the CIA,) to quickly fund a private army…. That’s a warlord! On the surface, the US policy sounds reasonable; consolidate power in the country and you’ll have a stable democracy. After all, the Pashtun folks are a 60% majority. Slowly, but surely, the Northern Alliance, which was held together by Massoud’s the Jamiat Political Party, was and quietly being replaced in their cabinet, Military Corp Command, Police Chief, and other official positions. The word on the street here is even Gulbideen Hekmatyar (currently a U.S. Most Wanted Terrorist List [this has happened along with Mullah Omar–they are both missing from this list now]) is soon going to be welcomed back into the government and removed from the wanted list. We are basically giving power in the country to the same people that supported the Taliban. What was the point of fighting the war here in the first place? How about loyalty? Not to mention that these are a tough, experienced, and dangerous people to disenfranchise and double-cross, having spent their entire resilient lives fighting for their country.

These were my Press Credentials that were confiscated and in the NDS evidence room. After twenty years of covering media circus trials– the cases with sufficient scandal to capture the public’s imagination and interest– last August I found myself on the other end of the camera, in a surreal nightmare of an experience.

Translation was criminally misleading or simply absent during our trial. I kept thinking the press would cover what a sham the events were, but most reporters simply parroted the (yes, you guessed it, anonymous) officials sources and the US State Department quote that the trial was fair. Let me give you one example: the only time prosecution witnesses ever “testified,” the prosecutor and the judge refused to swear them in under oath and insisted Jack call the terrorists “victims.” Mawlawi Sidiq (A “former” Taliban official, who worked for Hekmatyar— one of the world’s most wanted terrorists and now appointed a “religious” judge in the new government) testified that he wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom for twelve hours. What the translator told the court packed with western journalists was that we hung them upside down, and burned them with boiling water and cigarettes… Oh My God… if I had heard this and I was covering the trial, I’d be jumping up and down, praising the news Gods for such a scoop. But after my pulse returned to normal, I would want some verification of these outrageous claims. I must forgive my fellow reporters, for turning a blind eye to the lack of evidence on the prosecution’s behalf. After all, for these mostly freelance reporters working in Kabul, freelance “torturers” was a sexier story. This was a chance to finally get some air time and print space– Iraq had long ago eclipsed interest in Afghanistan.

Jack and his guys are out there, trying to make a difference. While a lot of his critics claim he is a fraud it is in fact they who are the frauds and hypocrites– like the jilted reporter who begged Jack to write a book with and about him– and made a deal with a publisher before securing Jack’s permission. When Jack refused, Tod Roberson took his revenge with a series of vitriolic, slanted reports, kicking Jack while he was down.

And then there’s “At FOX News, The Colonel Who Wasn’t,” (see New York Times article, 4/29/02, Jim Rutenberg) a wannabe who fooled FOX News into believing he knew what he was was a Special Forces Colonel with three Silver Stars who had served with Delta Force during the Iran hostage rescue attempt. In reality, he only spent 44 days in the military, and left as a private. After Jack helped expose him, he began a relentless campaign to assassinate Jack’s character. Joe Cafasso, the phony Colonel, did what he could to disrupt Jack’s livelihood and efforts to inform the American people about what his eyes have seen here in Afghanistan.

There’s the “famous author” and his writing assistant who published a bestselling book by Jack; who are now trying to make sure they keep Jack’s share of the profits and keep Jack in prison. But Jack didn’t use his share of the profits for personal gain. Barely keeping a roof over his own head, he spent most of it continuing to fight terror and support humanitarian endeavors. I am told by reliable sources in the publishing industry that this same author has screwed “Popeye” Doyle, Xavier Hollander, and Mike Hoare, people who wrote books with his name on the cover, in much the same fashion. It’s ironic that the same people who speak the harshest about Jack are the same ones who are first in line to make a buck off him. A few months ago Random House turned down Robin Moore and his angry young side-kick’s written voodoo doll against Jack, tentatively entitled, “Smoke & Mirrors.” At least Random House bucked the mainstream press with courage and integrity.

And then there is the media, who simultaneously loves and hates Jack. They love his controversial style and front line imagery that generates ink and ratings; they hate him because he personifies and reflects the blurring of the line between the news gatherer and the news maker. He has always been both. Jack was countering terrorism before Americans knew what “CT” meant. When he saw the War on Terror move into the milieu of the “war of public opinion,” he once again retrofitted himself with new weaponry: a word processor and the internet. Jack won a National Press Club award for his reporting on the murder trial of his old friend and Special Forces commander who Jack spent a year of his life trying to exonerate, when he should have been exonerating himself. In the words of ace news anchor Rolland Smith, a common friend of Jack and myself, “If Jack is your friend; he’ll do anything for you. If he’s not, he’ll do anything to you.”

If there is one thing I’ve learned about the muse of my documentary, my somewhat high-strung, Green Beret friend Jack, is to never count him out. Jack is truly the comeback kid.

While it’s true he could be at times a royal pain in the ass, there is nobody who I’d rather have my back in a dark alley or in an international war against ruthless, suicidal fundamentalists who use God’s name to blow up women & children and cut off the heads of innocent aid workers, innocent contractors, and somewhat innocent Western journalists.

From what I have learned from my travels in a Muslim country, it is my feeling that the entire War On Terror is basically a religious/political war between Muslims, Jews and Christians. A real sore spot for Muslim people is the lack of a Palestinian State, and America’s seeming bias towards Israel.

For 2000 years, they have all savagely engaged in history’s longest running real estate dispute. Each religion has a prophet that had a vision of God bequeathing Jerusalem and it’s environs to them. I’m curious about what a probate judge would say when presented with such evidence. “In the Case of; Jews Vs. Palestinian Muslims… Counselor, did your client get something in writing from God in regards to this bequeath of land?”

Each religion feels that region is the most holy, and that it belongs to them. I feel that every piece of land where a person that prays and communes with God is equally holy. Why fight over it? Each religion feels their God is the only true God and every other religion is heathen. It just doesn’t make sense to me… doesn’t it seem more likely the same all mighty architect designed all humans? Each culture and religion should get over the primeval, tribal self-defense mechanism of “us” vs. “them.” We are all inter-reliant droplets, part of a power greater than ourselves.

Many American, Afghan and Allied lives have been lost freeing this country and building a new democracy. The Afghan people, even my prison mates here at Pulacharke (at least the ones not trying to kill us on a regular basis) constantly express gratitude to me for the American efforts to free this land.

I consider my current dilemma to be a minor setback, a flesh wound to my own humble efforts to document the and illuminate the War On Terror, a scar to my reputation that I will wear as a badge of honor as long as I live. My experience over the last year has been one of the richest of my life, I hope to accurately capture it– these beautiful, noble Afghan people and the Americans that came to their aid– in my film one day. Coming soon… maybe this Christmas or, if the FBI has their way, Christmas 2012. But I will make my film one day. May God continue to bless America, and may the noble and hospitable people of Afghanistan see the peace and prosperity that they so definitely deserve.

Ed,
Ed Caraballo, Video Journalist
Attached to Task Force Saber/7

* LEGAL SIDEBAR ON ED’S FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS:

It is important to begin by noting that the First Amendment’s guarantee of press freedom is meaningless if journalists do not possess a concomitant right to gather the news. In Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 707 (1972), the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that the First Amendment’s protection of a free press carries with it protection for essential newsgathering.

There can be no doubt that newsgathering, as well as the dissemination of news, deserves protection under the umbrella of the First Amendment. “News must not be unnecessarily cut off at its source,” Justice Stewart wrote in 1972, “for without freedom to acquire information the right to publish would be impermissibly compromised.” Branzburg at 728 (Stewart, J., dissenting, joined by J. Brennan and J. Marshall). See also Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U.S. 1 (1965) (recognizing that a right to gather news must exist in some form).

Newsgathering is essential to preserving a free press and the free flow of information, as “freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news.” 28 C.F.R. 50.10 (1998) (Attorney General’s “Policy with regard to the issuance of subpoenas to members of the news media”).

Yet not one single journalist protected Carballo’s right to “gather” the news, instead choosing to vilify him as a gun for hire, rather than a four-time Emmy Award winning journalist.

The SuperPatriots and Jack images on this site are used by Cao’s Blog with written copyright permission and any use by any third party is subject to legal action by SuperPatriots.US

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